Chicago « Bike Noob

Another Windy City ride

September 28, 2008 at 11:11 pm | In Rides | 3 Comments
Tags: bike path, Chicago, crowds, hybrid, rentals, Rides

We flew into Chicago on Friday for the wedding of our friends Brad and Linda’s daughter. Brad and Linda are the folks we did a Chicago bike ride with in June, and then met for a week of biking and other stuff in August. We were glad to be there, both because we think they’re great friends, and because we have a high regard for their daughter, Stefanie. We also figured there would be some down time in the wedding weekend to sneak in a bike ride.

There was. The wedding was wrapped up by noon Saturday, but the reception wasn’t scheduled until 5 p.m. Brad and Linda were obviously going to be tied up, but Pat and I headed out to a nearby “bike station” to rent a pair of bikes and hit the Lakefront Trail.

In June, Brad had warned against taking the trail north from downtown. Too congested, he said. So we went south then. But this time, we had to mix it up. We headed north. Brad was right.

The Lakefront Trail at Belmont Ave. Bikers share the trail with joggers, walkers, roller bladers, etc. This is one of the less crowded stretches of the trail we hit.

The Lakefront Trail is an asphalt path, divided down the middle with a yellow stripe so both northbound and southbound bikers can use it. But at several points, it can get jammed. Joggers, who do a pretty good job of sticking to the crushed stone at the side of the trail, suddenly veer in front of bikers. Most bikers are ordinary folks, who have little knowledge of the rules of the road, or merge onto the path without watching for other traffic. Some bikers in full kit get aero, and blast through everyone with little margin for error. And the walkers are the worst. They’re a hazard to bikers, because they will occupy the center of the path, and won’t move out of the way — so bikers have to change speed and direction quickly. When we reached Belmont Harbor, we decided to stop and turn around, since we’d have just an hour to get back to the bike station, return the rentals, walk back to the hotel, and get ready for the wedding reception.

The rental bikes rest at the turnaround point. They were Specialized hybrids. Kind of slow, but the conditions on the trail ruled out fast riding anyway.

When not dodging traffic on the trail, there’s plenty to see. This may have been the last nice summer weekend in Chicago this year (that’s what the natives told us), and people came out to Lake Michigan in droves.

North Avenue Beach has dozens of beach volleyball courts, loaded with aspiring Misty May-Treanors and Kerri Walshes.

The beautiful Caribbean. Blue water, sparkling sand, waving palms…no, wait! This is Chicago’s own Oak Street Beach. And yes, the palms (and there are lots of them) are real.

We got the bikes back to the rental station, after a particularly difficult time crossing the bridge over the Chicago River. So crowded with bikes, walkers and joggers that we had to get off and walk the bikes across — it was just too dangerous otherwise. One of the rental staff commiserated with us about the trail’s north route. She was more upset with the rudeness and lack of caution on the trail than with the crowded conditions. In any case, the next time we’re back here, we’ll head south, just as we did in June. This 12-mile and change ride required us to concentrate hard for the entire ride. But Pat and I agreed that it probably made us more skillful bikers.

Problem? Or not a big deal?

September 25, 2008 at 8:39 pm | In training | 8 Comments
Tags: Chicago, missed ride, training

As you know, I’m planning to ride a century next month — the 18th, in fact. I’m pleased with the way my preparation is going. I ride three times a week — Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday — and have been ramping up my weekly mileage as well as the length of my long Sunday ride.

This week, that’s all down the drain.

We’re flying to Chicago Friday, and will be there all weekend, attending the wedding of our close friends’ daughter. So I’ll miss my Friday ride, which would have been about 25 miles, and I’ll miss my Sunday ride, which would have been about 55-60 miles.

Pat wants to rent bikes in Chicago Friday afternoon, and do the lakefront ride we did in June. That’s fine, but it’ll be a nice easy pedal in the park. We probably won’t go as far as 15 miles, and we’ll average between 8 and 10 mph. Big wup.

I’ll get back to my regimen Tuesday. But — how much of a setback (if any) will those two missed longish rides cause? Frankly, I’m training to finish the century, but probably not to finish in style. I just want to survive it.

It’s my hope that because my fitness has markedly improved over the summer, I’ll be able to make up the lost ground relatively easily. Thoughts, anyone?

Windy City bike ride

June 29, 2008 at 4:35 pm | In Rides | 7 Comments
Tags: bike path, Chicago, hybrid, rentals

I just got back from a few days in Chicago, where I was attending a conference related to my work. The conference was fine, and I got a lot out of it, but it had nothing to do with biking, so that’s all I’m going to say about it.

But Chicago is another thing. Both I and my wife grew up in the Chicago area, and although we have no family left in town, there are some friends who we like to see whenever we have a chance to get back. And if you can couple the visit with friends and some biking, you’ve got the best of all possible worlds.

I’d like to urge everyone who has never been to get to Chicago. The trip downtown from O’Hare Airport was slick and cheap ($2 each) on the commuter train, which sailed by the multi-lane parking lot that is the Kennedy Expressway. The near north side around Navy Pier and the Magnificent Mile is great for walking, shopping, and dining. In the 30-some years we’ve been away, the city has become more people-friendly than ever.

Pat and I arranged to meet our friends Brad and Linda for a Saturday morning ride. A bike rental place sits at the entrance to Navy Pier, and I had made online reservations for a pair of hybrids. The bikes were ready when we got there at 9 a.m. After some quick adjustments, we were on our way.

If you choose to bike along the Lake Michigan shoreline, you can go either north or south from Navy Pier. We opted for south, because going north the bike route is too jammed with walkers and roller bladers. An asphalt path about six feet wide bears a yellow stripe down the middle — that denotes the bike route. Southbound is plenty crowded too, around Navy Pier. The route crosses the Chicago River where it meets the lake, and the way is constricted. Joggers, walkers and bikers all share the narrow walkway across the bridge, but then things start to spread out.

We set a steady, but not fast pace along Lake Shore Drive. Brad rides a recumbent every day, and it was no big deal for him, but Linda doesn’t ride a lot, and did a nice job keeping up. We rode through Grant Park, Chicago’s “beautiful front yard” with its stunning view of the city’s skyline to the right and the lake dotted with pleasure boats to the left.

Pat, followed by Linda, avoids a bad spot of trail.

We rode the trail around Shedd Aquarium, and passed Soldier Field and McCormick Place. Now the crowd really thinned out. It was still steady — just more gaps between people than there had been. The bikers ran the gamut from roadies in full kit to hybrid riders in t-shirts and shorts to mountain bikers in baggy cargo shorts to kids on 20-inch first bikes. The atmosphere was that of a pleasure ride. No one was trying to rack up major mileage, and it felt like the kind of riding I remember when I was growing up — we’d ride fairly long distances, but did it naturally, with no special equipment or clothing.

Just before reaching Jackson Park with its Museum of Science and Industry, we decided to stop and head back. We stopped for some Kodak Moments when we got back to Shedd Aquarium, then set off on the last leg of the ride.

Pat & Linda, with Brad in front on the recumbent.

The Bike Noob hisself, complete with helmet hair, shows off a Texas biking souvenir.

I had to stop to adjust a loose seat post, and when I finished, I couldn’t see Pat, Brad or Linda. I couldn’t tell if they’d passed me when I wasn’t looking, or if they hadn’t caught up to me yet. Since I hadn’t been riding very fast, I assumed they must have passed me, so I started out again. I stopped opposite Buckingham Fountain to take more pictures, and then saw them catching up to me.

Pat had hit a patch of water, the bike slid out from under her, and she took a tumble. She didn’t complain, and had very little road rash, although she landed on her tailbone and bad hip — the same places she hit when she was thrown from a horse last week! She led the way back to the bike rental shop, and we headed out for a welcome brunch.

It was a perfect day for riding — temperatures in the 70s, bright and sunny, a little breeze. As near as I can tell, using Map My Ride, we went about 13.5 miles. That’s way more than Linda normally rides, and it got her fired up to train for next month, when we’re all vacationing together in Michigan and plan to do a lot of biking.