The past 2 years I've been wanting to do the McDonald's LATE Ride in Chicago. And FINALLY, I committed, took the plunge, bit the bullet and laced up my sneakers. With the good company of my awesome roomates Brittani and Bebe I was prepared to ride all night long...25 glorious miles through the neighborhoods of Chi-town.
The race was to start around 1:30am, so we arrived at Grant Park around 12:30am to meet up with Britt and her Rents. I have a confession...I have never owned, nor worn, a helmet while biking. I just can't stand the sight of them. And before you go judging, haha, I know, I know...my vanity rationale is ridiculous and if my head were on straight I'd be safety first! So...this ride actually required a helmet, which happened to be the perfect motivation for me to join the caution band wagon! So this night I bought a shiny white helmet and rocked it all night long!
Our wave of riders left at 2:10am and we headed South along Columbus to Roosevelt, West to Elston and North to Foster. About half way in, my bum started hurting and I was seriously regretting my horrible decision to not wear my cycling shorts - what was I thinking? "Save a bike, ride a cowboy" kept going through my mind, lol. At the halfway point there was a pit stop with food and refreshments and bathrooms and the respite was welcomed by all.
A little while later we rallied and proceeded to the Lake Shore path and headed south to the heart of the city, and ultimately the finish line. This last stretch of the ride was by far the best! We rode along the path while the sun was rising over Lake Michigan. It was incredible...made me seriously consider staying up all night more often, or getting up super early just to watch the brilliant oranges, pinks and yellows cut across the deep blue horizon.
The roomies and I stopped a few times to take full advantage of the amazing photo opps along the way. We finally rolled into the finish line around 6am. A surprising 4 hours after our start! We scooped up our breakfast goodies complete with a complimentary McDonald's breakfast coupon.
All that riding made Bebe and I crave sausage biscuits so we were determined to capitalize on our freebie this a.m. However, Murhpy's Law was in full effect this morning...and we'd been up for 24 hours - not a good combination if you ask me! We stalked two McDonald's downtown to no avail (for some reason they didn't open till 7am)! Then we had a few fiascos trying to catch the El (resorted to CTA b/c our bums couldn't stand anymore riding), the brown line wasn't running, we couldn't figure out which bus we needed and finally opted for the red line, carrying/walking our bikes along the way. Then we reach a red line stop a mile from our place and get off...I stop at a Jewel to go to the bathroom b/c I was dying and realize mid stream that there's no TP or paper towels!!!Ahhhh! I couldn't do anything but laugh! While I'm taking care of biz, Bebe is trying to put her chain back on her bike b/c it fell off while we walked our bikes down the stairs to the El (couldn't bear to carry them any longer)! So we were stuck walking our bikes a mile north and finally make it to a Mickey D's by our casa! We both get our free meals and for a brief moment, all is right with the world, haha! We reminisce about the mornings events and just laugh for a good 20 minutes as we devour our meal.
We finally make it home at 7:45a.m. and make beelines for our beds...sweet slumber. O what a night! Wouldn't trade it for the world!
