This past weekend Angela and I participated in the 2nd Annual Ride 4 Peace organized by a company called Team Neva. The basic idea was for bikers of all types to come together and ride through some of the more troubled neighborhoods in the city as a statement against violence. The funds raised were being distributed to charities that help children in Pittsburgh.

I found out about the ride a few weeks ago entirely by accident. I did a websearch on Pittsburgh motorcycle trips, trying to find some information on good places to go for rides around the area. In the search I came across this article which talks about last year’s Ride 4 Peace and some of the motorcycle clubs in Pittsburgh. I then searched and found out that the ride was happening again this year.

The ride started at West Park, right near the CCAC campus on the Northside. As riders showed up the staging area began to take up the better part of the road. Drivers were getting a little annoyed at times, and a few seemed to want to get aggressive since we were taking up the lane and not moving. They were usally shut up as soon as they saw the police there on their police motorcycles too.

Here’s my best shot of the staging area:

As we were waiting to start I met several neat people. My bike turned a few heads because it was so shiny and new, and I met a couple of other Shadow Spirit owners. I can’t remeber their names because, well, I’m terrible with names, but I do know that they had 1988 and 1990 Shadows. In all of that time, there haven’t been huge changes to the Spirit. I could make a list here, but you don’t care.

This is Angela, with my bike, the 2 other Shadow owners, and another woman who was riding her bike:

Once the ride got started, there were about 200 participants, and at least 150 (if not more) bikes. We were lead by the three cops on their cop-bikes and the Maximalist Sport Bike Riders club was at the front so it’s members could block off intersections as we passed. The ride continued as one big multi-biked organism, sticking together through the whole ride. Most of the drivers that were forced to wait at the intersections seemed to be interested or amused by the ride, rather than angry about the delay. It was quite the sight as there was just about every kind of bike imaginable in the group.

The ride proceeded from West Park up onto 28 and over the Highland Park bridge, through Homewood and Wilkensburg, down through East Liberty and Garfield, over to the Hill District and through Downtown, and ending in front of PNC Park, on the blocked off approach to the Clemente Bridge.

Here are some shots of the bikes parked outside of PNC Park:

A short while after we parked our bikes, we were told that the bleachers were sold out for the day, and that our vouchers were only good for those bleacher seats. However, we could use the vouchers to upgrade to other seats at the ticket window. Since Angela and I wanted to see the game, we went for the upgrade option. Instead of getting $6 off per ticket using the vouchers like we were supposed to, the ticket dudes refused to give us more than $3 off per ticket. Bastards.

Right before the game started they did an on-field recognition for the presidents of the motorcycle clubs that particpated in the ride, and Daryl, the owner of Team Neva was interviewed to talk about the ride. The crowd was mostly confused by the whole thing, but it was nice to see the ride acknowledged.

The presidents:

The game itself was great. The Pirates were coming off their win in the series opener against the Mets the previous evening, and the game was tight the whole way down. The score was tied in the bottom of the ninth inning. There were two outs, one runner on base. Paulino hit a double to drive home the guy on base and win the game.

We were sitting right in front of some Mets fans who had driven down from NY that day just “to see the Mets clinch it” as they said. These dudes were dissapointed. They said they’d stay in town to see the Sunday game so they could watch the Mets clinch the NL East then. I bet those guys were really dissapointed on Sunday when the Mets failed to win again. I was at that game, too, as Alan had called me and said he had an extra ticket.

The Pirates need to hire me. They’re on their 12th straight losing season, however they are 4-0 with me in attendance. Man, I should write a letter…`

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 20th, 2006 at 00:35 and is filed under motorcycle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.