Another Saturday Ride Under My Belt

It was another chilly afternoon, so feeling bundled I set out for a longer Saturday ride.  I picked up the usual trail to head over to the South Side and on my way back decided to cross over the hot metal bridge (below).  Built in the late 1880s, the upstream side (the Monongahela connecting Railroad Bridge) carried conventional railroad traffic where the downstream side (the Hot Metal Bridge) carried crucibles of molten steal from the bast furnaces to the rolling mills on the opposite bank.  In 2000, the upstream span was converted into a bridge for motor vehicle traffic and later in 2007 the downstream span was reopened for pedestrian and bicycle traffic. 

It gives you a great view of downtown and the Birmingham Bridge. 

I headed west to head east (up that happens a lot here in PGH because of the rivers and the monsterous hills) to ride through Lawranceville.  It was my plan to take Buttler Street and Rt 130 out to Oakmont, but there was a strange divide in the road that looked like it would put me on a legit highway.  Instead of taking my chances I decided to bail and picked up "One Wild Place" and biked UP to the zoo.  Now dear readers I have always been a biker that will go and extra couple of miles out of my way to avoid a big hill.  With the upcoming ride (and eventually some Rocky Mountains) I figured that now would be as good as a time as ever to start training on some.  At the top of the first major hill there was this great mural of animal mosaics.  While the design came from two local artists, children and adults put the mosaics together during the summer of 2007.

After about 2.5 hours I decided it was time to head home.  Despite some of the major hills I was able to make some pretty decent time and finished up with 35 miles for the day. 

Completed: 151 miles
Miles to go: 349 miles