I’ve been in Chicago for over a decade, but I’ve never done Bike the Drive. Until now.
In my defense, I’ve only owned a bike for a year, and last year I wasn’t in good-enough bike-shape to consider it. But now I am, and I went with my buddy Sabrina on my very first “Bike the Drive.” She tells me, beforehand, that we have to go slow. I agree to this, thinking that my bike has 13″ tires (compared to the common 26″), so even if we do 15 miles, I’ll have biked 30 since, hi, tire size. This proved right, since I felt pretty good after the 15, and like I could do 15 more, but I’m glad I didn’t.
What was it like? Weird. I’ve driven Lake Shore Drive enough times now that I’m used to a certain ebb and flow. I’m used to the speed of the traffic and the sound. I’ve also biked (and rollerbladed) the bike-path, but you get the same sort of traffic sounds. Instead, it was quiet. Oh, sure, part of that was because it was 6:00am on a bloody Sunday (I got up at 4:30am, biked to the Red Line, trained to downtown, and biked to Grant Park). But the bigger part was just no cars. Just me and my 20,000 closest bike buddies.
The had food and water every 7 miles, which was perfect (you would run out about there with a water bottle), and the food was Kosher! Bananas, cookies, even the muffins! If your bike broke down, someone would get you a volunteer to fix it. Everyone was cool and encouraging and cheering. I even saw a few other people with foldy-bikes.
On the bad side, one guy died of a heart attack about 8am (he was biking the North Route to Lakeview, Sabrina and I did the south one to the Museum of Science and Industry). Also, as Sabrina and I were going past Soldier Field, a young girl (maybe 7?) had the chain come off her bike. She did the right thing and coasted to the side. The problem was they had not blocked the whole road off. The far right, southbound, lane was still open for traffic. A couple cars had gone by, though rather slow, and there were cones demarcating the line. The little girl pulled over to the cone area, and this asshole didn’t see her and didn’t start slowing down till it was too late. It was VERY lucky that he only clipped her. She was able to get up and was howling. We all stopped, Sabrina and I whipped out the phones to call 911, and we waited for the cop to get there and take over.
I have no idea if she’s okay, and if you know, I would really like to know. I’m more than happen to serve as a witness for this one. And the city should never have let people drive along the biking! That’s just insanely dangerous! The law says that when you see orange cones, you are to slow down. The speed limit on that part of LSD was 45mph anyway, and he was zooming along pretty fast. I know on the freeway, if you normally go 55/60, you’re supposed to drop down to 45, so I can presume that at a norm of 45, you’re supposed to go down to the 30s. That’d still do serious damage, but it’s a hell of a lot better than 45!
Thankfully, she was alive and looked okay when we left. I hope she was okay. Poor kid.
And still, even though there was that, I’m very much doing this again next year.