RIDE REPORTS

From Jo Daviess to Barry, from the Great Western to the parking lot at Casey’s, every ride tells a story.

Sycamore Century (4/21/24)

The night before the Sycamore Century, I had a notion I might reverse the route, take Metra out to Elburn then ride home on the stiff breeze out of the Northwest. Maybe I should have. Throughout the week I tried to enlist some companions to share the load, but 100 miles requires a substantial time commitment. People have lives to live. Also, it turns out few families are as understanding about these things as my own. (Heart you both.)

And so, I would be alone on the day, on the front in a group of one, eating wind. Not for the first time and not that I really mind. I love a group ride, but I’ve also come to enjoy solo distance on its own terms. You can ride at your own pace, stop when you like, and work through all the things on your mind. Wind aside, the weather would be spectacular, sunny, high 30s to start, then climbing into the high 50s by the end.

The route starts in Oak Park, heads west for Wheaton, follows the Elgin Branch of the Illinois Prairie Path for a while (I love this stretch), then meanders through the subdivisions of Wayne and St. Charles to the Fox River. Everything east of the river is well known to me. It’s flat and mostly leeward of this or that. Easy-peasy. On Saturday, the other side of the river is where things got a little dodgy. There were some new-to-me roads, out where towns and trails started giving way to bigger acreage and fewer trees. There’s a fine line between country roads (low traffic, curious cows, farmers who wave) and rural highways (lots of angry pickup trucks, close passing at 45 mph) and there was too much of the latter west of St. Charles. All this into the wind, too. In a way, I was glad to be on my own to sort it out. “Nice route, pal. Thanks a lot for bringing me out here.” (I’ve made adjustments., by the way. The route is solid.)

The good stuff started around Campton Hills and the rest of the ride was really idyllic. I found my rhythm, even when I was pointed west, and started crisscrossing some other routes I’ve ridden in the past, congratulating myself out loud when I recognized a familiar stretch of road.

Sidebar: There’s a scene in North by Northwest, the most relentlessly entertaining movie of all time, where Roger Thornhill, played by Carey Grant, takes a bus from Chicago to a rural intersection somewhere in Northern Indiana. Eve Marie Saint has sent him out here. He’s supposed to be meeting George Kaplan, for whom he had been mistaken way back east at the Oak Room setting the whole plot in motion. Now he’s in an empty field. in his ad man’s grey flannel suit, waiting for someone he’s never seen. (No one has.) Because the land is so flat, he can see every car approaching from a long way off, and he’s hoping that one of them might hold the mysterious Mr. Kaplan. The scene moves very slowly. There’s almost no dialog, and a lot of great sound design. Then the famous crop duster arrives, starts dusting in odd places, then tries to kill him. There’s some rear projection goodness as Hitchcock works through his storyboard, Grant’s suit takes a beating, he manages to dodge every bullet, then somehow coaxes the murderous crop duster into the side of an oil truck. Big explosion, Bernhard Hermann’s score gets super loud, and Grant heads back to Chicago in a stolen vehicle to confront Eve Marie Saint. This famous scene was actually shot in California, north of Bakersfield, but it feels entirely familiar and correct. It’s all very Midwest A.C.

These are the places you go when you’re out there on your own.

Perhaps the connection here is sound design. When you’re pointed into the wind, riding in the drops, trying to hold 12 mph, the wind is all you can hear. Just a variable, whooshing white noise. Then the road bends south, the wind puts its hand on your right hip like a gift from the gods, and suddenly you can hear everything again: dogs barking, birds chatting to each other (probably about you), a tiny ringing sound somewhere in the powerlines, a train whistle.

When I started cycling “seriously,” my 9-mile commute to work seemed so looooong to me. My co-workers were impressed, and I felt pretty smug about my 40-mile week. Soon though, all I wanted to do was go further, to get fit enough to explore roads I’d never seen before and wouldn’t see any other way. That I can do that now, solo or in a bunch, wind or no wind, honestly still amazes me.

Grateful for these days.

Kankakee River Run 200k (4/13/24)

In the world of Randonnuering the term ancien (m) or ancienne (f) is used to describe a rider who has successfully finished Paris-Brest-Paris or some other 1200-kilometer Randonnée (long-ass ride.) In practice, an ancien is a veteran, someone who has put in gazillions of miles and carries with them voluminous knowledge about a particularly tiny niche of an already niche sport.

As long as we’re going down the terminology rabbit hole, one could argue that “sport” is an awkward fit for Rando. It is a physical and mental challenge, there’s certainly a great deal of fitness involved, but it is emphatically not a race. Events are timed – riders must travel a given distance within the prescribed time allocation. There is a course to follow, with checkpoints or “contrôles” along the way and riders must prove they have passed through these controls by: a) getting your “brevet” card stamped by one of the organizers, b) taking a time-stamped picture of yourself at the location, or c) sending in your GPS file as “electronic proof of passage”. This last method, only recently sanctioned by Rando’s governing body (Audax Club Parisien) and translated from the original French, is all the rage now because it’s automatic and we’re all tracking our rides anyway. But going fast is not really the point. Some riders go fast, some riders go slow, to each their own. All competition is with oneself. It’s the ride that matters. To finish is to win. Sport? Rewardingly arduous pastime?

There are more designations, more rules, more ways to Rando (darts, audax, allure libre, if you’re interested go here), lots to learn, but the main thing to remember is: long-ass, non-competitive, self-supported bicycle ride involving large quantities of gas station food.

As you’ve likely noticed by now, there’s a good bit of pedantry at play here. The specific glossary, the egregious French-ness, the fussy rules, the controls – anciens love to talk about this stuff. And you hear all of it, because most of the time you’re rolling at speeds that make talking comfortable. At least in the early going. As the miles get longer the chit chat tends to wane. You learn quickly that there’s history here and deep tradition. There’s pride in doing difficult things. Most importantly, there’s an abiding belief that anyone can do it. You don’t have to be a proper athlete, whatever that is. Yes it’s hard, yes it takes work and fitness, training your legs and heart and backside to endure these things, but you can. We all can. Cycling sometimes gets a bad rap for attracting elitist assholes, but not this niche. At least not in my experience.

The Kankakee River Run, of April 6th, 2024 was the first sanctioned Randonnée ever to originate in Chicago. It was organized and administered by a rejuvenated Chicago Randonneurs. (Prior to the 2024 reboot, randonneuring in the region had been a largely exurban concern.) Twenty-five riders started, twenty-two finished, travelling south from Monroe Harbor on Chicago’s lakefront to the Casey’s General Store in Momence, Indiana Ilinois and then back again. The day was sunny and fair, with a manageable wind out of the west. There was minimal climbing involved, just some nice low rollers on the straight north-south road that runs along the state line.

For most of the day, I rode in a small group with a regular riding partner of mine I dragged into this, a first-timer and an ancien. On the slow-to-fast spectrum our group was somewhere in the middle, traveling 200k (125 miles) in precisely ten hours including stops. 15 mph rolling, which I’ve come to think of as my rando pace.

Lessons learned:

1)     You can/should create opportunities to stand up out of the saddle even if the grade doesn’t really call for it. Gear down to increase resistance, slow your cadence and give your nether regions the occasional break. This works particularly well as you crest a hill. A good bike fit, a saddle that understands you, and some quality bib shorts go a long way (all are essential, actually), but it’s a long day no matter what, and you’ve got to keep the blood flowing down there. The alternative is an alarming numbness in places you really don’t want that. (Thank you, Tav.)

2)    Take your time getting up to rolling speed. In the long run, how quickly you get off the line at a stoplight doesn’t matter much, and chances are you’ll need those calories later. (Also Tav.)

3)    I’m not the only one who watched Hee Haw as a kid. For the young and uninitiated Hee-Haw was kind of a countrified Laugh In, with Roy Clark and Buck Owens fronting a host of Nashville session aces and doing mostly groany comedy skits. Looking back, the proto-Daisy Duke bimbo thing is pretty cringy, but the music was amazing — authentic and universal in a way Country isn’t any more — much closer to what we think of as Americana today.

4)    More TV talk, because I’m kind of an ancien of 70s television programming. After Hee Haw in the 8-9 time slot, came Emergency! Roy DeSoto and Johnny Gage and the deeply concerned medical team at Rampart General Hospital. My family teased me relentlessly about my crush on R.N. Dixie McCall played by Julie London. Apparently, I was not alone.

Living animals encountered:

Slithering snake, waddling groundhog, screeching hawk, curious deer, barking dogs, bored horses (ponies, maybe), and lots of cows.

Weirdest thing I saw all day:

A man in a long overcoat, baggy pants and old leather shoes, carrying a bowler hat in one hand and a sun-bleached golf umbrella over his shoulder, crossing the street in Dyer, IN — like he’d just stepped out of a comic strip, like he’d lost his way between wardrobe and set, like a rogue clown.

Turns out, you take in a lot when you’re not counting watts and staring at your stem.

As the saying goes, that’s Rando.

Rough Road 100, (4/6/24)

This year HAD to be better.

Last year’s Rough Road is now legendary, and not in a good way. I’m not sure where the temperature climbed to that day, but it wasn’t far from where it started. And the headwind was brutal. It’s not often that you’re on 160 bpm at 10 mph, in the draft, ON FLAT ROADS, but that was Rough Road 2023. Throw in some sleet, a nasty mechanical and a late food bonk…

Look, we are big fans of Type 2 fun, but last year’s Rough Road was rougher than rough. It’s a wonder anyone came back to Morris at all, but the 2024 numbers were great, Rough Road’s largest start yet. Of course, weather is to bike events as location is to real estate. Despite a wet week, the course was dry and conditions were perfect. Cool to start, warming into the fifties and what passes for still in the middle of a corn field.

Kit Check: midweight tights, gillet and a long sleeve merino jersey over a spring/fall base layer. Oh, and some light merino gloves. Seriously, whoever mainstreamed merino for cyclists deserves a big “Chapeau!”

Bike Check: saw a bit of everything from aero carbon road bikes on 28s to steel rigs with fat knobbies. I rode my Diverge on 32s at 58 psi, and it was excellent.

Quite a day. Groups were formed, gaps were bridged, punctures endured. Lots of encouragement and commiseration over the Illinois mountains that rise so majestically above Marseilles. Lots of new PRs set on an ideal day. Personal highlight: making eye contact with the course steward at the bottom of the hill that turns left toward Seneca and getting the subtle sideways nod that says, “Yes, I am holding traffic for you. Take it as fast as you want to.”

Many thanks to the organizers and our gracious hosts in Morris.

Rough Road redemption arc complete. Until next year.

PS: Midwest A.C. has heard reports of a crash and wishes the riders involved a very speedy recovery.