Bike Pittsburgh

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

Re: Bike Movies-> Breaking Away or Quicksilver, the classics never go out of style.

-Joe

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

Alrighty folks, great ideas! Please start nailing down your specifics and sending 'em into us! The BikeFest '08 calendar is up. We're really excited about this year's festivities!!!

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

I'll totally do a Riverview Park bike day on July 5th (saturday) for this year's bike fest. It will be easy since I live here.

I emailed you about it Scott but I know you are probably busy as hell.

Ideas:

1. Morning multi-lap, crit-style race around the Riverview Drive road through the park (2 miles each lap, 13 laps, final climb to the observatory on last lap). The road through the park is a nice loop with cool turns, 2 bike / jogging lanes and traffic is one way all the way around, so you never have to worry about a head-on car. Just watch for joggers who use the road.

2. Party / Beer / Pizza / Etc at my house next to the park.

3. Mountain bike ride (2-3hrs, 10-15 miles)... Check out all the trails in Riverview Park, the least known and least developed park in the city. Lots of different kinds of trails here.

4. Jazz bands and movie at the park - every saturday they have jazz bands and movies on the hill by the observatory. You can walk there from my house via the trails too.

5. I will try and see if the observatory will hold a group tour that night, especially if a good turnout will be expected. They normally do the tours during certain weeknights, so who knows but its worth a shot.

Anyone who wants to go on a cool road bike AND mountain bike in the same day should hit me up for more info...

If people are interested I'll put a flyer together and we could use one or two volunteers to help count laps...

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

that sounds awesome, Adam!

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

Sweetness.

I'll ask Mandy's if they might be able to sponsor some pizzas in exchange for some promotion.

Do you know anyone who might be willing to sponsor some brews? East end brewing or PBR seems to be overflowing at all the bike events, who would you talk to about that?

Also, is there anyone at Citiparks who could consider a request to show a somewhat bike related movie on that nignt @ the park? They have yet to post the summer movie schedule up on the citiparks site, so maybe its possible.

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

I've been kicking around the idea of a "Hollow Ride", covering the various hollows in Pgh:

Junction Hollow
Panther Hollow
Fern Hollow
Duck Hollow
Skunk Hollow
and any other hollows I might be missing

I think it would be cool to dig up the history of these various places, score some historical photographs, and then ride around and have little mini lectures and discussions about the history of the hollows and how they're used today.

I'm thinking the ride would be like 15-20 miles and get kind of trafficky/technical in certain spots, so I don't know how family friendly it would be, but I'm open to suggestions.

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

that's sweet jake. i'd go on that ride. i had no idea we had a skunk hollow.

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

I have similar concerns as Jake: the ride that I am thinking about planning (an air pollution / industrial history tour of Neville Island) would have some trafficky sections that might make non-experienced cyclists uncomfortable. anyone have suggestions on how to deal with this in a way that would keep the ride open to as many interested people as possible?

I wanted to look at a copy of last years calendar to see how certain rides were described, but could not find it on the bike-pgh website. a couple of bike fest links seem to be dead, can someone point me in the right direction?

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

As for dealing with traffic, first, be honest in how the ride is billed. If possible, map it on Bikely or somesuch so folks know what they're getting into. It's important to have a good leader and sweeper to keep the group together. The leader should keep a leisurely pace (probably no more than a 12-13mph average) and the sweeper should stay behind the last rider and keeps the ducks in a row.

Another option for dealing with traffic/varying skill levels is run two versions of the ride. Nate and I did that for the movie night ride last year. I lead a very casual 10 mile stroll around the city, mostly in Shadyside and Schenley Park. I had a pretty diverse group behind me, and a friend swept and kept folks together. We rode a few reasonably busy roads between Shadyside and Oakland, too. Nate led a different bunch on a longer ride that went downtown, IIRC. Perhaps have a shorter version of the ride skip Neville Island....

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

i don't know if you have anything planned for july 4th but we are having a pandemic at the brillobox and i'd be into working out a biker deal. something like bring a blinky light get in extra cheap (like $2).

maybe trying to get a drink special???

i've always wanted to have danceparty or bandshow w/ only blinky lights.
let me know.

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

i'd be there, i love beers.

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

yeah pete. let's do it! sounds like a cool 4th of July celebration to me. I'll put it on the calendar. Just give us more details when you got 'em.

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

Adam, I posted your event to the calendar today. Could you give me some more details ? Thanks!

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

Pete, I added yours as well.

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

would anyone like to organize the bike swap this year?

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

Also, can we put Bike Polo on the schedule? Is there a specific date/time for this? If anyone can put together a description for our BikeFest calendar it would be great. Thanks!

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

Hi scott. I'll organize bike polo. Is their a time frame or deadline for this?

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

Hi Nicholas,

The deadline isn't for a few weeks (May 30th), but Time Frame is anywhere between June 27th and July 6th. Check the BikeFest page (under Events) for the calendar so far. This sounds super fun. I want to play sometime.

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

sounds good scott.

i'll email you more info this weekend.

lookin forward to it.

RE: BikeFest '08 Ideas

So is Sunday the 29th a bad day to plan things since the circuit race will be downtown?

I was thinking that would be a good day for the "Hollow Ride", but I could be swayed to the following weekend if everyone will be downtown spectating on the 29th.