I thought it was just a silly Chicago local yokel myth, how riding to work becomes riding for recreation becomes riding to everywhere, all the time. And then it happened to me-- I became so obsessed with cycling that I forgot that other people like it, too.
I am slowly morphing into a new being-- a caricature of an urbanite, covered in and cash-drained by a dizzying array of saftey gadgets, bike tools, accessibility features, and high-end replacement parts. I talk at very, very disinterested people about the best routes to work, the best rides in the city, the stupidity and arrogance of sidewalk riders, and the most recent manner in which I was almost killed by an oblivious motorist.
This whole time I am aware, as are my bemused co-workers, that I have undertaken a very common transformation. I have transmogrified from a normal city-dweller into a time-honored, oft-satirized breed: The Chicago Bike Commuter.
The breed is so well-recognized that savvy NPO fundraisers can organize entire multi-million dollar benefits around our fantasies. Case in point: the 20th annual McDonald's L.A.T.E. ride to benefit the Friends of the Parks. A brilliant idea. Take over 25 miles of prime Chicago boulevard and lake frontage for 6 hours and get people to sign up to bike it for $40.
Wait, how are we going to get thousands of the classically broke Commuter species to shell out that kind of green? Oh yeah, the ride starts at midnight (that kind of little detail's not icing, folks-- that's the whole cake).
So, this event and the corresponding media coverage aren't exactly news to the locals, but it took my brain about 3 minutes to explode after checking out the webisite. An overnight ride? Up to 10,000 riders? Drunk bystanders cheering you on? 25 road miles? Breakfast?! Once Christa covered my broke ass with the registration fee, I could attend with a clear conscience.
What? Friends of the Parks does important stuff, man.
I should take this opportunity to point out to anyone not living in the midwest that Chicago is a flat, flat city. Someone on the ride said it best when they said, "We don't have hills here, just inclines." So, don't get any big ideas about how tough this ride must have been. There were children there. Small ones.
Lots of them.
So there we are, 9,900 bicycle dorks and about 100 casual riders, straddling our bikes on the corner of Congress and Jackson at midnight, waiting for an obnoxious announcer's countdown and an airhorn. They sent us out in five heats, of which I was in the last. I put myself wayyyy in the back, to facilitate the maximum amount of "chilling", oblivious to the fact that I was about become very, very weary of "chill" in general.
You see, there are lot of people. So many people that getting any kind of useful cardio excercise is an hilarious joke until about mile 5. Oh, by the way, it takes over an hour to get to mile 5, on account of there being so many people.
Did I mention the crowds?
If you know me at all, you can see how I might have been a little antsy and ready to start actually pedaling, for fuck's sake, at that point. It occurs to me that anyone who has ever done any kind of mass ride or run is probably familiar with the following scenario: If you really plan on getting past people, or on making better time, you have to go around them-- and that involves riding in the opposing lane of traffic.
Remember, it's about 2 A.M. at this time, so there's not a lot of traffic on the surface streets. However, due to the sheer density of riders next to you, you will manage to rejoin the pack in what seems like just enough time to avoid getting clipped by a pissed, speeding motorist. Thanks a lot, asshole! That's a really fair game of chicken! Yeah!
Once I was able to work up a sweat at will (the herd-like convoy eventually thins out to a mere steady gush of cyclists), I got more comfortable with taking "chill" breaks and just riding with the pack-- and that's when being a lone rider gets interesting.
Eavesdropping. You can't do it in public with a partner.
A couple cruised by me, the girl telling a pointless story punctuated by a bad joke, which she caps off by laughing at her own bad joke. They were followed by another couple (presumably unacquainted) who were mocking them. The guy made a churlish face and said, in a whiny pitch: "Myah myah myah myah! Tee hee hee!"
That slayed me.
Also on tap: Three lifelong buds (in their 60s) cracking wise about everything (sample at mile 12: "Rest stop?! I thought we were still at the start line!"); A pod of sorority sisters communicating exactly as one would expect; a middle-aged married couple fighting, and pedaling away from each other when the outrage was too much to bear. Somewhere on the ride, a person died, and somewhere further along the route, a person was born.
Okay, not that last thing, exactly, but I did see a young couple groping each other on the lakefront at sunrise.
Oh yeah, the best part of the ride: even if it hadn't been the most legal fun I've had in months (it was), it would've all been redeemed by watching the sun come up on the open, unobstructed Lake Michigan with the John Hancock building behind me. The lakefront path is weird there-- on some kind of inexplicable slope towards the lake, completely concrete, no grass. I took a few photos, sprayed a few gnat swarms with pure 100% DEET, and pushed on to Buckingham fountain, and the promised, long-awaited, McDonalds-supplied breakfast.
Naturally I was nervous-- there's nothing on their breakfast menu for a vegetarian! In hindsight, the idea that McDonalds would donate their hot, money-making death pucks to thousands of freeloaders is quite naive. Here is what they handed out: A plastic-- PLASTIC bag, Friends of the Parks-- with a McDonald's bagel (what, never had one?), McDonald's plain cream cheese, 5 of those floury "shortbread" cookies that they sell to your children, and somthing called "apples" that was chopped into sections and peeled before being heremtically sealed in yet another (sigh) plastic bag. It was once an apple, that much is certain, but that must have been before the geniuses involved with McDonald's commercial bioengineering arm (A.K.A. Monsanto) got their hands on it. It tasted like crisp, wet sponge. I can only hope that some creature at the bottom of the trash can found it to be edible.
In my starving, tired delerium, I had flashes of the website-- something about how they had been looking for volunteers to bake thousands of chocolate-chip cookies.... hey, wait a minute-- where were the goddamn COOKIES?!
I dashed to a tent dutifully marked "REFRESHMENTS" to find pint-sized amounts of pomegranate kefir (score!) and granola bars. Not bad, but I can smell the...
There! Another McDonald's tent! And what're those in the little paper sleeves being handed out with the fake bagels?
I staggered up to the nice, nice, volunteer behind the counter, who made ready with another breakfast package for my childish, bogarting countenance. "Man, I really just want one of those--" I started to stammer, but before I could say "cookies", the very smart man had placed two-- TWO of them in my hands.
Friends, I devoured those motherfuckers, you know I did. And I'm sure there was chocoalte on my face afterwards, and for the entire 6 mile ride home from the fountain, and maybe even-- well, let's just say I haven't exactly looked in a mirror since the ride. But, you know, my co-workers would tell me if I had been walking around all day with yesterday's chocolate smeared on my face. Right, guys?
Guys?
Tired Rider At Dawn
