My First Group Ride

Date
September 18, 2021
Distance
11.07 miles
Location
Pittsburgh, PA

It is not very long, but it is very hard. Sometimes that is very difficult. I’m not sure I’d be able to climb that now.

Miguel Indurain, five-time Tour de France winner, speaking about Sycamore Street1

The other day, I went on my first “group ride,” which really just meant riding with one other person. I went out for about an hour with Connor; we climbed Sycamore Street, one of the Dirty Dozen hills, up to Mount Washington. Apparently, Miguel Indurain once proclaimed that Sycamore was “difficult” when he visited Pittsburgh in 1999.

Cyclist in front of buildings
Yours truly at the top of Mount Washington, overlooking downtown Pittsburgh. My unshaven legs are artfully dropped, and I’m doing my best impression of Tadej Pogačar’s “helmet hair.” (full resolution)

I was dropped on the way up, but the view from the top made it worth it.

  1. Reported by Lori Shontz in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, “Area cyclists line up to share a ride with Spain’s Indurain”, June 2, 1999.↩︎