BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

I hope this person is on a massive winning streak in the casino....

Or he/she won $3,000,000 and decided to ditch the bike and disappear into the sunset on a yacht. Though I would still probably take my bike with me.

Atala - cool bike. That is indeed curious.

Still there as of a few minutes ago, sunglasses and all.

I love that method of using toaster racks, first time I saw was at CCAC Allegheny

Looks like both front and rear wheels are using QR and both are not locked. :(

Still there this morning at 7:00-ish (right before the Pittsburgh DPW guy yelled at me for being in his way on the trail, but that's another story). At a glance, sunglasses appear to be gone and the bag's position was shifted from yesterday. I'm afraid things are going to start disappearing :(

pinky wrote: I’m afraid things are going to start disappearing :(

It won't make it through a Friday night, that's for sure.

After this weekend: backpack, helmet, sunglasses are all gone. All that remains is the bike, which is sad and lonely.

pinky wrote:After this weekend: backpack, helmet, sunglasses are all gone. All that remains is the bike, which is sad and lonely.

It was a slow gutting... first, the sunglasses, then a few days later the contents of the pack were strewn about... they disappeared one by one... the helmet and backpack were cut off and finally, the Burberry scarf was the last to vanish. ... what... nobody wanted a scarf when it's 97 degrees?

I suspect it's an experiment.

that method of locking left some enormous scratches on the underside of my down tube.

It just looks like a bike locked up. Nothing special. If the tires stay inflated (or someone tops them up every couple weeks), that bike could stay there quite a while.

I saw this as well. I figured the guy/gal works at the casino.

If it is an experiment, it's a replication of Philip Zimbardo's abandoned car study from around 1970. (Leave one car in the Bronx, another car in Palo Alto; Bronx car stripped in no time, Palo Alto car not touched. Hm. What does this say about the casino neighborhood?)

Saw yellow signs on the bike today. Assumed they were eviction notices, like Move it Or Lose it. Wrong. Somebody has posted social media inquiries on the bike. The image says, twitter @CasinoAtala, email CasinoAtala@Gmail.com Expecting somebody to stick a protractor on it any day now.

hm. googling 'casinoatala' yields hits in Spanish (and one in Euskara). (@casinoatala doesn't hit on Twitter; but maybe search is slow, on the other hand it quickly coughs up something by a @Vannevar.) The mystery deepens... I'm starting to suspect that extra-terrestrials may be involved.

I saw that today. Hilarious.

I don't who owns this bike. hahaaa!

Weird. Makes me think the original owner may have had something unfortunate happen to them.

When your cable goes out, you get bored. When you get bored, you buy a bike. When you buy a bike, you ride it to the local casino. When you ride it to the local casino, you lose everything. When you lose everything, your mortgage company confiscates everything. When your mortgage company confiscated everything, you lose your bike lock keys. When you lose your bike lock keys, your bike appears on local bike message boards. When your bike appears on local bike message boards, everyone wants to know who you are. When everyone wants to know who you are, you become paranoid. When you become paranoid, you become a hermit and move to Canada. Don't become a hermit and move to Canada. Upgrade to direct tv.

Italianblend wrote:When your cable goes out, you get bored. When you get bored, you buy a bike. When you buy a bike, you ride it to the local casino...

BWAHAHAHA! On a more serious note, I'd love to know what happened to the rider. One of my co-workers thinks we're going to find him/her floating in the river soon. I hope they're safe.

Hey the cyclist could have hit it big at the casino and taken a limo home too... Of course if it were me I'd of taken a pedal cab ;-)

I happened to be by there today and stopped to take a look. I thought I might find a LBS sticker, but actually the bike looks pretty old (cf. the top tube and those lever thingies on the brake handles). It's an Atala and has some Campy stickers on it. But the drive train looks like lower-end Shimano. The back tire is pretty bald but the front tire looks new. The brake pads look new-ish. It's been fixed up in the recent past. The drive train is kind of rusty (yes, it's been out there for a while); on the other hand there's little trace of lubricant. It hasn't been maintained all that well. A casual biker? Given the way it was left in the first place (with personal effects, that later disappeared) I'm baffled. If you were going to jump in the river, why lock the bike but leave you backpack just there. Habit? If you were just strolling around, why leave your stuff unsecured? So now what?

Either it's abandoned or it's an experiment. If it's an experiment then somebody's playing games and we're the unwitting subject. I wonder, how could we play games back? Start upgrading the components?

Vannevar wrote:Either it’s abandoned or it’s an experiment. If it’s an experiment then somebody’s playing games and we’re the unwitting subject. I wonder, how could we play games back? Start upgrading the components?

Training wheels! Pretty pink Barbie basket! Spider Man honk-horn!

In the dark of night, pump up the tires, lube the chain, wipe down the frame so it looks like it was just put there... You want to experiment back? Try this: Got a sticky address label with you? Slap it on the bottom of the top tube where nobody would have seen it previously and see how long it takes for someone to contact you about it.

place a protractor in the spokes...

The appearance of this body doesn't well match when the bike was first seen, but... http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2013/07/31/womans-body-found-in-ohio-river/ In retrospect it seems like it might have been good to see if there was any ID in the pack before it all went to the winds, possibly with a police officer present. Hindsight is fantastic.

While making my first completely car free trip into town this afternoon from my home on Neville Island (I usually transport to either the incline or somewhere along the Ohio River Trail to start my rides), I noticed that the mystery bike was finally completely gone. The only remnant left was one of the signs on the ground by the bike rack. :-(

smarchit wrote:While making my first completely car free trip into town this afternoon from my home on Neville Island (I usually transport to either the incline or somewhere along the Ohio River Trail to start my rides), I noticed that the mystery bike was finally completely gone. The only remnant left was one of the signs on the ground by the bike rack. :-(

The Twitter account is incredulous over the dissapearance. https://twitter.com/CasinoAtala

Conspiracy theory: the Twitter account operator owns the bike, and is just using this to perpetuate the scam. Conspiracy theory #2: They fired up the USS Requin under the cover of night, loaded the bike onboard, and took it underneath the Mon to deliver it to the site of Pittsburgh's other great mystery, the hidden B-25 Bomber wreckage near Glenwood. Following the covert mission, the Requin then returned to its Science Center dock before anybody noticed it missing.

Ahlir wrote:I’m starting to suspect that extra-terrestrials may be involved.

I have nothing to do with this.

Meanwhile, across town... This green bike has been locked up by "The Wall" (aka the Pitt Law School building) for over a year now. It's taking up prime bike rack real estate, but has not suffered the fate of its counterpart by the casino of being stripped, etc. I guess it's abandoned--the tires are long since flat--but it is an interesting case study, showing that when properly locked (U-lock through the frame, cable lock securing the wheels and helmet), it doesn't disintegrate quite as quickly. It's also protected by an overhang from the building which shields it from the worst of extreme weather.

That seems like it should have been a police case. You don't just walk off and leave a bag of stuff like that.

so, what happened?