What Were They Thinking?

This past Friday I did a short solo ride up to Squirrel Hill and back. It wasn't supposed to be anything special, just a chance for me to stretch my legs after being cooped up in the house for most of the day. Although it wasn't the longest of rides, it had more than its share of visible weirdness:

First was the fat dude on the motorcycle with the ZZ-Topp beard (one of those long untrimmed things). As he rode, the slipstream blew the beard up into his face and over his eyes. Not sure how he managed to see anything...

Then there was the Toyota Prius that was parked on the street in the Edgewood/Wilkinsburg area. I get that this is the trendy way to be "green", but if that's the case, WHY do you have the back storage area filled to the brim with cases of bottled water? Doesn't seem very "green" to me...

After riding up to Squirrel Hill using the new Forbes Avenue bike lanes, I crossed over to Beachwood Blvd. to head up to Blue Slide Park. Don't get me wrong, the Forbes Avenue bike lane is great, but WHY did they not mark the bike lanes on Beachwood when they repaved the section between Forbes and Shaw Avenue? There are a few curves in there, and cars don't always hold their lane the way they should...

I was riding back from Squirrel Hill using the Forbes Avenue bike lane, which is great because you're going downhill at a pretty good clip. There are a couple of curves as you near the main part of Frick Park at the corner of Forbes and Braddock. As I rounded on of those bends, there were two little kids riding their bikes in the bike lane the wrong way! Apparently they had been playing at the park and were heading up Forbes for who-knows-what reason. Fortunately there was no auto traffic behind me, so it wasn't a problem to swing wide and go around them. But had there been traffic...

The moral of the story (if there is one...) is to keep your eyes open, even for the most mundane of rides...