At Large Chicago’s Bike the Drive
posted by May 29 at 11:06 AM
onI got up on Sunday morning of Memorial Day Weekend at 4:45 AM, hopped on a rented bike, and met my brother on Chicago’s fifteen-mile lake-front bike path, and headed downtown before the sun came up. My brother has to be at the front of the starting line for Bike the Drive—my brother has to be at the front of every line—and cyclists start lining up at the starting line in Chicago’s Grant Park at 5 AM.
Bike the Drive is an annual event that draws tens of thousands of Chicagoans to the lakefront—and raises shitloads of money for Chicago’s kick-ass bike organization, the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation. The city closes all six lanes of Lake Shore Drive for four and a half hours on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, Chicago shuts down all six lanes of Lake Shore Drive for cyclists. Twenty thousand people show up—racing maniacs, families, little old ladies on tricycles for grownups, paraplegics on arm-pedeled bikes. Despite the fact that it was pouring rain at 5:30 AM for this year’s BTD, turnout was as high as its ever been.
It costs $35 to participate—and your money gets you a t-shirt, food-stocked rest stops at both ends of the route and in the mid-way point, and a fleet of roving bike repair men and women in case you get a flat or break a chain. Biking should be like this every day of the year.
Biking the drive with my brother—we did two and half loops of the fifteen-mile drive, clocking in 45 miles before 9 AM—was a delight (even if he did bitch about the rain non-stop). But I couldn’t help but think of Joel Connelly’s dystopian vision of Seattle in 2077. If we fail to bring the environmental extremists in our midst to heel—particularly one shadowy enviroterrorist who goes by the initials “ECB”—Joel predicted that one day bikes—oh, the horrors!—would rule the streets.
Well, Bike the Drive provided a real-life glimpse of Joel’s terrifying vision—here was Joel’s dystopian future made manifest! Tens of thousands of bikes! Taking over a six-lane freeway originally built for cars! And riding the length of the city as if they had a right to be there!
You might not want to look at this next picture, Joel, until you’re sitting on the toilet. Wouldn’t want you to drop a load in your trousers:
Comments
awesome
wow. what a great prospect. miles and miles of bikes.
Awesome. We should do this on 520 or something!
Critical Mass rode the viaduct this past Friday. We managed to piss off about 10 miles of gridlocked drivers.
So fucking retarded.
It's cool how everyone can afford to live within biking distance of their houses and there's no such thing as handicapped people and it never rains or is cold and no one ever has to transport anything.
@5
So instead of creating a system that allows people who do have the option to bike/walk/skateboard/run/skip or drive/bus to their destination, we should always defer to the car. We should creat our infastructure to accommodate the least amount of people and create the most pollution.
Car drivers think they own the road, and share space only reluctantly. Well guess what, I pay taxes for those streets too, and if I want to have the [b]option[/b] of biking on it, it should be available.
While it's usually good for a debate to have voices from two sides... Joel Connelly seriously needs to shut the fuck up forever.
I'm looking forward to a couple of things in the near future: more expensive gas and banning drivers from holding cell phones to their heads.
6 - I have no problems with sharing the road. Sharing isn't the same thing as taking over.
As the global meltdown speeds up, gasoline hits $100 a gallon, and the giant rats take over the stadiums, it will be more and more necessary to have bicycle skills and a working system of bike routes. Why postpone the inevitable? Let's start planning for the future while we have time!
I agree with zzyzx @5 - the Government should make it difficult to bike, walk, use mass transit or other auto alternatives. That'd give us only one viable transportation option: driving. That way, we can increase pollution and stress, diabetes, asthma and other diseases, while discouraging physical fitness and walkable neighborhoods. It's also a good economic development tool, as it forces us to buy gasoline, insurance, motor vehicles, tires, and the like, while increasing spending on health care.
Oh, we're doing that already?
So let me get this straight: Dan wants to pay $35 every day to bicycle-commute? That what he said: "Biking should be like this every day of the year". Interesting.
It's also interesting that this fabulous city that Dan is rightfully so proud of and so excited by has six lanes of freeway running along its shore, when we have all learned from The Stranger's viaduct coverage that such a thing must inevitably destroy any city fool enough to have one.
@5
Aaaaa, doesn't everyone live in biking distance of their house? I mean, you live at your house...so you don't really have to get on your bike at all to be there right?
Confidential to Joel Connelly: If you're going to go insane in public, do it with some style.
Why should the opinions on physical exercise and living from someone who is morbidly obese be taken seriously enough to appear straight-faced in a respectable daily newspaper? I'm sorry, I don't want to make anyone who is moderately overweight feel bad about themselves, and I sure as hell don't want to abet the fashion industry's teenage-boy-body model for women, but Jesus Christ, when someone is fat as a house and they concoct such a transparently and weirdly envious, laughable dystopian fantasy about everyone being forced to ride bikes, shouldn't a hush of embarassment descend on their behalf?
You know, I used to be pro-bike. I rode everywhere; I rode to work in the heat and in the snow in Boston. I rode on the expressway-like streets of San Jose. I rode the hills of Seattle. I didn't even have a drivers license until after I was forty.
But I don't anymore. I drive my shitty car around, about 750 miles a year, just the way I like it. And a large part of the reason is the sanctimonious attitude of the bike people. It's a fascist tyranny of youth, and I don't like it. Ooh, Joel Connelly is fat, therefore he's full of shit. Ooh, Critical Mass is so awesome, putting it to the man.
There are MORE moral scolds on the left than there are on the right. You people are every bit as bad as Jerry Falwell ever was.
Hey Fnarf, why not bus your fat ass around if you don't want to bike?
Yes, Fnarf, moralists on the left and right can be equally annoying, but I haven't the faintest idea what that has to do with riding bicycles.
Cycling is like any other sport. People who are into it like to share their enthusiasm. I just got a sweet new road bike this spring, and suddenly I'm into riding almost as much as snowboarding. It's the speed, man. And a 45 mile ride through Chicago at sunrise would be killer and your body would feel great the rest of the day.
Besides, at some point you need to pick a sport that you can do into your 60's, maybe longer, or resign yourself to dying, fat and impotent, of a heart attack at 62. Biking is a much better choice than golf or nothing.
I can walk my commute considerably more quickly than than I can bus it, because the routes are bad for me.
My problem isn't with bicycling as sport or basic transport; it's with people who think that because it's what you want it's what everybody else should want too.
As for sports, I'll take interpretive dance and typing. Oh, and this weekend I discovered Wii boxing--and I can kick your ass.
Poor Fnarf. First he reads a few too many blog posts and, being an impressionable sort, becomes convinced that all bikers are unbearably sanctimonious. And then, believing in this myth so deeply, he actually stops riding his bike in protest. Sad, really.
so because some bikers are really annoying, you let that determine what you will or will not do? gee, there are some really annoying vegetarians out there. i'm going to start eating veal, despite what i believe.
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