BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

The O12 will get you as far as McCandless, might be worth a look since it will cut a lot of time off your ride and get you out of nasty city traffic.

I know most of the roads listed, at least as far out as Glen Eden Road. It's a pretty fair route. It could be streamlined slightly, but the overall impact in terms of ride duration or quality would be pretty minimal, especially riding on a holiday outbound.

New Castle Route 71 bus would get you to Evans City for $3. I'd call and confirm rack availability on this bus. Also, no service on Thursday, but might be a good option for Friday's return.

http://www.newcastletransit.org/newcastle/routes/route71/index.htm

The Beaver County Transit System's Route 3 bus would get you to Economy, or to Rochester both along the Ohio River, and then you could ride east from there to Zelienople.

Again, call ahead to confirm.

Third multi-modal option, and the one I think I like best......

Take the Port Authority Route 14 (Ohio Valley) bus to the Red Belt (Cross Street between Leetsdale and Ambridge, 40 minutes from downtown Pittsburgh.)

You can take the Red Belt, then make a sharp left (and a street that I can't remember the name of, but can find), and take that all the way into the Thorn Hill Industrial Park near Cranberry. Then pick up the google directions from there. Nice, low traffic route in either direction.

Does anyone have the old Tour d Sewickley Route map or cur sheet? This is the route that they used for both the 25 and 60 mile rides.

@Sara: I think you're talking about Spang Rd from the Red Belt up to Knob, to get to Thorn Hill.

@Mick: One of many alternate routes: head out to Sewickley via McKees Rocks/Neville Island/Rt 51, then pick up the Red Belt in Ambridge as per Sara's suggestion. I'd take Hoenig to Mary Reed, then work my way over to Powell Rd via Bradford Park->Golden Grove->Lovi->Freedom Rd.

Powell will dump you right on Glen Eden a short distance from Ziegler.

BTW, on calling ahead on rack availability: 1) I thought all PAT buses had racks now; 2) When I tried calling ahead a while ago, the operator couldn't tell me anything about whether the bus had a rack. Is your experience different?

Port authority def. has racks. It's the other service providers I recommended you double check with. They say good things, but I have little personal experience.

I cannot think of a single bus in Ross Division that is rackless. The couple of strays (we're down to 5 or less) are running routes that don't go north.

OTOH don't expect a single bus outside of Allegheny County to have a rack.

I'd trust reddan's recommendations. All those evening and weekend rides through the hinterlands pay off in providing info for times like this.

The O12 gets you to Showcase Cinema in McCandless, but the next four miles of north of that are just plain miserable for cycling. Even if you use Old Perry Highway to get up the hill into Wexford Flats (because you will get killed on US19 itself), Wexford Flats is undergoing serious construction, with lane pinches everywhere. You do NOT want to be there on a bicycle. Once you get past the work area, it's a little better, with fairly wide shoulders but very high traffic speeds (posted 40, expect 50+).

An alternative to Perry from Showcase is to go a bit south to East Ingomar Rd, cut left into North Park, get on the cycling/jogging trail "clockwise" (lake on your right) until you get to Pearce Mill Road. L on Pearce Mill, L on Graham to Red Belt, continue west to Perry. R on Perry, where you're well past that work area, and only 15 miles or so from Zelie.

Thanks, guys! The trip was fun and eventful.

I passed a dead turkey next to the road. I did not stop and pick it up. Actually, there were a scary excess of dead animals next to the roads for the whole trip.

"To a coal truck, a cyclist is another species of groundhog" -Oscar Swan.

On the way back, at the corner of Glen Eden and Freshcorn (love that name!), I was checking my directions with my back to road and someone pulled out from a stop sign and got T-boned by a car going full speed on (I guess) a 45 mph Glen Eden.

I don't recall hearing any brakes before the crunch. No one was seriously hur, but a wheel from a pickup truck rolled about 50 yeards down the road. Narrowly missed a woman walking her dog. (And all this at a rural intersection) Scary to think what could happen.

No one was hurt badly, but the three occupants of the two vehicles were pretty shaken up. Those air bags and such are good things.

On New Brighton Road I was buzzed a couple of times by what I thought was a hawk. Now, I think it was some vulture making a snide comment on my speed (or lack thereof)

I'd had buzzard circle above me before on bike trips. @ssh*les.

Back in town, at the Point, I saw abiker on the north side that had a light so bright, it was obnoxious all the way across the river. Astonishing.

There was one place where Google's directions had me salmon on a one-way - for just a block). And it had me "turn left from N Birmingham on to Norwood" (a corner that doesn't exist. On the whole, the directions worked out pretty well. I should probably contact Google particularly because to avoid the one way block would also avoid the phantom turn.

I traveled on Thanksgiving Day and on Saturday and teh traffic was really light, os the hazard of New Brighton would have been preferable to me than the serious hill of Norwood, anyhow.

Too many turns and I missed one on my own, so I went over a hill I didn't need to. (shrug)

I'm amazed that Swalfort, Reddan, and Stu knew roads all the way out there to Glen Eden (serious sticks out there).

I didn't even try to follow their directions - mainly because I did not ahve a decent map that showed the Red Belt, so it would have been too confusing to me to plan that out. The world is a big place and my brain is small.

When I go out there again, I'll try some alternates. It is a helluva lot easier when you will recognize when you ahve arrived where you want to go.

Again, thanks guys!