Naked in the Rain

Perhaps the worst thing about 2020 from a leisure perspective was that just about any event you could think of...was canceled. This included my favourite event of every year, the Philly Naked Bike Ride. With a return this year, I was sure not to miss it even with much uncertainty still lingering in our society these days. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the ride and what it means, it aims to raise awareness of body positivity, bicycling, and environmentalism. If you know me, you know I'm all about that. 

Things weren't looking promising at first. I encountered some delays getting on the road Friday afternoon, and didn't arrive in Philly until midnight. Saturday morning was very gray and it rained pretty heavily for a few hours prior to the ride. I'd attempted to paint my body in the morning prior to leaving my BnB in the morning, but most of it ended up being washed off by the time the ride rolled around.

Despite damp and dreary conditions, the ride did go on as scheduled (it is always billed as rain or shine). In addition to the weather, the vibe around this year was a bit different for a couple reasons. Masks were still recommended, and the pre-ride was shortened to a half hour (down from the usual 2 hours). As such, it was difficult to meet up with friends who I knew were attending, but I did manage to snag a rando to touch up my paint and get my traditional pre-ride picture:

If you've never been Zucked, just don't post anything mildly offensive on Facebook and you won't have to worry about it. ;) I also custom made the mask with the help of my girlfriend. It reads "Mask On Pants Off." Clever, I know. 

Regardless of the pre-ride conditions, the turn out was as big as ever. It's almost like everyone missed being able to do this last year:

I didn't bring my camera due to the threat of rain, so I didn't take nearly as many pics this year, but I did bump into friends along the way, including one who graciously let me use his bathroom near the end of the ride. I did put some shorts on before I went into his house, just FYI:

Once the ride was over, I met up with one of my college roommates and a few of our friends for some post-ride food and bevs:

This happened two years ago as well. It's Groundhog Day, really.

I feel like I'm not doing the ride justice with this write up, but I guess I really was thrown off a bit this weekend. I'm very glad I went, and I'm looking forward to next year, which will be my 7th consecutive (we're ignoring the canceled 2020 event, obviously). This year was the 12th year of PNBR, so that means I've participated in half of the rides that have actually occurred. Kinda impressive when you consider I haven't lived in Philly for three years, no? And so until next year, keep riding and be positive.

Steel City Cycling

I'm approaching my 500th consecutive day of riding a bike outdoors at least once a day. Through mostly unplanned happenstances, the milestones have tended to occur around unique circumstances (for example, day 100 was in NYC, Day 400 was in Philly). The family and I found ourselves in Pittsburgh a few days ahead of day 500, but we'll call it close enough:

That photo was taken on Sunday, the morning of day 498. As you can see, neither one of those are a bike owned by me. I owe a debt to bike share systems for allowing me to keep this streak alive. Off the top of my head, I think this past weekend was the third different bike share I've utilized on this journey. This particular incarnation is called Healthy Ride:

Side note: I had a chance to ride one of these more than 4 years ago but didn't. Anyway, it's pretty similar to most bike sharing systems. In this instance, you DO have to create an account and enter a credit/debit card before checking out a bike, which keeps the kiosk system much simpler (as you can see above). All of the data entry is on the rear of the bike:

You can use the app and QR code, but because I don't expect to be here very regularly, I chose to use my phone number and pin instead. The bikes are actually a little less unwieldy than most other bike share systems I've utilized, with a modest cargo space on the front:

If you happen to find one of the newer bikes, they actually have SEVEN speeds! Most only have three:

If you look closely above, you can see the cable lock. This method allows you to lock the bike anywhere if you need to stop at a store but don't want to lose your bike (similar to the Blue Bikes I rode in New Orleans). That can be pretty handy, but it can also lead to some pretty clumsy lock jobs when bikes are returned to their docks:

All in all, I really enjoyed using the system. It might even be my second favourite bike share out of all my travels.

Anywho, on Saturday morning I was flying solo. I wanted to head eastward from Downtown on the Great Allegheny Passage for a few miles before heading back through the south shore:

As you can see, it was a pretty great morning to be on the trail. The GAP has long been on my list of cycling destinations, and even though I was only on it for about 3 miles, I can say I was there. I still want to do the whole thing one day.

From there, I headed south over the Monongahela River via Hot Metal Bridge. I love the name, and it's actually got a pretty interesting history if you care to read the above link:

You know what? It even looks cool. It also provides a nice view of downtown if you cross it on a nice day, which I was fortunate enough to do:

Once on the southern shore, I decided to venture OFF the trail and through the neighborhoods because I'd read something about this thing called a "neighborway." It turns out that they're basically bike-friendly roadways with a few extra qualifications. I didn't mind it though. The area was quaint. Kinda reminded me of Near Northeast Philly a little:

This "detour" enabled me to find some neat bike rack art along the way:

And another nice view of downtown before I headed back to our apartment:

We spent Saturday sightseeing (not on bicycles) with Faith, my mom, and stepdad. It was a very good day, we saw and learned about many fantastic things, laughs were shared and good times were had, but there's still nothing like seeing a city on a bike. 

There's also nothing better than getting others to share in the joy. Sunday morning, I was able to convince Rae to go along for a ride with me. We decided to head the opposite direction, this time heading west on the Mon Wharf:

Overall a nice trail, especially because it wasn't flooded (ha!) but there were a couple narrow spots. Yikes:

Not so bad, tho. We stopped briefly at Point State Park:

Before heading across the Allegheny River via the Fort Pitt Bridge:

What awaited us on the other side was a chance to visit Mr. Rogers looking over his neighborhood:

This was an unexpectedly moving experience. The park completes the atmosphere by playing recordings of Fred Rogers singing and talking, just like most of you probably remember from your childhood. It was pretty damn special. I wish we'd had more time to stick around. I guess we'll have to come back. ;)

We headed back across the river via the Roberto Clemente Bridge, which features adorable bike lane paintings:

A notable aside, Roberto Clemente is one of my favourite baseball players of all-time. I highly recommend you read his story as well.

We headed back to our apartment to get ready to head out for the weekend, but not before taking in one more very fun sight in the afternoon:

Despite losing the first two games of the weekend series, my beloved Philadelphia Phillies were able to awaken their bats on Sunday and pull out a huge victory in one of the most beautiful stadiums I have ever had the pleasure to visit. 

It's so strange sitting here writing this because it's taken me an hour, and I feel like we saw so much this weekend, yet we barely scratched the surface of this charming old city. Like I said above, I guess we'll have to go back. ;)

Tomorrow will be my actual 500th day, but this weekend will count as the honorary celebration. Cheers to another ride, 500 more days of adventures, and hopefully many more.

Hitch Your Bike to It

I'm sure you've heard the phrase "The adventure is its own reward" many times by now. Let me tell you, getting a trailer hitch on a car is quite the adventure these days. For our purposes, we're not using it for a trailer, but rather a hitch mounted bike rack. As you can see below, we did get it installed and loaded successfully:

The pic is a bit of an optical illusion. The bikes aren't that much wider than the car. Anyway, the adventure I was speaking of was the one that took us about a month to complete in getting the hitch actually installed on the car. I'm throwing this out there as an informational statement for any of you who are planning big vacations later this Summer and might be considering such an upgrade to your car.

It began in mid-May, a few weeks after Rae had traded in her Chevy Trax for the Equinox you can see above, hiding behind four bikes (side note: the used vehicle market is decidedly in the buyers' favour right now, so take a look around - you'd be surprised what kind of great deals you can find). The intent was to increase the in-car capacity and also add a trailer hitch to maximize that extra space. Soon after exchanging cars, I booked an appointment with U-Haul to get a hitch installed.

On a Wednesday afternoon, the day before the installation, we got a call that the part was not in stock and was on order, hopefully to be shipped within a day or two from a store not too far from ours. They said they would call us when the part was in to reschedule our installation. No big deal, right? We still had almost a month until we left for the beach.

Well...the weekend passed and so did Monday without an update, so I called. There wasn't much new information available; the part was still on order, and supposed to be in soon. On top of that, their chief hitch installation technician was on vacation for that week. I was starting to get a little concerned. I waited a few more days, called again, and was told the same thing. After a third try, we decided that we had to go into the store to speak with a manager directly.

Before you get the wrong idea, we didn't go full Karen on the guy. We explained that we simply wanted an update on the situation and what we could expect, because we were now just a little over two weeks away from the trip. As is common in this day and age, manufacturers can't keep up with demand, so almost every hitch that they sell is on backorder, with requests filled ASAP. The staff at U-Haul actually recommended that we look into plan B if we had one.

Thankfully, we did. We found a hitch on etrailer.com that matched our car and decided to do a self-install. I had considered doing this anyway when U-Haul said their technician was away, figuring I could grab the hitch and save some money. If you have the tools, the capability, and the time to do the work, I highly recommend going this route. Our hitch was delivered in less than a week and we were ready to install as soon as it arrived:

I do recommend having an extra set of hands to help in the process (thanks to my neighbor for being that extra set of hands). The process really wasn't all that difficult. All the parts were included, and the etrailer website has installation videos for just about everything they sell. And so, after about a month of back-and-forth, we had our upgrade:

It is also worth noting that if you're looking to buy a bike rack, they're also in short supply these days. We bought this one used at an estate sale towards the end of last Summer. In hindsight, I'm really glad we didn't install it on the old car.

I wanted to get it installed a few weeks early so we could test it out around home before making a long trip. Though I didn't get to do as much testing as I would have liked, it did all work out in the end, and the bikes survived all the way to Delaware:

This is a good chance for me to mention my friends at First State Brewing, who just opened late last year. If you are passing thru Middletown, DE, I highly recommend stopping in. The food (and beer) are fantastic, and it's extremely family-friendly.

Anywho, I'm writing this whole thing from Bethany Beach, DE, on the final day of our vacation. It's gray and rainy outside this morning after almost a full week of beautiful sunny days. In an interesting twist, it's been so hot and sunny that we've wanted to spend most of our time at the beach (go figure), so the bikes have been mostly sitting idle at the bike racks for the majority of the trip. I'm not complaining at all. I just find it amusing.

That's not to say there hasn't been some bike activity. Of course, I have been making sure to ride every day around the neighborhood at the very least:

I took one ride to the beach for the day when the kiddo and Rae were feeling like staying out of the sun:

Rae and I took a quick ride to pick up breakfast for the family one morning:

I was able to sneak in one longer-ish ride down the Coastal Highway to Ocean City, MD to visit friends a couple days ago:

And finally, Rae and I took a 5AM ride yesterday to see the sunrise over the ocean on what will probably be the last nice weather day of this trip:

And of course, now that we have the carrying capacity, this is just the first of what will hopefully be many more adventures with our new toys. The majority of Summer lies ahead, and I am excited to see what we'll see...