There’s something about being near water…

Pittsburgh at night, bordered by water, is one of my favorite sights.  Here, we look across the Allegheny River, catching two of the Three Sisters (and, indirectly, Jenny!).  This is a continuation of the photos from the mini photo-walk that Jenny planned to help re-charge the Jonathan.  These are sometimes necessary, and I’m happy that Jenny is there to help me figure out when I need a charge.

There must be something about being on or near the water, though, as after our ride Saturday along the Allegheny River, we decided to go to Presque Isle for a ride around the peninsula on Sunday.

We left most of the stuff in the truck from Saturday (locked-up, of course), so Sunday morning all we had to do was fill water bottles and load our personal stuff.  We took off for some churchy goodness, hit up Sheetz for ice and a bit of food to go, and headed north.

After our long-ish ride Saturday, we decided that we wanted to take it easy.  We planned to ride from the start of the loop to the Perry Monument area, where we would find a shady spot and relax and read.  I had started to read John Harrington’s Best Business Practices for Photographers, so I doubly enjoyed watching the sailboats in the bay while reading some good business advice.

We enjoyed our break for a while, then decided that we should push on to finish the trail and head out to dinner, with the plan of getting on the road home before dark.  We made it back to the car pretty quickly.  I had installed a new saddle for Jenny’s bike before we left for this ride, and she really liked it.  At the end of the ride, it was still a winner, so hooray for that.

As usual, Barbatos was the dinner favorite, so that’s where we went.  We went inside and were getting settled and waiting for our pizza, when the delivery driver came in and told us that we should keep an eye on our bikes, as there were some kids hanging around the truck.  I was then getting up every ten minutes or so to check on things.  The bikes were locked-up in the truck bed, but they were still exposed.  We enjoyed our pizza, and then left for the trip home.  The kids were still outside hanging around, but nothing seemed to be amiss.

The ride home was pretty uneventful, though I did have to ask Jenny to drive the Turnpike section from Cranberry to home, as I was getting pretty tired.  As usual, she agreed and we switched roles for a while.

When I was unloading the bikes after we arrived home, I saw it.  Three large gashes and one smaller gash in my bike’s top tube, right near where the security cable passed over the tube.  So it turns out that they did try to steal one or both of our bikes.  Further examination showed a few smaller hits on Jenny’s bike in the area where the two overlapped.  Apparently, the dinky 3/8 steel cable was enough to foil their attempts to cut or break it.  Still, though, it sucks that they would even try, and now it sucks that I’m going to have to do something to my bike so that I don’t get cut on the burrs.  Jenny had a good point, though–last year, we were contemplating buying new bikes and trading these in or finding someone else who might want them.  In the end, we’re glad that didn’t happen.  At least this damage is against bikes that are already showing signs of use, rather than some brand-new frames.

Oh well.  The trip was great, though, and otherwise uneventful, so it still gets a big win in our book.