One rider’s trek in the night

Submitted on Tue, 07/17/2007 – 14:19.

Story by Tammy Green

On Sunday, July 15th, I decided to bike through the city with 10,000 like-minded people. What made it unusual and exciting was the 1:30 a.m. start time – a time when I’m usually asleep in my bed with my comforter tucked under my chin. Not on Sunday!

Sunday’s ride was the L.A.T.E. ride (http://www.lateride.org/) in support of the Friends of the Parks http://www.fotp.org/), an organization that supports Chicago’s parks.

While I was pleased my entry fee was going toward a worthy cause, what drew me to the ride was the chance to meet new people and see the city from a new perspective as well as the adventure of staying out late to ride my bike.

The thrill of being out with my bike carried me through the experience of getting it to Buckingham Fountain. There were delays due to track work on the Brown Line, and knowing this, I had left extra time to get downtown.

At Western, my riding buddy and I were told to go to the other platform in order to catch the train Downtown. We realized this was incorrect at the bottom of the stairs and had to haul our bikes back to the first platform, but despite the snafu, we were soon on our way. More riders got on at every stop and the CTA seemed pretty cool about letting the “two bikes to every car” rule slide for this occasion.

The next part of the adventure was picking up my race packet. I had made a last-minute decision to join the ride, so we had to wade through a sea of people and bikes to get my race packet. The packet featured a magazine, T-shirt, enough coupons to choke a forest and tampons.

Yes, tampons. I’m still unclear why feminine hygiene products were an appropriate give-away for a mixed gender and age-disparate crowd. I refuse to dwell too deeply on what the sponsor’s had in mind for that promotion, but it did provide amusing conversation with the guys who were waiting in line. Let’s just say I’m stocked up for the coming months.

My late sign-up also meant that I was in the next-to-last group, orange. The blue group left around 1:30 a.m., but ours didn’t get rolling until about 2:15 a.m., which left us at the M.C.’s mercy for the next 45 minutes.

Let me just say there are only so many puns and verbal surveys a group can handle at that hour. My opinion is the ride sponsors should have kept the warm-up band on stage. They were rocking the crowd before things got underway and kept people pumped up.

Instead, people decided to block the pain of M.C. jokes by laying down in the street for a nap. My advice? Get there late if you have a late start – there’s no reason to hurry through the registration just to wait in the lakefront chill and enforced cheer.

Sixty-eight degrees might not sound chilly, but combined with the wind and our movement it was enough to warrant a jacket. Things improved once we made our way down Roosevelt Road toward Greek Town, and it stayed pretty nice as long as I worked up a sweat.

The ride was basically a big circle around Chicago – up Elston to Foster, through Lakeview to the bike trail and back toward Buckingham Fountain. However, I was a little disappointed the ride didn’t have more of a neighborhood vibe. The bikers themselves were a well-behaved, quiet group, aside from the occasional boom box.

In fact, the only rowdiness came from the oncoming traffic as people leaned out of car windows to scream at us and honked when we went through intersections. I don’t know if all that racket was favorable or not. It was hard to tell if they were happy to see a hour-long parade of bikes pouring through the streets. Personally, I thought it was pretty cool.

We took a break at the Foster mid-point to stock up on water and use the facilities. The event organizers had everything well laid-out here and indeed, along the whole of the ride. There were volunteers at virtually every intersection, repair stations at regular intervals, and emergency vehicles parked along the way.

However, I noticed that most of the break-downs occurred on the first stage of the ride along Roosevelt. Seems that a number of riders didn’t check out their bikes before they got started. The organizers were on top of it, though. can\’t say enough about how hard these folks worked to pull off seamless event!

For me, the best part of the ride came at the end. The stop had sapped my momentum and crowds leaving the mid-point party had slowed things down. Something needed to happen and that something was speed! When we left the streets for the trail, we were able to tackle the path without the bother or worry of tourists, stroller-buggy-skaters or pedestrians.

We enjoyed it until the trail narrowed down to two and three riders across. Fun! It was at the point where the trail veers off to Navy Peer that I nearly wiped out. The bike path was the darkest part of the ride and the narrowest, and most parties had to go single file. This worked fine until a guy decided to see if his wife was still behind him.

Some people can turn their heads whereas others need to turn their whole bodies (and bikes!) to get a look. As he turned into my bike, I had a horrible vision of wiping out and a thousand bicycles piling on top of me. I powered through the worst of it and escaped with a little off-roading and a few bruises. He called after me to make sure I was all right, but the trail wasn’t a place for a social stop, so I kept moving.

The final reward of the ride was sunrise and watching the early morning hit the skyline. We finished the ride but decided to skip the breakfast line – I had a vision of pancakes and coffee that didn’t include a 20-minute wait.

We headed back to the Loop to catch the train home. The CTA made up for their earlier mess by stationing an attendant at the bottom of the Adams stop. She double-checked where we were going, told us the Brown Line wasn’t running yet and gave alternatives to get to our location. I was grateful for the customer service and the plan to get me to a much-needed cup of coffee!

It was a great ride and a definitive Chicago experience. Would I do it again? I don’t know yet – ask me after I’ve caught up on my sleep!

My L.A.T.E. ride by-the-numbers: