Highly Recommended: The Dirty Dozen

Pittsburgh's Danny Chew's ride like no other, traditionally the Saturday after Thanksgiving. If you're in the neighborhood of Pittsburgh and have a 39x28 (or lighter) handy, this is highly recommended, at least if you don't mind a few hills. The Dirty Dozen takes all day and goes over the thirteen steepest climbs in the Pittsburgh metropolitan area, where there is lots, lots to choose from. It's a race up every hill, neutral in between, and they wait for everyone at the top of the climb. Be glad it's not the 1980s, when most of them were cobbles and the Dirty Dozen code of honor basically mandated 42x24 gearing. Having done the ride twice, I can't imagine how they did that. Look, for example, at Canton Avenue, certified as the world's steepest street, where you need a good running start and then have to shift up flawlessly and maintain a straight line; if you start swerving only a little bit, you're lost. Sycamore Street, of the old Thrift Drug Classic days, is one of the easier ones on the list. Here's a YouTube clip from the last hill, Flowers-Tesla in Hazelwood, last year--you can find more by searching for "Dirty Dozen Pittsburgh" on YouTube. One of these days I'm going to fish hard for a Thanksgiving invitation at a Pittsburgh friend's home, so that I can also do a third Dirty Dozen, and get my name on Danny's list of people with three or more Dirty Dozens under their belt. (If I had a lot of money, I might well go back every year). If you go this weekend, get there early, because with a forecast of 43 degrees and sunny skies there promise to be over 100 people at the Washington Boulevard Swan'Odrome gathering place.