Day 71 – Aug 22, 2015 – Beaver Falls PA to Pittsburgh PA – 38 miles

Day 71 – Aug 22, 2015 – Beaver Falls PA to Pittsburgh PA – 38 miles

We made it to Pittsburgh, and after a week or so of worries about how we would approach the city without too much trouble (the hills are famous and steep) we did it along the Beaver and Ohio Rivers, it was nice. As soon as we left Beaver Falls where we got a hotel next to the Turnpike, we headed down the 18 and then the 51 all the way to town. We had one steep hill to climb but the rest was not bad. We just had to deal with the funny shoulders and some traffic getting close to the city, but all in all easy.

We road went through some old steel towns that have seen better days, but here and there have come back a little. The giant 7 mile long steel mills along the Ohio river are long gone but some of the smoke stacks still stand, I guess it was hard to get rid of them. We did cross over a few bridges and found ourselves on Neville island that had huge scrap metal plants and 2 chemical plants that seemed little they were humming away. I pedaled a little faster to get off the island asap, maybe that was a mistake since I breathed a little harder too.

It was a beautiful day, in the mid 70s and low humidity. When we reached the close outskirts of town we had to walk over a long iron bridge since it was too dangerous to ride with the traffic. That was a little scary since we had to climb over discarded mattresses and garbage along the way, and the structure itself looked like it really needed an overhaul or maybe even a complete tear down and rebuild. But we made it into the working class neighbors speckled with Ukrainian churches and neighborhood diners strangely situated under railroad bridges. The neighborhood we road through was super hilly with steep descents, I was thinking how these people must deal with the winter with their rusty old cars? I think once the snow comes, the cars stay put. No way are they going to make it up and down the 10-15% grades, yep, just like San Fransisco.

We found our way down to a river bike path that would bring us to our hotel which was right next to PNC ball park. As we road along Gregg started noticing some weird hand written signs indicating that there was a bike shop, no a used bike shop, no a bike seller of new and used bikes, no a museum, just off the path. We decided to follow these odd signs to an even more odd place – Bike Heaven. Bike Heaven is hard to describe – it is surely a super unique place. It is a bike museum with mostly old Schwinn bikes and lots of them. I mean lots – there must have been at least 500 bikes there. All kinds of bikes. And super rare bikes. Someone showed us some bikes that were selling for over $50,000 on Craiglist/Ebay. But it was a hodge podge of bikes and rooms and rooms of old bike parts, since they were a repair shop too. I filmed inside because it was a sight to see. As we left, a young man asked if he could take our picture, with our touring bikes, in front of the museum to put on their website. Well, you remember, we are kind of Royalty in the bike world, everyone in that world wants a part of us because they are in awe. We don’t really see it that way but we are accommodating. So he took our picture and away we went.

We turned one last corner before we got to our hotel and all of the sudden there were swarms of people. The Pirates were playing in an hours time and the stadium crowds were approaching. Most of them decided the best way to get there was walking on the bike path. That’s ok, we went slow. As we slowed done another man approached us and wanted to shake our hand. He was a older gentleman who had run a marathon in each of the 50 states. He also thought that what we have done is spectacular. He is a volunteer that works on the Greater Allegheny Path – our route to DC on Monday- and was super excited we were going to take it. We asked where it started and he pointed right across the river to a giant fountain. Apparently there there is a marker in the ground at mile 0. He shook our hands again as we said good buy since he was so excited he met us. Again we felt like Royalty.

We got to the hotel early enough to have a late lunch and a nap. That was great. I was awoken about 3 times since the Pirates hit 3 homers and with each home run they shot off fireworks. We ventured out after the game hoping the crowds had dissipated but no way. The town was still full of people. Lots of drunk and happy Pirates fans, their team had won. I suppose this is a little taste of what tomorrow will be like. It will be interesting – Steeler v Packers at 1pm and Pirates playing Giants at 8pm. Being sandwiched between PNC Park and Heinz Stadium is something different. But more important for us, we can sleep in tomorrow!