Pittsburgh hates pedestrians...

Pittsburgh has a problem as far as respect for walkers and cyclists goes. Im not going to rant about being on my bike, because that has been done a million times. However, I am going to share photos that I have been collecting. These are signs that go in crosswalks between the double yellow lines. They are put there to slow traffic down.
All of these are super fucked up, have been hit by a million cars, and are out of place and not able to be seen from the road. It is my understanding that the city police are literally not able to enforce the speed limit within the city for some reason.
I have been posting these photos and some other funny photos at my tumblr. Im so hip.


The last one is my favorite. It is 100 feet from the elementary school where my main man Ramazani goes!

Bands that I did not see. AKA my first bike tour.

In the 90's a band named Fifteen was playing in Philadelphia with a band named Propaghandi. They were set to play some dump in philly that is now defunct, but was a legendary show space named the Stalag 13.

Anyway,Jason Angst (who is now like one of the best tattoo guys ever or something, click the link..) and I loaded up our overloaded road bikes with not enough stuff, no rain gear, backpacks, and a Delorme atlas. The plan was to ride to the Poconos so I could make out with a girl for a few days, then head down to Philly. Total of about 450 miles or so. Easy enough.

The first day was 70 miles in cold pouring rain. I think this was pretty defeating. We slept on the side of the road in the tent and froze. I just had a small blanket and we were in the Appalachian mountains. No ground pad. No sleeping bag. I remember just laying on the ground waiting for daybreak to pack up and try to warm up.

We rode the next few days, one of which was my first 100 mile day. It was exciting. We got to where we were going, and within a day my body shut down. I had some sort of fever, cold, exhaustion. Jason went down to philly without me. My romantic teenage plans of making out with a girl nonstop were turned into her making me soup and tea.

I missed the show and the band doesnt play anymore. I still love them. I am glad that my first bike touring experience didnt scare me away from doing all the subsequent tours, cause they have been some of the best times of my life.

This is a good guy...

This is a picture of Marty. He is an old dude that takes time to sweep the track that we race on every week. Today I was riding around in circles at the track and he was there with his push blower, clearing the fall debris off of the track. We are done racing there, but he knows that some people are down there working out, riding, or with their families enjoying traffic free cycling. Such a good guy.

He is a retired laborer, so I guess he has some free time. Last year when I went to Kraynicks to clean up some bikes for the "give poor kids bikes" program, he was there. We talked a bunch. He apparently was in the shop most days fixing bikes for kids.

Little known fact: Marty was the 1974 ACA club champion. When I started racing at the oval in 2003, he was still in pretty good shape, and could whip up a decent sprint for a 60 something year old guy. The world needs more people like Marty.

More free time than me

Google searches that bring people here

So I have a tracker thing for this blog. I sometimes check it to see what brings people
here or who links to me. Its neat to see. Anyway, this is the best I have gotten yet.

Going to "ask.com" to ask "Who uses ask.com?"

An awesome story that I can now tell..

So our team was driving down to the Tour of Washington County awhile ago. I was checking my email en route cause I am a high ballin' real estate agent. I found this:

Steve,

Please reply to this email to confirm that I have your address right. If so, I will send out an electronic draft of an agreement for your review.

Thanks, xxxx
……………………
xxxxxxxx Ph.D.
xxxxx
+1.xxxxxxxxx34
……………………
Continuum Sports LLC | BMC Racing Team
1825 Ferdinand Ct., Unit B
Santa Rosa, CA 95404
USA
| www.bmcracingteam.com


Ok, so somebody wants me to race for BMC? Oh no wait, he meant to contact the real bike racing Stephen Cummings. He is the younger, more bald, faster bike racer. So I respond with:


Hey I bet you didn't know that there is a crappy cat 1 in Pennsylvania also named steve Cummings. If you need somebody to fill a spot let me know.
This email is amazing.


Dude is probably not stoked, this is like super top secret info that I now have.

Stephen,

I'm very sorry for the mistaken email address. I have the correct email now. If you wouldn't mind simply deleting my mistaken email to you and not distributing it anywhere, it would be much appreciated.

Best regards and thanks, xxxxx

Not that easy BRO!

xxxx,http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
I understand the situation and will keep it quiet.
However I did get third in the Ohio state road championship last weekend and was once ranked 358th in the world at cyclocross. I will delete the email but keep your contact info in case I pull out a sick result at the local stagerace this weekend.
Seriously though you don't have to worry about me leaking this. Can I get a pair of socks or something?
Thanks

Holding out for the contract still... but I got the socks

Cummings signs for BMC

Interbike expedition

I made the pilgrimage to Vegas for interbike. I am still able to go because I have written articles for Urban Velo. Sweet.

Here is a picture of an elite athlete who stayed up for 40 hours straight and drank for 38 of them.



The dirt demo was fun. I rode a moots YBB. I would buy one if I had cash and needed a new mountain bike. We went way out into the desert. You can see Stubna pushing his bike cause he snapped his through axle.







My coach had me riding like 90 minutes each day. I rode a bit more than that, and then rode the pump track for seriously 3 hours. I wish I had a bigger yard.



Ernie called me and was like "dude you are on the cover of the interbike magazine"... they seriously photoshopped my arms.



Then I ran into a GIANT Bill Elliston.


I as a cheap vegetarian went to an expensive steak house. Like 200 dollar steaks. I had a beet salad. It was actually delicious.



7 dudes and I didnt really eat anything.



Certain establishments will pick you up in a limo in las vegas. This was at like 3 am Vegas time after getting lapped 65 times at cross vegas.



Chicago from my window seat.

Bands I have seen that were amazing take 1

I was reading VELO on the way home from interbike. There was a "what are you listening to" section. I quickly realized that bike racers (mostly) like really crappy music. I am glad that I spent a lot of time in the 90's going to shows and buying records.

Here is Leatherface. I saw them in 1999 maybe in Pittsburgh. I think that Hot Water Music opened for them or something. They are probably one of the longest playing bands that you have not heard of. They are also super good at playing music.



Whatever... since I mentioned them... Here is Hot Water Music. They were probably the tightest band I ever saw, each time that I saw them (10? or so times)... They closed with "turnstile" a lot. They always had a TON of energy.

One of the times I got escorted out of a bank...

I was recently reminded of this, and it makes for a funny story. I think that I have been kicked out of 3 banks in my life. All similar stories.

This probably took place in the year 2001. I was buying stuff for my cross country bicycle adventure. I had to get like 400 dollars cash to the bike shop in order to pick up a bunch of stuff. My friend had a car for the day and was willing to drive me. This all was going to work out great. I think this is when ATM cards were just for ATM's and were not actually debit cards.

I rode my bicycle up to my bank. It was Mellon at the time, but I think they changed their name to Citizens. Anyway, it was a Saturday. I knew that they were open because they had a banner and signs everywhere that said "OPEN SATURDAY." So I ride my bike up, and go inside. The doors are open, but the women inside say that only the drive through is open for banking. This is when you could not get more than like 200 or 300 dollars out of an ATM in a 24 hour period. I needed to talk to a teller.

So I go outside, get on my bike and ride up to the window in the drive through. The woman (that I just saw inside) was there. She said that she could not help me, that the drive through was for cars only. I ride on and go back inside to the woman. Now this is the THIRD time that I have seen her at this point. She asks if she can help me, as if she does not know who I am. She is on a twisty seat, and is literally the same person operating the drive through.
"I need to make a withdrawal"
"You can only do that in the drive through"
"But you are the same person doing that. Why is this even open?"
"I can only do transactions in the drive through. We are open for people opening new accounts."
"But you are right there, you could just do it... You have a giant sign that says OPEN SATURDAY"
"If you need to go INTO a bank, the Squirrel Hill branch is open for another 20 minutes... its a 10 minute drive to get there..."
"IF I HAD A FUCKING CAR I WOULD GO THROUGH YOUR DRIVE THROUGH......"

At this point the security guard was standing very close to me. He asked me if the police needed to be called and asked me to leave.

This was one of the many times in my life I honestly felt like I was taking crazy pills. Why couldnt the woman just help me out?

ugh.

Hipster Redux. AKA bikesnobpgh. AKA dude wearing TT helmet in town.

So Amy and I were in the car yesterday and she was like "is that dude wearing a time trial helmet?" So like an old couple in a national park that had just spotted a deer, we pulled over. Sure enough this dude was rolling down Friendship Ave rocking a TT helmet with built windscreen. Lucky for us, he had to take a phone call (have you ever seen somebody in a TT helmet talk on a cell phone? NOW YOU HAVE)...

Amy said that I was not allowed to post it to FB/Twitter/Blog. She is maybe the nicest person alive and would feel bad if somebody was made fun of in public. However, I am going to post it, and tell the dude to own it. There is a guy who rides around with a bike helmet that he turned into a Devo helmet, which I freaking love. So if this dude wants to be known as the dude with the LAS aero helmet with tinted visor, I am simply helping his cause without passing judgement.