BIKEPGH MESSAGE BOARD ARCHIVE

Commercial/Forward to Beechwood, Beechwood to Mellon Park, Mellon Park to Bakery Square, onto Penn at Bakery Square... at least lets you avoid that nasty stretch of Penn between South Braddock and Fifth?

i would not take commercial in that direction. it's really steep and winding, and cars aren't going to expect bicycles there.

you could do braddock (or a side street, like east end) to kensington, left on kensington and through the frick park trail to the bocce lawns, then take that to reynolds. take that to beechwood to fifth. then your options open up considerably. i would probably do fifth to shady to ellsworth to aiken, then take liberty down to whatever street you feel like dropping down into lawrenceville on.

Thanks - I think I'm going to do this route, what do you think?

looks fine except near the end with 40th street onto Butler. I would drop down earlier or later to avoid the extra traffic there with people coming off the 40th street bridge and such.

If the gates are open on penn the cemetery is a nice way to get down to lville. Just follow the white path. Then you can take the back roads at least to 40th and avoid the butler st circus.

Ahh - thanks for the warning. I will take Liberty to 39th or 38th instead. Would you wear shorts on a day like today? I don't have much else- save jeans and I have read horror stories about bikes and jeans.

the route is fine if you don't mind the climb up forbes, and what Tabby said. you might also consider taking fifth from wilkins to morewood, then morewood to millvale to liberty. but it's all about the same. i just don't like having to stop at the bottom of wilkins to make that sharp right. it's more fun to shoot out onto fifth, for me.

as far as shorts, i was just out and i would say it may be a tad chilly, unless you wear them under something. i found it was fairly uncomfortable without some sort of gloves, which is kind of a threshold for me.

Thanks. I've been running all winter in shorts, as long as I bundle up and wear a hat and gloves. I'll have some pants in my backpack just in case.

I bike in jeans every day - what are the horror stories?

might be too late, but I will be heading to butler st. around 8ish, if you want to tag along. I will be using H.V. route, not much traffic.

I am back - it was a successful route - and not as bad as I thought it would be.

Although, coming back, there were plenty of hills (39th street back up to Liberty, Liberty, Wilkins, A little on Beechwood, and I went down commercial, so coming up commercial is a sizable hill as well).

salty I read something about jeans being uncomfortable on longer rides - guess not. But I prefer shorts.

Ah... I can believe that - I've probably done 20 miles in jeans but I certainly prefer shorts for longer rides. Jeans are definitely uncomfortable if they get soaking wet but otherwise no problems.

@Italianblend - do you have one of the Bike Pittsburgh maps?

I think you might find it useful in exploring more of the East End streets such as Reynolds & Hamilton. Once you get to Forbes & S. Braddock there are a ton of different ways to get to Lawrenceville & The Strip District. Sometimes they have them in stacks at the food co-op, REI or Bike shops. Sometimes I have to wear magnifying glasses to read the tiny type, but the color coded routes are very helpful.

I've been using Google Map's new bike routes.

I wonder if there is a better (less hilly) alternative to get back from the strip.

I would like to find a route to the North Hills. Was thinking going to the strip in a similar way, 16th st. bridge - East Street.

Or I could go to 40th street Bridge and go through Millvale.

I might be posting for advice on routes this summer. I hope you guys don't mind, as I would like to benefit from your experiences.

I was surprised there was a bike lane on Liberty. Is this pretty new?

I live north, and usually don't go that way. Whatever floats your boat, there's a way to get north. East St is mildly unpleasant; busy, fast, no shoulder, nothing to look at. Brighton/NCharles is a tolerable hill, Perrysville tougher, Federal an immense climb. You want flat, go 40th to through Millvale to Babcock. It also matters where you're trying to end up. PM me with details.

When I lived in the east end, my preferred route out was always the 62 St bridge to Etna, then wherever from there. Usually thru Morningside, to Baker, to Butler. Coming back, Butler to One Wild Place.

The printed map has color coded lines so you can easily spot which streets have bike lanes and sharrows. I use google bike directions a lot, too.

I've been using Google Map's new bike routes.

I LOVE Google Maps and I think it's great that they have a bike option, but it drives me crazy when they give me a route that is 50% longer just to I can go half a block on a designated bike lane. Most of the time I look at the pedestrian map and try to follow that because it will take the most direct route, rather than detouring 2 miles to catch some designated pedestrian route. It ignores hills, but so do the bike directions, for the most part.

/rant

"Report a problem" is your friend; if you have a specific instance of that and have the time and inclination, please report it. There's obviously no guarantee it will directly lead to a change but people do look at those and there are plenty of things that can be tweaked. Think of it as a way of incorporating local knowledge rather than strictly about reporting something that's "wrong".

"There's obviously no guarantee it will directly lead to a change."

I'm two for two in making a report resulting in a change. In both cases, a road that wasn't actually a road (no winter maintenance signs clearly posted) and only safely passible on a mountainbike.

@salty - Is that where you would request a feature enhancement? Such as, for either pedestrian or bicycle directions, "Include staircases?" would be a useful feature around Pittsburgh. Some cyclists (like me) prefer them, while some pedestrians prefer (or have) to avoid them.

I've reported a problem to google before and had it resolved. East st had a gap in the map, so it tried to route you off the street up some big hills.

You could definitely tell by looking at the sattelite image that the road was continuous between e. ohio st and mt pleasant rd.

Once google maps told me that the GAP was a toll road (they fixed it, but it was funny).

I report every glitch I find, and they always respond, if it's not an immediate fix it only takes one round of "but this is what I was trying to do" to get the issue fixed. The larger corporation may not always succeed at their "don't be evil" motto, but the maps folks there are pretty awesome about feedback.

Stu - for things like that your best shot is probably using the forums, like Maps Feature Suggestions.

Personally I wish there was more of an ability to tweak things - I'd love to have some sliders for preferences for hills, traffic, bike lanes, staircases, etc... but I know there's the competing desire to keep things simple.

I ride from Swissvale to Butler street daily on my commute. Riding through Frick Park is a real winner. Enter the park by the UCP Class Building and take the trails all the way to the Homewood Cemetery, (Edgerton and Homewood Ave). From there you can take Reynolds to Fifth Ave to Shady to Ellsworth (or other parallel streets that don't resemble the face of the moon) to Devonshire to Wallingford to Neville to Center to Melwood to Baum to Gold Way to Herron.

Suggestion made. Thanks, @salty