Our ride into Chicago on Friday went surprisingly smoothly. It
could’ve been a lot worse. Coming from Indiana, we had to go directly through
South Side Chicago, which isn’t the safest place.
Luckily, Indiana came through again with its awesome trail
network. We were off and on three different trails in Indiana, and we took a
more southerly route because there were no good biking paths on a more direct
route into Chicago. We could afford to add a few miles because the entire day
ended up being only 53 miles: a piece of cake for us by now.
Route from Chesterton to Chicago |
This way we also bypassed Gary, Indiana, which we’ve heard
isn’t in the best condition. I was bummed because Gary is where The Music Man
takes place and I must’ve watched that musical a hundred times in elementary
school – our music teacher was obsessed with it.
We crossed the state line at mile 34, and much to our dismay
there was again no state sign :( We were prepared this time, though, because I Google-street-viewed the area and
warned the team not to expect a sign. We asked our hosts and they said the only
state signs were on the interstates, so unfortunately, no state sign picture
for us. As we passed through the mile marker we knew was the state line, the
road surfacing changed, and we asked a random guy walking on the side of the
road if this was Illinois. He said yes!
Once we were in Illinois, we had to navigate the South Side
and get up to the lake, where we would take Lakefront Trail all the way up to
where we needed to cut into the city. We stayed on bigger roads and figured
we’d be fine in groups of 5-6 in terms of safety. Unfortunately, we encountered
not one, but two major road closures on the fly. Road closures are our biggest
issue because there’s no way to predict them and it’s hard to reroute when we
already have 25 riders on the road. However, our vans took care of the reroutes
before we even got there, did an excellent job chalking, and we got through
fairly smoothly.
Well, not without one bump in the road: literally. There was
a giant hole, except I wouldn’t really even call it a hole; it was more like a
huge random gap in the sidewalk. My group was cruising along, with me bringing
up the rear, when all of a sudden I heard from the front, “HOLE!!!” followed by
a quick BUMP and a loud hiss…. as Chelsea’s tire immediately went flat. There
was one navigable path through the hole, and Chelsea didn’t have time to react
before going straight into it. I was
able to stop and clip out in time, avoiding the same fate happening to me.
The chalked warning we made after falling in the hole |
Chelsea changed her flat in the slightly sketchy area and then
we got the van to chalk “Giant Hole” in front of the offending beast. We also
posted in our team’s group text message about it. Unfortunately, even though
the later groups got the message, one person fell in it and another got a flat!
After what seemed like forever in the South Side, we finally
made it to Lakefront Trail, which was a welcome relief. As soon as we got a
good view of the Chicago skyline, we stopped to take some awesome pictures.
It was a little tricky getting off the trail and into the
city. Chicago lies somewhere on the bike-friendly spectrum between Pittsburgh
and Columbus. (In case you missed my earlier blog posts, Pittsburgh was our
worst nightmare and Columbus was basically a haven for bikes). There are plenty
of bike lanes and bike-friendly roads and signs, but the city isn’t as spacious
as Columbus. This means that while you do get your own space, you have heavy
traffic on your left and parked cars on your right, presenting the hazard of
getting “doored.” Along with all that, you still have to navigate directions,
stop at all the red lights making sure you don’t lose team members at red
lights, and navigate road hazards. This part of the ride was stressful, but it
was only about three miles.
Arriving at the host, we were thrilled with our
arrangements: we had suite-style dorms at the University of Illinois-Chicago,
and every rider got not only their own bed… but their own room!! We also had
linens and towels, so it was basically like a hotel. I knew that it was going
to be like this because I set up this host, but I left it a surprise for the
other riders.
Single rooms at University of Illinois-Chicago |
Lol, they thought we were the Portland Biker Conference...cute anyway :) |
That evening we went to a dinner in the suburbs of Chicago,
hosted by a UMD alum, Nichol James. Back in April, I decided to contact the UMD
alumni clubs across the country to see if they could help us out… that’s when I
found out that UMD alumni clubs don’t exist in the entire Midwest. However, there
was one in Chicago. I didn't think an alum would agree to feed a team
of cyclists, but I gave it a try anyway. When Nichol answered the phone, she was
THRILLED to plan a dinner for us. It
turned out that her daughter was a friend of 4K alumni Anne Smedinghoff, who was
killed in Afghanistan recently, and the day I called was the day of her memorial service.
It was a very strange connection.
We battled brutal Chicago rush hour traffic to get to
Nichol’s house, but once we got there it was amazing! Along with feeding us a ton of food, Nichol invited the members of the Chicago UMD Alumni club, as well as the Johns Hopkins alumni club. 7 of our riders go to UMD and two go to Hopkins. A few of the things we
had in store for us:
- Indoor pool
- Indoor hot tub
- 18 pizzas
- Garrett’s popcorn (famous in Chicago)
- Multiple cakes and brownies
- Snacks and hummus
- Fruit galore
- Fancy bar
- Use of her washer and dryer, which we took full advantage of with 4 loads of laundry
- Customized Hershey kisses with Maryland, 4K and Hopkins logos on them
- Lots of great company with UMD alums
The night was great, and we loved hanging out with UMD alums
from the 70’s to the 90’s. They were a lot of fun to share stories with.
The customized Hershey's kisses |
Name tags for the UMD alumni |
Terps napkins! Nichol had every type of Terp gear imaginable. |
Garrett's Popcorn!! |
Celebrating Gina's 20th birthday |
The next day was our rest day in Chicago. Everyone slept in
and then congregated in our ride directors’ room for breakfast – bagels, cream
cheese, and fruit that Nichol had sent with us! We then split off into groups
and explored the city. Some went sightseeing, some went out to eat, some
watched the Cubs game at a bar.
I went shopping with a group of girls. We set
off to see the Bean and go to Forever 21, which were about 3 miles away from
the dorms, and just shopped along the way.
And some got pedicures. Princess included, of course!! |
Chelsea and Julie eying the travel-size items at a beauty shop. |
We passed the filming of a BMW commercial! Not sure why they were using a Mercedes, though... |
At the Bean we ran into Paul, Porter, and Maroun, who had biked there! |
- Nail polish remover swabs – to get the sharpie
off my legs in future days!
- Self tanning lotion – for my upper legs… this is
something I thought I’d never buy, but IT’S NECESSARY!! Trust me you’d
sympathize if you could see my mid-thigh tan lines D: Amidst the team, no one
cares, but out in Chicago I was very self conscious!!
- A dress from Forever 21 – obviously I could not
leave this store without buying a dress because girl code.
Joanna getting a spontaneous cartilage piercing at Claire's |
We also went out to eat at a Thai restaurant.
We were beyond excited to be looking at menus and eating with real forks!! |
It was a fun, relaxing day. We also got to briefly meet up
with members of Team Seattle, who arrived in the city in the afternoon. We
weren’t really ready to leave Chicago… but it was time to go.
UIC welcomed Team Seattle too! |
The next morning started with a few complications when we
realized we couldn’t get the van out of the parking lot because the lot wasn’t
yet open for the day. Eventually we managed to get the parking attendant to
come in and unlock it for us, but we got off to a later start than we planned.
There were pros and cons to it being a Sunday morning. For
one, getting out of Chicago was relatively painless. There was almost no
traffic, so the biggest annoyance was the stoplights. Since we were staying on
the east side of the city, we had to go 13 miles before we were really out of
Chicago, and we also had to go through west Chicago. We again stayed on main
roads, and it being Sunday morning at 8 am, we didn’t run into any problems.
Coming out of the city, we ran into the con of it being a
Sunday morning. We were on a trail for almost 30 miles going through the
Chicago suburbs, and we found that, not surprisingly, the trail was a very
popular weekend activity. There were tons of cyclists, runners, walkers, and
families out on the trail. For a group of cyclists trying to go 16-18 mph, the
situation was less than ideal.
At one point on the trail, Julie ran into a pole and Dave
ran into her. I looked back with just enough time to see them both tip over at
the same time…they fell slightly into a creek. They had no scrapes or bruises
and came up laughing, and it was such a hilarious scenario that the whole group
laughed for about the next 5 miles.
We ran into some trouble when a section of the trail was
closed and we had to reroute yet again on the fly. Each group decided to do
something different, with one group trucking through the closed section… an
adventure that apparently involved walking across a long section of deep mud
and climbing a couple fences. They looked filthy when we saw them at the water
stop, but they said it was fun.
After we got off the trail and into the middle of nowhere,
Illinois, aka endless cornfields, we encountered the worst headwinds anyone had
ever seen.
Headwinds blowing through the grass |
Each pedalstroke took a lot of effort and it was very difficult to
ride through. Not only that, but it was also hot, in the upper 80s with the sun
beating down on us, and the wind was not much of a relief. We did our best to
stay in a close line to block the wind for each other, but the wind was so
strong that we all had a hard time anyway. It was also kind of scary because the
wind pushed and pulled my bike around. I had to hold on tight and keep my
weight balanced, or else I felt like I may have been pushed off the road. We
also couldn’t talk to each other due to the exertion and the wind, making for a
long, dragging ride.
After pushing our way through the lunch stop, we came upon the highlight of the day: the 25 burritos the food van managed to get donated from
Chipotle!! YAY!! But it gets better… I tweeted from the 4K account thanking
Chipotle, and they tweeted back!! I was a little starstruck :)
After lunch came the fun part of the day. We were starting
to notice a gloomy gray on the horizon when we heard updates on our phones. We
stopped to check our group text and saw our ride director announcing that a
storm was approaching that was expected to bring penny sized hail and 50 mph
winds. The water stop was 7 miles away.
We continued riding, but we were riding straight into the storm.
Read my next post to read about our storm experience!
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