FuzzyCo

Bike the Drive is awesomely simple: Lake Shore Drive is closed down for a whole Sunday morning and you can ride your bike up and down. It's not a race -- there's not even a single start time or place. I think everyone in Chicago should do it once. But after you've done it that once, it's not the most exciting of events. I haven't done the BTD in years.

But this year I realized that the BTD is a great biking training opportunity. It's 30 miles of open road with no cars or joggers or rollerbladers or strollers or etc.s careening across your path. Erica was a little nervous about the bike leg of the Chicago Triathlon, which is also on LSD, and so I persuaded her that this would be a good trial run with a lot less pressure. I also persuaded her to do the whole shebang — 15 miles down to the Museum of Science and Industry and then all the way back. (Fortunately we're close to the top of the Drive and so a starting point of the ride.) I have to say that I'm really proud of Erica. Those 31 miles were the longest she's ever biked ever -- her previous max was 18 miles in one day, with many hours between two 9 mile legs.

So, Shaun gave me a pair of clipless* pedals for my road bike and I went out last weekend and bought a pair of shoes to use with them. I probably got a slightly better shoe than I really need, but I found a pair at Turin that felt really comfortable, and with my wide feet it's sometimes hard for me to find athletic shoes that just fit.

I rode over the weekend with the bike in my training stand and it felt really good. And I rode to work on Tuesday and had a great time. In hindsight it was a rather overcast day, and actually started drizzling on the way home, which kept the path pretty clear. Today I rode to work, with my brand-new shoes on, and coming home the lake path was packed. Dogs and children and strollers and rollerbladers just seemed to leaping out onto the path from every corner. I was terrified, because I'm not really that good at getting my shoes out of the pedals yet, and I was riding with my hands on the brakes most of the way, ready to screech to a halt. I made it almost all the way home and a couple blocks from my house I had to brake suddenly (at a Stop sign, duh) and completely failed to get either foot out of the clips** and just toppled right over. I scraped up my knee pretty good. It being prime bike-commuting time, there were 4 other cyclists at the stop sign who all asked if I was OK. I felt pretty dumb.

I think I'm going to ride the road bike and it's fancy cliplessness on early morning weekend 'training' rides and just ride my mountain bike, with it's plain-old-just-pedals-for-regular-shoes to work. And hey, tomorrow is the big Bike to Work rally at Daley Plaza. See you there, bright and early?

* I guess I get that "clipless" is in contrast to toe-clip pedals, but it just seems very confusing since you do, in fact, clip the "cleat" into the pedal. "Bottom clip" or something would make more sense.
** Dangit, I'm going to call them that.

(Originally published on the Chicago Metblog.)

The Chicago Park District is running a challenge all summer (Memorial Day to Labor Day) to ride your bike along the entire 18 mile Lakefront Path, from the Margate Fieldhouse (4921 N Marine Dr) to Rainbow Beach & Park (3111 E 77th St) (or vice versa). Complete the challenge and you'll get a t-shirt (they call it a "yellow jersey", but it's a t-shirt) (and they were out of smalls).

Two friends and I completed the challenge this weekend and it was a great way to spend a Sunday morning. Path traffic wasn't too bad except in the Belmont to Navy Pier stretch, and even there I only got into two near-accidents.

I'll add to the official information a couple of hints:

• Coming from the south, take the next underpass to the left after Lawrence to get to the Margate Fieldhouse. If you get to Foster, you've gone too far.
• Coming from the north, when the trail ends, just keep going south on the sidewalk until you get to the northern corner of Rainbow Park. Follow the dirt path to the basketball court, turn right onto the path past the handball courts, take a left at the memorial to the Rainbow Division and follow the road down through the parking lot to the main building.
• The hours for the two buildings are more complicated than what are listed (for example, the Margate Fieldhouse doesn't open until 9 on weekends). The hours are changing throughout the summer, too, so it'd be best to call ahead and make sure the buildings are open when you plan to start out on your trip.
• Don't forget sunscreen -- my elbows are pink.

The staff person at the Margate Fieldhouse told us that about 14 people had completed the challenge so far. So there should be plenty of t-shirts left.