The Chicago Cycling Clubs
Ultimate Neighborhood Ride
by Michael
Heyes |
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Ive always heard that you can never REALLY see the
countryside until youve ridden through it by bicycle. I love Chicago, and
so I decided to see if this would be true for Big City Urban Exploring. Thanks
to the Chicago Cycling club (www.chicagocyclingclub.org) I got my chance. I
registered early, and was rider number 4.
This year was the 5th year for this event. Held on July 8
this year, and starting from North Park Village on Chicagos north side,
this tour offered ride distances of 20 or 30 miles, the requisite Really Cool
T-shirt, and the optional docent tour. For $1 over the regular ride fee, a CCC
member would escort you on the ride and explain exactly what you were riding
through. Sorta like a city-site-seeing-tour by bicycle.
There were several docent tour groups at the ride, each
with 10 - 15 riders. The average riding speed for our group was between 12-14
mph, allowing us to look around and see the neighborhoods, including Old Town,
Wicker Park, Lakeview, St. Bens, Andersonville, Uptown and many more. As
wed ride through the neighborhoods we would stop at various places of
interest and our docent guide would explain what we were looking at. After this
brief stop, its onwards to the next spot. And there were many spots too!
The background sheet our docent had was 16 pages long and there were multiple
stops on most pages. |
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Traffic was virtually nonexistent in most places on this
Sunday morning, and even when we rode in downtown the traffic was generally
light. Actually, it didnt seem any busier than Fort Wayne. Another plus
was that the drivers werent a bunch of rednecks trying to exert
their (limited) manhood by running cyclists off the road. |
What did we see? I am certainly going to leave a lot of
the sites out, but Ill try to hit the highlights. Believe it or not, by
1910 Chicago was the center of Americas new moving picture industry, and
Essanay Studios was a pioneer in the field. Before the industry moved on to
Hollywood, a number of movies were filmed there, including Charlie
Chaplins His New Job. Thats me in the doorway of the
studio. In Uptown, there was the Uptown Theatre, built in 1925, with 4,381
seats. The only place with more is Radio City Music Hall. Near the Theatre is
the Green Mill Lounge, still one of the hottest jazz clubs in Chicago.
The story goes that Al Capone had a table there, located in the middle, up
against the wall (of course), where he could see both the entrance and exit of
the joint. The building to the left of this paragraph is the Uptown Broadway
Building, which is a visual encyclopedia with human faces, animal heads and
foliage on the terra cotta, built in Spanish Baroque style. |
This brought us to the first of four rest stops along the
way at Urban Bikes. The shop is located really close (see picture) to the
L train. Scream the following: IT IS VERY LOUD
HERE!! every 10 minutes or so and youll know what it was
like at the stop. They even had a bicycle taxi there. Fun.
From there we went by many more wonderful old homes, all
with various styles, and arrived at the Alta Vista Terra, a re-creation of the
row houses in London. There are 20 houses on the street, 10 on each side, and
mirrored, so the first house on the left matches the last house on the right,
and so on, until the last house on the left matches the first house on the
right. Beautiful! Expensive! Shortly after that was Wrigley field, second only
to Bostons Fenway Park in beauty and history (heh heh). Unfortunately,
the Cubbies werent home that weekend so I couldnt see park from the
bleachers. |
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We went through neighborhoods that were burned down in
the Chicago fire, saw wooden houses that didnt burn (after the fire,
Building Code changes made it more economical to build with brick), the
No Two Alike neighborhood where, er, no two buildings are alike in
style or appearance, St. Alphonsus parish, a focal point for the German
Catholic population, and many more interesting buildings. |
One of the funniest things I saw, which I didnt have
time to stop and take a picture of, was the most unique road hazard I think I
have ever seen. In the middle of the road, expertly circled and with the
appropriate warning label was: RAT!. Yup, dried up and flat as a
pancake, one medium sized Chicago rat. Oh stop, its the middle of a major
metropolitan city. Like youve never seen one.
One thing I would do to prepare for this ride in the
future is to hit the gym and work on the hand grips. My hands were so sore and
tired by the end of the ride I couldnt believe it. Now, this ride was
only 30 miles long, but it wasnt any ride in the country folks. According
to the cue sheet, there were nearly 100 turns! Hey Gene, howd you like to
mark that course? In fact, Rob, our docent guide, said that marking the course
was the biggest challenge of putting this ride together. |
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The Chicago Cycling Club is to be commended for putting
together such an interesting, well run and supported tour. The road markings
were excellent, the roads we road on were actually better than most of Fort
Waynes (not saying much), the sags were great, and the volunteers were
plentiful and pleasant. There were volunteers out at every intersection that
might have been a little tricky to point you in the right direction.
Best of all was Robs suggestion for an after ride
recovery meal, Chicago style: SUPERDAWG! Superdawg is a
drive-in style, ala A&W, spot with real Chicago style hot dogs.
Theyve got Super Burgers too. Great fries, and wonderfully thick
milkshakes. A great way to end a great ride! |
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