According to Google, if I drive home from work, it’s 14 miles. If I walk, the fastest route is 10 miles, though it goes through some seriously sketchy parts of town. You can’t actually get Google to admit that you can walk on the Lake Shore path, but if you fiddle around, you can fake it and determine it’s about 13-14 miles via bicycle to get home from the office.. When you add in the 3 miles I biked in the morning, and the ‘Crap, I’m lost’ mile or so when I took a wrong turn downtown, I ended up biking about 20 miles on Thursday. And my legs are still mad at me.
My plan, Thursday, was to leave early, hit up some friends at a hotel, and go home. Since the hotel was staffed by morons, and demanded that SuzieBills didn’t exist (liars!) and even when I showed them the name, I wrote it down, they couldn’t find her, I didn’t get to see her. Stupid hotel.
Admittedly the part about the trip I liked least was something I’d been avoiding for months. I had no real interest in riding my bike downtown. But I did. It was faster, though next time I’m going to bike straight to the lake and take that to Navy Pier, since it’s safer. A car cut in front of me, and another slammed on the brakes for no reason. I slammed on my brakes and managed to flip my bike over. I also was able to catch myself, jump off the bike, and catch it by the handles, easnig the bike’s crash and never actually falling, myself. Which made me feel like the stupidest bad-ass ever.
After I’d biked to their hotel and was lied to by their hotel (and yes, I wrote a scathing complain and dropped it off this morning), I realized I had two options to get home: Bike back through downtown to the train and take the next train (5:35pm) home, or bike the whole way.
You already know which one I picked.
The bike ride was easy, but the after effects were killer. I had no problem with the riding, my legs felt fine almost the whole way. The problems were my tush and my calves the next day. Heck, even today my calves are rocks. Angry rocks! At the 2/3rds mark, I had to stop and get off the saddle, because my butt was so numb, it was making my legs numb. That pressure point is just nuts! I took the time to massage my legs some and stretch, and then I went on. After a call home to assure everyone I wasn’t dead, I headed out the rest of the way.
It was about 2 miles later that my legs decided a Charley Horse was in order. The bitches! So long as I kept pedaling, it didn’t hurt, so that’s what I did. I promised myself a long bath at the end of the ride, which made me miss Japan terribly. In Japan, I’d have a special super hot tub. I need a Japanese Bathing Room in my dream house.
The actual Lake Shore Bike Path ends about 2 miles before Chicago ends, and since my street is one mile before then, I spent a mile biking side streets in a ‘designated off the lake bike path.’ When I figure out which brain trust thought that SPEED BUMPS on a bike path were a good idea, I will shoot him. Or better, make him ride a bike with no shocks down that street until something breaks or bleeds. Seriously stupid.
I made it home, though, and I think that maybe once a month I should try this. It wasn’t terrible, all told, but it was tiring. Which means there’s no real end to this post. I like to leave you with a ‘meh’ feeling!
Happy Birthday to Taffy, my grandmother!