IMG_0207Hope you all had a happy Labor day. Because of it, we took the day off from our Monday posts, so now we’re giving you a Tuesday post.

For those of you that have contacts at CMU, you might have already heard about this. Having taken a walk down there myself this weekend, I saw what all the buzz was about. The City has added new bike lanes to Schenley drive which interferes from around the stop sign, all the way past the chute flag. This will be a new obstacle for drivers this year, but fortunately, sweepstakes was notified and instead of the permanent posts that the city was planning on using, they opted for the more expensive removable option placing the difference in price on sweepstakes.

This adds a new chore to buggy mornings similar to the haybales. Every morning, these posts will have to be unscrewed and the hole in the pavement will be capped. Rolls will also have to end slightly earlier to allow time for the posts to be reinserted, but hopefully not more than 10 minutes or so.

IMG_0209I tested out the removal of these posts, and so long as the threads aren’t too tight, they can be unscrewed from the top without needing to bend down. The remaining hole is no larger than many of the potholes that used to litter the course and will get plugged by a plastic insert. I do not yet know the shape of the insert, so if anyone knows how much it might stick up/out, please share.

The last bit that people have been talking about are the new paint lines. Just like most fresh road paint, the lines are thick and are definitely noticeable, but this is something that buggies and drivers should have no problem dealing with since they have already been doing that with the center road lines. The only difference is that these will probably stay thicker longer since there won’t be cars constantly driving over them.

There is also some new thick green traction paint by each crosswalk. There’s only one area that might affect the buggy course, but after testing it out with my bicycle, it will likely make a difference for some teams. That difference may just be that the diver get’s tossed around a bit more, or it could be an area that slows teams down. We’ll only know for sure when the teams hit the course late September and actually try rolling on it.

11 thoughts on “New Obstacles on the course”

  • Look at the bright side; if the posts are left in place, Sweepstakes can create an all-new competition category: Buggy Slalom!

  • 2 months from now….”remember when there used to be posts that screwed in here?”

    It is not clear to me if the posts serve some vital function that the paint does not already address. I am all for bike lanes but this approach seems a bit over the top and overly complicated.

    • The city got a $250k grant to put in the bike lanes, and there’s a biking advocacy convention in town later this month. Once all the photo-ops are over, the city isn’t going to care what happens with them or have any extra money to maintain them.

      The vital function the posts serve is to preclude snowplows or street-sweepers from cleaning the bike lane. The posts certainly wouldn’t survive a snowplow, which will probably leave the threaded metal end stuck in the road, with no easy way to unscrew it. Assuming that soaking in road salt all winter doesn’t just render the threads immovable anyway.

    • Just be glad for the sake of our precious sport that the city didn’t put in a raised/curbed divider for the bike lane, like what they do in most other civilized places.

      I’m guessing the posts are probably going to come out before big snow storms. This particular bike lane is mostly a test to see if divided bike lanes are viable/sensible for Pittsburgh, so I’m not counting on any of the current lane infrastructure being that permanent of a feature.

  • He doesn't even go here! says:

    A more future concern regarding the posts: if the winter ends up having very heavy snowfall, would the posts survive snowplows? They seem to be far less sturdy than mailboxes, and I’ve seen many of those fall victim to plows outside of Philly.

    Also to note, judging by the size of the hole in the road, it would almost seem that putting an insert in them that may/may not actually stick up above the road surface would be worse than just leaving the hole uncovered for the duration of rolls… no way to know til we see at first rolls

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