Lives in my hometown.
Lake Shore Drive the road is called,
and it’ll take you up or down
From Rats on up to Riches,
Fifteen minutes you can fly.
Pretty blue lights along the way,
Help you ride on by.”
— “Lake Shore Drive” by Aliotta-Haynes-Jeremiah
“Lake Shore Drive” is one of my favorite one-hit wonder songs from the early 1970s. It pays homage to a highway Chicagoans refer to as LSD. The song refers to a gasoline-powered car trip, but on Memorial Day weekend I was tripping the light fantastic on my bike.
Chicago’s ninth annual Bike the Drive uses all 15 miles of the four-lane expressway that runs alongside the Lake Michigan shoreline. It takes you past some of Chicago’s top attractions, such as Soldier Field, Museum of Science and Industry, Field Museum and Chicago’s skyscraper-studded skyline. On most days, the road is choked with carbon monoxide-belching cars. For four and a half peaceful hours, cars are banned and bikes rule the road. Near perfect weather this year helped the car-free celebration draw close to 24,000 riders.
The Active Transportation Alliance and MB Financial Bank sponsor Bike the Drive. The mission of the Active Transportation Alliance, which grew out of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, is “to make bicycling, walking and public transit so safe, convenient and fun that we will achieve a significant shift from environmentally harmful, sedentary travel to clean, active travel. We advocate for transportation that encourages and promotes safety, physical activity, health, recreation, social interaction, equity, environmental stewardship and resource conservation.”
Bike the Drive and the Long After Twilight Ends Ride are two of the largest cycling charity rides in the Windy City. While Bike the Drive is an early bird affair, starting just after sunrise, the L.A.T.E. Ride, held in July, is a night owl bash that starts at about 2:30 a.m., worms its way through the streets of Chicago and finishes at sunrise. Both rides start downtown at Grant Park. The L.A.T.E. Ride route is a loop that courses through the arterial streets of the city, working its way back to the lakefront and finishing on a bike path parallel to Lake Shore Drive. By contrast, Bike the Drive hugs the lakefront for the entire route. Participants in the L.A.T.E. Ride are sent off in controlled waves, like the American Birkebeiner cross-country ski race, while Bike the Drive riders are free to show up when they feel and just start riding.
For the most recent event, Lake Shore Drive opened to bikers at 5:30 a.m. Most of the hard-core riders start early, while the families tend to get started later in the morning. All riders have to start before 9 a.m. and have to be off the drive by 9:45 a.m. Cyclists enter the course at the intersection of Columbus and Jackson streets, which is roughly in the middle. You have the option to go north or south and loop your way back. The full circuit is 30 miles. Riders have the option to make the ride shorter by leaving from one of several checkpoints.
Because individual riders show up as they wish and set their own pace, the event is suitable for riders of all ages and abilities. Some folk choose to treat it as a leisurely cruise. With the sun starting to peek out over the horizon, it is tempting to stop and take it all in. The hard-core riders are just as free to form minipelotons and hammer down the left-hand side of the expressway.
I have pedaled the L.A.T.E. Ride numerous times, but this was my first Bike the Drive. My older daughter Amy is also a veteran of several L.A.T.E. Rides – for which sleep deprivation, rather than mileage, is the biggest obstacle. I’m not a morning person, yet Amy and I get up at 4:30 a.m. at our suburban home to make the start time. Caffeine is the recreational drug of choice for me to make that event. (Some have suggested “Lake Shore Drive” is a thinly-veiled drug song instead of a tribute to one of the most famous streets in the city.)
“And there ain’t no road just like it,
Anywhere I’ve found.
Running south on Lake Shore Drive,
Heading into town.
Just slipping on by on LSD,
Friday night trouble bound.”
The band claimed this song was not about the drug LSD, but another song on the album “Snow Queen” makes no attempt to hide its references to cocaine use.
Well, on this Sunday morning ride there were no signs of the counterculture. The ride was definitely a family affair with plenty of children on bikes. Our ride was blessed with sunny skies and warm temperatures.
Amy and I rode at a steady and unhurried pace, and completed the route in about two and a half hours, including rest stops at the north and south ends of the course. The only hills on the course are a couple of bridge overpasses and checkpoint exit ramps. And despite more than 20,000 fellow riders, I never felt crowed or packed in like a sardine. Four lanes in each direction, helped to provide plenty of elbowroom. Fast riders spun on the left while families and slower riders clung to the right side of the road. We did have to keep our eyes peeled for sudden lane changers as well as for Chicago’s notorious cracks and potholes which can easily snag a road bike tire.
But like Cinderella at the ball, all good things come to an end, and 10:30 a.m. was the new midnight as Lake Shore Drive was opened back up to cars. This time the glass slipper is a clipless bike shoe.
The postride festival’s version of the ball was held on the lakefront at Grant Park. Sponsor tents offered plenty of free food and goodies. American English, a popular local Beatles tribute band, provided the entertainment. They offered their own version of LSD by blasting “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”
Like another Beatles song, you do need a “Ticket to Ride” the drive. The funds raised by the event fund the Active Transportation Alliance.
Lake Shore Drive is no “Long and Winding Road.” Yet that was the song I could not get out of my head as I pedaled toward the Chicago’s skyline off in the distance.
“And there ain’t no road just like it,
Anywhere I’ve found.
Running south on Lake Shore Drive,
Heading into town”
Mark Ollinger is the chief financial officer for a trade show marketing company on the northwest side of Chicago.
top of page
Visitor Comments »
top of page
