71: headless sneezer, bird bench, dead man's hollow, kennywood, rockslide, george's drain, bridges, buffalo bill, detour, ichabod's pogrom, ddt, gate on a bridge, hot metal bridge, the point, end of part 2

June 22, 2025

West Newton to Pittsburgh

Today's ride will end Part 2 of this trip. There will be a Part 3. I have no other pauses planned, but it's possible I might take another break at some point. Even before I started riding in March, this upcoming trip was already scheduled. I didn't have to go, and was given a choice:

“You always have a choice, and that choice is to go.”

Regardless, I would have gone because it's so much fun. When Heather was doing her residency, she and her co-residents bonded like sisters, and for the past twenty years we've had an annual reunion with them and their husbands. She drove our car to Pittsburgh, so we already have a ride home.

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There's a heat advisory starting at 11:00 today, so we set our alarms for 6:00. The B&B made accommodations for us to be able to eat breakfast even though they don't start serving until 7:00.

Knowing that I'd be stopping for pictures every three minutes, I left before Heather. When we're not riding side-by-side, she's usually ahead of me because I stop a lot.... a LOT. The amount I stop is evidenced by my average speed compared to Heather's average speed at the end of the day. We both traveled the same distance today, but her average was 9.0, while mine was 10.2.

This guy was stopped on the side of the trail so I pulled over to make sure everything was okay. To my question of "Is everything okay?" he responded with the eardrum-melting bellow that comes from some hard of hearing people:

"I'M SNEEZING MY HEAD OFF!"

Again, I asked, but louder, "Is everything okay!?!"

He sneezed, a lengthy inhalation followed by a wet explosion I was sure had not only emptied his lungs of air, but certainly all mucus, and possibly capillaries.

"I'M SNEEZING MY HEAD OFF!"

This time I tapped his bicycle seat with the palm of my hand and yelled,

"IS EVERYTHING OKAY WITH THE BIKE?"

His nose gargled for a second and he said,

"I'M SNEEZING MY HEAD OFF!"

I gave him a thumbs up and rode off, thinking,

"What an inspiration that man is! He's riding the GAP in spite of his advanced age and allergy burden."

We couldn't determine whether the darker bricks are intentionally colored or if they have something growing on them.

I wonder if the person setting up this bench and bird feeder knew that birds tend to poop as they're taking off and landing. Maybe.

Some discoloration due to, I suspect, minerals in the water?

Dead Man's Hollow?? Curious about how it got its name I did some research, but won't post it because it's somewhat gruesome. Shocking, right?

It's easier to tell what this is after zooming out.

I might've stopped for a half day at Kennywood, one of the oldest amusement parks in the country (1898), if there hadn't been a heat advisory.

Which was in place first, the tree or the rock? Did the tree grow up beside the rock, or did the rock gradually start leaning against the tree?

What do you do if you see the rockslide coming at you? It doesn't seem like something you could dodge or outrun, especially on a bike.

Why would anyone put a sign next to a drain?? And the more important question: Why would anyone take a picture of it, then post it online?!?!?

...some old and rusted, and only used for pedestrian and bicycle traffic.

One of the places I considered staying tonight is Buffalo Bill's house, which is on the other side of the river. Not the Wild West Buffalo Bill, but the one in the Academy Award winner (Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Actress) Silence of the Lambs. However, when I was looking at the routing all of the apps took me a long way around and added at least a dozen miles. There just wasn't a good way to get there.

When I looked at google street view I realized why. That, and the fact that it cost $595 a night.

Getting closer to Pittsburgh, there's no more shade, and the heat is quickly starting to squeeze us between thumb and forefinger.

You can't travel through a major city without seeing this sign.

just barely... and when I passed another cyclist going in the opposite direction we both had to stop and get off our bikes.

I'm curious: Why is there a locked gate at the top of a bridge, with nothing but a drop of 70 feet into the water?

The temperature was climbing fast, so we took a lot of breaks. One of the places was at a rest stop where there were hundreds of baby spotted lanternflies, which leap rather than fly, so neither one of us sat on the picnic tables. While we were there a local cyclist also stopped. In his early thirties and over six feet tall, most of which was legs, he explained how the flies are extremely invasive.

The city encourages people to kill them, so he told his young children to step on as many as they wanted. The popping sound they make when crushed is very gratifying, he noted, and to prove it he lifted his leg impossibly high, his knee above his head like an Ichabod Crane in biking shorts, and slammed his foot onto the top of the picnic table. His size 13 killed more than one of the unfortunate insects, and the other two dozen scattered. Unfortunately, I missed out on the gratifying sound of a crushed carapace because all I heard was the echoing of his shoe pounding the table, bouncing back and forth off the canyon walls. It made me wonder if he's had a traumatic experience with spotted lanternflies in the past, some Kafkaesque Metamorphosis dream perhaps, and how his children will tell the story of his bug pogrom when they're adults.

This takes you to the Hot Metal Bridge....

...which has a separate section for cyclists and pedestrians.

There are two separate spans sharing the same piers, one originally for rail and the other built specifically to carry molten iron (aka "hot metal") in ladle railcars directly from the Eliza furnaces on the north bank to the steel mills on the south bank. The former now transports cars and the latter transports cyclists.

I was relieved to see a designated bike path all the way to the end point today, even if some of it went through areas like this. I never felt I needed to compete with traffic, even in downtown Pittsburgh.

It was 86 degrees before noon and, if we had continued, I don't think I would've been able to ride more than a few miles an hour because of the heat.

One of the many nicknames of Pittsburgh is The City of Three Rivers, because it's where the Allegheny river meets the Monongahela river to become the Ohio river. The Point is a state park at the confluence...

But I'll be back, and I hope you will, too.

Heart

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Today's ride: 35 miles (56 km)
Total: 1,906 miles (3,067 km)

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Comment on this entry	Comment	5

Bill ShaneyfeltI have enjoyed following along! Thanks for all the nature photos!!
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1 week ago

Mark BinghamTo Bill ShaneyfeltThanks for reading! And you should know, Bill, how much we all appreciate your work in plant and animal identification. It adds another dimension to our writing, and we're grateful to have such an expert.
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1 week ago

Rich FrasierI'll be waiting for you to come back. Hope you enjoy the time off!
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1 week ago

Karen PoretCruise control time now, Mark. :)
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1 week ago

Mark M.Congratulations on making it to the end of this phase! When does the next one start?
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1 week ago