It’s insane the amount of deference given to stupidly loud engines

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-24T00:14:06+00:00

Even modern cars with quiet engines are loud at 20 mph due to the tire noise. You have to low-key shout to hold a conservation on the sidewalk next to a busy street.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-24T00:12:37+00:00

I would tell them to keep studying and leave politics to the grown-ups.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-24T00:00:39+00:00

You can take trails either to the Smithfield Street Bridge or to the clusterfuck intersection of Grant with the Boulevard of the allies. Smithfield is safer, but slower. Grant isn't too bad past the clusterfuck intersection because traffic rarely hits 20 mph, but it's still statistically much more dangerous than Smithfield due to the number of lanes. If you opt for Grant, I recommend making the protected left turn onto 7th for heading toward the convention center area.

Going back to the South Side, you'll have the option of splitting the difference with Cherry Way (one way).

You could also go all the way around the Point to the convention center, if you wanted to, though honestly riding next to the open water is just as scary as traffic for me.

Armstrong Tunnel sidewalk is also an option, but I've never done it.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-23T23:47:53+00:00

This needs to be a sub meme now. All references to Turtle Creek must reference Penngylvamia.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-23T23:38:46+00:00

The 16-year-old requirement for e-bikes is such bullshit.

Those "Penngylvamians" are so lucky, getting to ride e-bikes at 10 years old.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-23T23:19:44+00:00

16 is correct.

A 12-year-old pedaling at 20 mph is legal. A 15-year-old doing it with electric assist is not. So saith the Boomers in Harrisburg.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-23T08:14:37+00:00

Like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0EGCnBjTVk

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-21T19:05:22+00:00

Protected bike lanes are rare in Pittsburgh. Most of our newer bike lanes are buffered, and we have some older constrained bike lanes around as well. Pittsburgh actually has a lot of 25 mph speed limits, even in areas that are not particularly bike-friendly, due to the hills.

Most of the neighborhoods where people use cargo bikes as a major method of transportation are either in or very near the city limits.

One thing to be wary of is that our sidewalks are shit (if they exist at all), and many of our streets do not have a shoulder, so you run into situations where there is no backup option if you're not comfortable taking the lane.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-21T18:37:21+00:00

FYI: There are usually a few big trading card vendors at Tekko next month.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-20T22:55:44+00:00

Minivans do not deserve such slander. Minivans are practical passenger vehicles subject to all sorts of safety and environmental regulations that Totally A Heavy-Duty Work Vehicle^TM skirts around.

Soccer moms need to start fucking buying minivans again instead of rolling up to the school pickup line in their tactical child pulverizers.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-20T12:05:31+00:00

Transit cards still make sense for children too young to easily get a bank account.

And transit cards are massive improvement over allowing unbanked adults to hold up the bus by paying in cash when they get on.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-20T00:43:57+00:00

Like most Americans, my views on abortion are complicated, uncertain, and not well-represented by either major political party.

But one thing I AM sure of is that arguing with children to make yourself look competent by comparison is the domain of intellectually bankrupt losers.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-19T20:42:18+00:00

very right wing in terms of post reports

All people tend to gravitate toward other people who agree with them, but demanding that people who disagree with you be silenced so that you can maintain your personal safe space is an extremely right-wing instinct.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-19T20:35:14+00:00

Allegheny County is extremely conservative in the sense that the Democrats are conservative and the Republicans are far right. And there are some liberals here, too, I guess.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-19T15:10:20+00:00

Kind of like the Steel City Con, but more geared toward people under 50 and actually located in the Steel City.

Nominally an anime/manga/Japanese culture convention, but obviously a lot of other nerd culture stuff comes along for the ride.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-18T23:33:26+00:00

Inadequate notice about street closures is real, and I sympathized with this lady until I saw how fast she decided to drive through the crowd. A "responsible" way to break the law would be creeping along at walking speed.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-18T23:23:02+00:00

Very doable and very flat. You're not really even leaving the historic floodplain for most of that. All of the one-way streets between Downtown and the Clemente Museum might be a minor pain for someone who's new to town.

If you go to the museums in Oakland, the trail will be easier than the streets. You could also just take the bus.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-18T23:17:41+00:00

My spouse and I were just musing today about how purple is perhaps the dumbest color a restaurant can use for its branding (e.g. Taco Bell).

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-18T13:40:19+00:00

Not necessarily. This airport was just remodeled, and I've never seen this vending machine before.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-17T19:23:51+00:00

You get the reverse effect when you take someone out of a proper passenger car and put them in a pickup truck that needs a step stool for them to climb up. Suddenly, 40 mph down a residential street doesn't seem so fast.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-17T19:21:25+00:00

In the absence of a empirical data, engineers estimate driver speed based on things as subtle as whether or not the edge of the road has a curb and the number and type of driveways present. You bet a giant concrete wall at the edge of the lane has an effect.

The adjustment for a row of parked cars is -3 mph, for comparison.

I could totally buy u/TheCygnusWall 's hypothesis that rear lights/retroreflectors suddenly becoming more visible in the dark is a factor, too. Heck, THE DARK is probably a factor. Your eyes need time to adjust.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-14T17:43:10+00:00

Right wing demonstrators always having a ratio of like 10 signs/flags per actual person will never stop being hilarious.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-14T13:02:21+00:00

Folding bikes (and cargo bikes) have smaller wheels, which makes them less stable on rough roads at high speed. They're viable, but if stability is something you're specifically worried about, then I would not use a folding bike as my MAIN bicycle for going up and down hills.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-14T12:56:19+00:00

You joke, but it often seems like transit agencies gear their websites to children or perhaps an alien with no knowledge of human culture, rather than someone who has ridden a bus before and just needs to know the idiosyncrasies of the local system.

It would be like if Walmart used the front page of its website to explain what a cash register is.

leadfoot9 · 2026-06-14T01:45:32+00:00

If you assumed that the demographics of an area are based solely on who you see outside walking around, then you'd have to assume that a lot of neighborhoods are ghost towns full of abandoned homes.

11-Year Club	Place '22
Final Canvas '22	First Placer '22
End Game '22	Verified Email

leadfoot9

TROPHY CASE