Half a journey, so only half a bicycle needed

It was past 1:30, the pharmacy closed at 2, and I wasn't ready to leave yet. I knew it would be 1:45 before I got out the door, and had a bunch of things to look for up there. I can walk there -- it's only 3/8 of a mile -- but I'd get there faster on wheels. Yet it seemed overkill to take the bicycle.

So, unicycle it was.

I tested the tire; it wasn't flat, but way down. It took all of 30 seconds to pump it up to 50#. Then, off I rolled, as usual not bothering with the helmet. I've never used the helmet when unicycling. I don't feel it necessary. After 40 years of falling off the thing, I have yet to clonk my head on anything. Skinned elbows, hands, knees, even going backward on my keister, all of that is common, but not my head.

Anyway.

Five minutes after leaving the house, I was at the pharmacy. It took me close to 10 minutes to gather and pay for all my stuff, by which time they were starting to pack things up to close for the day. They were starting to flip off the lights on my way out.

Five minutes later, I was home. Carrying a bag of stuff is easier on a unicycle than a bicycle anyway.

Total mileage: 0.72 miles. It was a short but successful trip.

Going to the mall -- ack!

I think I get to Ross Park Mall about once a year to actually purchase anything. Some of this is by default -- I just don't go shopping much -- but some is by choice, as well -- I don't like malls, Simon Properties malls in particular. Yet here I was, on a small family celebration dinner. I am pretty sure it was the first time in calendar 2013 I was at the mall to spend money. I got there maybe once each in 2012, 2011 and 2010, as well. Entire years go by and I do not get to that mall at all.

I previously wrote about my irritation with Simon Properties. For all the snarling we did about transit access in 2007, Simon won that argument, at this mall and the other two it owns in the Pittsburgh area. Beyond that, I'm just not that fond of food courts. They have not the ambience of a coffee shop, and all seem to be variations on overpriced food that isn't all that interesting or different from one another. We ended up dropping $30 for what amounted to three hamburgers, three drinks, and an order of fries. I think we would have spent as much at a real restaurant, for much better food.

What really got to me, though, wasn't the food or even the food court, but that there seemed to be nothing *to* do there but spend money. I foolishly forgot to bring pen and paper on which to compose a blog post, so walked around the mall, solo, the better part of a half hour trying to find a pen or pencil dropped on the floor. I did eventually find one, but it took much longer that I thought it would.

Once found, I discovered I could not get it to write on the receipt from the food court, as it was of that shiny thermographic paper that does not play nicely with ball-point pens. I spent another 10 minutes trying to find a piece of paper. This too proved fruitless. No flyers, no discarded shopping bags, nothing. Nothing on sales floors, nothing in trash cans, no odd scraps of writable paper under random furniture.

Even if I had had pen and paper, the place is not set up to do any writing. There are plenty of chairs dispersed at random locations throughout the mall, but I don't fancy doing any actual writing while seated on any of them. They are places to sit down for a bit before you get up to spend more money.

Eventually, time was up, family found me and we went home. Dinner with the family was nice, but I could have done without the subsequent 45 minutes.

Malls. You can have them.

Why I wanted the slower bus

I walked to the bus today instead of biking, but more importantly, while waiting for the O12 McKnight Rd express to arrive, the slower 12 McKnight Shopper showed up one stop away, so I ran to catch that. Why ride a slower bus? Because it's empty, while the O12 would have already been almost full.

Both routes start at the cinema complex three miles up the road. Since the last big round of service cuts, the last inbound express goes past my stop at 8:00, whereas before the last express was at 9:00, with a couple more in between. Since that change, that last express gets filled to the brim, even with the 60-seat articulated bus in service. Standard 40-foot buses only have about 38 seats. Even though I am about the fifth bus stop on a 12-mile trip, that last O12 is full enough most of the time that I'm lucky to sit at all.

I have always put my commute time to good use, if possible. It's one of the biggest selling points about transit. Between leaving my house and getting to work, I can study, do pleasure reading, prepare my day, prepare Toastmasters speeches, even take a nap. I've sewn on buttons, figured out the family budget, addressed Christmas cards, any number of things. But it's a lot easier to do if I can spread out over two or three seats. Just having the ability to extend one's elbows makes doing anything a lot easier.

By the time the 12 Shopper gets downtown, there will be quite a few people on it, but it won't be jammed full. I was the first one on, and had the bus to myself for the first mile or so. It's the same bus I catch when I bike to Northway Mall, so I'm familiar enough with it. It's just nice to have options, and especially nice to have room to work.

As it turned out, it was quite full upon arriving downtown, but by that point, I had already put my materials away, so it wasn't an issue.

Winter riding, Day 2

We got a bit of snow again last night, less than yesterday but it was colder, so between that and yesterday's melt, there was a thin coating of ice on steps and pavement this morning. "Black ice" (frozen melt, invisible to the untrained eye) was prevalent, but other parts of town had it worse than I did.

I had no real trouble navigating down my steps (see picture below), and upon getting the bike in motion, as always, I tested my brakes on the 50 feet of downhill between my sidewalk and my driveway. No matter what the weather, I always check the brakes here. If something is amiss, I just pull back in the driveway. On bad days I will park the bike and walk, but today it was not necessary. I could stop and turn, I just needed to be careful.

On the road, I found myself trying to edge out into the lane more than usual, since the very edge of the road was the most icy. If I got in the right tire track, I was fine; that was just wet. I got no horns in my 1.62-mile trip over to the mall, and I could discern care in motorists approaching from behind.

All told, it took the usual 10 minutes to make the ride over, uneventful, unexciting, as it should be.

First snow ride of the season

They warned us. We knew it was coming. We had been preparing for it. Yet, here it was, and the very reality of it was a matter of both some concern and light-hearted ribbing. (To wit: Gaaah! Gotta run out and stock up on milk and batteries and TP!) Of course it snows in Pittsburgh, especially by the middle of November. It's perfectly normal and reasonable.

But still. To bicycle in it? Yes, that does take some preparation, both material and mental.

3:00 a.m., as I often do, I was up to check on things at work (and not to then spend an hour on social media), and looking out the window, I saw white. Yep, it snowed, about an inch, by the looks of it. I crawled back in bed for another three hours. Daylight came, and I got a better look at it. Still no snow on the street, and since I hadn't heard a salt truck, it could not have been too cold. If it hit grass, it stuck. If it hit pavement, even a cement sidewalk, it melted. This is the type of snow you can clear your car off in four seconds with an old windshield wiper blade.

For the bike, though, preparations were really no different from any day with a cold rain. The streets would be wet, and what little snow was there would be melting, so I could expect things like thermoplastic paint stripes to be slippy (Pittsburghese for slippery).

For myself, again, really nothing different from any cold day, though not bitter cold. I knew I'd only be riding three miles or so, so did not try to dress too warmly. Still, in the last two minutes before going out the door, I started to get a bit too warm. That's good. It mainly meant I'd be fine once I got outside.

Once on the bike, it was simple to adjust the height of the zipper on my light jacket. I started with it down about two inches, which proved adequate. Too high up, I'd get too warm. Too far down, I'd be cold right away.

As expected, I was fine in the three miles to the bus stop. Sitting on the bus, my toes are a tad chilly, but nothing serious. If I had tried to bike the whole 11 miles, it might be a different story, but this was good enough.

OK, one down, 100 more snowy days to go.

About cyclists "running red lights and stop signs"

In the bicycle world, there are a lot of different types of stopping at red lights and stop signs.

I make distinctions among:

1. proceeding through a red light or stop sign without looking or changing speeds;
2. proceeding through a red light or stop sign without changing speeds but ensuring that there is no traffic to interfere, in any direction;
3. proceeding through a red light or stop sign after slowing down considerably, verifying that there is no traffic to interfere, in any direction;
4. coming to a complete stop at a red light or stop sign, briefly enough not to put my foot down, making sure there is no traffic to interfere, in any direction, then proceeding through;
5. coming to a complete stop at a red light, at least one foot planted on the ground for several seconds, then after verifying there is no traffic to interfere, in any direction, proceeding through.
6. coming to a complete stop at a red light and waiting until the light turns green before proceeding.

The law does not allow for any of the first five. People who complain about cyclists “running red lights and stop signs” make no distinction, equating the first five, insisting upon the sixth.

I do not do #1. I do #2, #3, #4 and #5, depending on situation. I employ #6 anytime there is traffic to interfere.

I could go on for 2,000 words explaining the difference in each, their relative merits of safety, and justifying my actions thereon, but that is irrelevant. If you cannot understand the distinction thus far, there is no point in having a conversation.

Testing Amtrak's roll-on bike service

On Tuesday, I participated in an historic opportunity, to be part of a pilot project to test roll-on/roll-off bicycle transport service via Amtrak. It is not generally available to the public yet, but Amtrak wanted to see how well their idea would work in a real time situation. Some 20 cyclists were recruited to ride segments of the Capitol Limited between here and Washington DC to try it out.

As background, I have been asking Amtrak for years for just such service. For our silver wedding anniversary a couple of years ago, I had hoped to be able to have my bride and I do a day trip from Pittsburgh to Altoona. The plan was to bus our bikes into the city, hop on a train, exit in Altoona, two hours to the east, grab our bikes and ride three miles across Altoona to Lakemont Park to ride the wooden rollercoaster and other rides for a few hours, followed by a short bike ride back to the train station, picking up an ice cream sundae along the way somewhere, hop aboard a train, ride Amtrak two hours back to Pittsburgh,  and finally a bus ride home. It would have been a wonderful plan, if it were only possible. But having to disassemble a bike and put it in a box, and ship it, and reassemble at destination, times two bikes, times two trips, made it a non-starter. Ever since, I've tracked the progress of the request on the Bike-Pgh message board (http://bikepgh.org/mb/topic/so-i-asked-amtrak-again). I can't count how many times I would have ridden Amtrak if such a trip were possible. Instead I've ridden zero.

I boarded Amtrak #30 in Pittsburgh, bound for Connellsville, 60 miles down the line. This was arranged by personal invitation over two weeks ago, for which I was emailed instructions and a ticket. I arrived at the Amtrak station at the appointed time, where I met up with the other five cyclists invited. Two I knew well, the other three I had not met. I knew a couple of others who would be getting on in Connellsville when we were exiting.

The train was almost an hour late, which I knew about from an overnight email directly from Amtrak. Harris Cohen, from Amtrak's Chicago office, with two other officials, Don Skinner from D.C., and Derrick James from Chicago, were to assist us with boarding, then ride with us, and assist with exiting, as well. I sensed that they were less hands-on people and more the type who arranged the whole affair and wanted to watch things unfold, first-hand, as they would develop and implement any changes needed, and/or worked with those who did.

We previously were emailed a diagram explaining how to use the racks. In short, bikes ride suspended from a hook on the wall, with a swinging arm secured to the floor on a spring to hold the rear wheel against the wall. I watched the first five bikes go in and up, and from that, was able to figure out how *not* to do it. When it was my turn, my bike went in and up, and was secured, in 10 to 15 seconds. I captured the entire loading process on video via my hand-held helmet camera [http://youtu.be/_R8aGWP-JAM].

Once in place, we continued walking through the bike loading area, climbed a staircase to the passenger area, and seated ourselves in an observation car in which the seats swiveled 360 degrees. Mr. James gave a brief speech explaining the program and what they hoped to accomplish [http://youtu.be/nTsG4CPQF4w]. We filled out a paper survey which asked several relevant questions. It seemed quite well designed, with plenty of opportunity for detailed explanations. We gave it to them right then.

A small coffee shop was open, and a bit later on, the restaurant opened. There was not time to eat a meal on our short trip, but I did make use of a coffee and cinnamon roll to rack up a bonus Coffeeneuring excursion [http://bikepgh.org/mb/topic/coffeeneuring-2013-oct4-nov17/#post-284640]. I think the 60-mile trip back counts, and it was a day off, though more a vacation day than a routine day off.

We arrived in Connellsville, and with video again rolling [http://youtu.be/WQgfXdPpaOo], retrieved our bicycles in a mere 3:50. This involved the six of us getting our bikes off, us off the train, and boarding and loading six more. One of the main concerns Amtrak has is increased dwell time, especially on a train that is already running an hour late, as this one was. If that was their worry, I think we allayed their fears. That sub-four minutes was from when the train came to a halt to when it was moving again, as the video shows.

From there on, we were on our own. Amtrak mission accomplished. V, SR and I then had a most wonderful excursion down the Great Allegheny Passage on a soaringly beautiful early autumn day.

So how do we get to have this system wide? Money. They need to fit or retrofit eight cars (seven beyond this one) to support the service on the Capitol Limited. A similar number would need to be done for every other line in the system. Getting Amtrak funded properly would make this a lot easier, just like public transit. The money to do this competes with such other trivialities as rebuilding track, repairing rolling stock, fixing landslides, and fuel. To my way of thinking, though, the money is there; it is just being diverted to other things, other transportation things. The cost of retrofitting a couple thousand cars is probably a low-end eight-digit number, maybe $20 million. In the overall scheme of things, that's chump change. One big bridge repair, somewhere in the U.S. One rebuild of a big suburban intersection, somewhere. One lane-mile of expressway somewhere. If they didn't rebuild or expand one lane-mile of an expressway, somewhere in the country, once, we could retrofit the fleet, effectively forever. Any new ones would just have them. It's crazy that money is standing in the way. Surely we need to spend some car mode money on making rail mode truly usable.

It happened once, though, it seems to work, and the demand is already there and growing. Our time will come. I just hope my wife and I can still ride bicycles when we can finally make that trip to Altoona.