Off-road Randonneur

And but so I've just woken up from an unplanned and ill-timed five hour nap after dinner.  My sleep schedule is gonna be turned upside down for days, I've got a crick in my neck from resting my head wrong on the decorative pillow on the couch, and I'm still wearing the dank riding clothes I've been in for most of the past twenty-four hours now.

Man, I feel great.

Yesterday my boy Austin and I went on yet another one of our epic off-road randonneur rides, which I'm pretty sure is French for "I don't know when to turn around."  Last year, at the end of the season, we decided to spend a day riding to the suburban Palos trails, the only real network of mtb trails in the Chicago area, a trail system that every local mountain biker has ridden because of its proximity to the city.  Neither Austin or I have a car, so we decided to take our 'cross bikes there, tear around in the dirt, and ride back home.  Starting from the West Side of town, we wound our way down Ogden Ave, which was part of old Route 66 as it left Chicago, seeing sights we were never privy to in the dozens of previous car rides to south suburban Palos.  We cut through the employee parking lot of the ginormous UPS sorting center, a building which looked big enough to house the Hadron Supercollider.  We rolled past the Wonder Bread factory, which was only slightly smaller than the UPS facility and smelled nothing like a bakery, by the way.  Best of all, we discovered a shortcut away from the industrial sprawl of shoulder-less streets filled with roaring big-rig trucks: ducking behind a row of jersey barriers, we found ourselves on an abandoned, elevated access road that ran through the middle of Thornton Quarry.  We got off our bikes and took in the view, perched on the edge of a vast, unseen canyon located twenty minutes' drive from the Loop.  We also realized we were trespassing and quickly jumped back on our bikes and made our way to the trailhead after only a few wrong turns.  Riding the old familiar trails felt new on bikes equipped with skinny tires, rigid forks, and drop bars.  It was too much fun.  Quite literally.  I forgot to account for our long ride home and ran out of food and energy a good ten miles from home, which necessitated my staggering to a stop outside a crowded gas station in Cicero.  In my full kit and helmet, I wandered past groups of high school kids (it was mid-afternoon and school had just let out), grabbed a couple packages of frosted Honey Buns, dropped some crumpled, sweaty bills on the counter with shaking hands, and went back outside to share my bounty with Austin.  All in all, a great day.

So this time Austin and I decided to replicate that day, minus the energy bonk, by taking the Metra commuter train out to Palos, thus saving up the strength to ride trail and then ride back.  Unfortunately, the Metra website's schedule lied to us and we found ourselves in the Great Hall at Union Station a few minutes after the train had left.  Not wanting to spend another couple of hours waiting for the next departure, we opted for Plan B: the DesPlaines River trail, which follows its namesake northward, flowing up from Oak Park all the way up to Wisconsin, though I was determined to turn around before then.  Though not nearly as technical (read: fun) as Palos, it was still riding in the dirt, and far-flung, and away from the city.  And yet, paradoxically, its trailhead was only a couple miles away from a CTA stop.  So we threw our bikes on the el and took the Green line to the end of the line, and started another all-day adventure.  Austin's internal compass led us through the Norman Rockwell streets of Oak Park directly to the parking lot trailhead, so we set our knobby tires on dirt, rode twenty feet around a dirt embankment, and abruptly stopped.  The trail led straight into a wide, deep pond.  The river had filled the floodplain, and we were forced to take the first of more than a few detours onto the very busy River road, as well as an ill-advised abortive shortcut through a golf course (my bad), but eventually the trail rose up and we we able to ride undeterred, past expanses of prairie and groves of trees and the odd string of power lines.  Whereas the roots and rock gardens of Palos are only just ridable on 'cross bikes, the DesPlaines trail was perfectly suited for our bikes.  The dirt was smooth enough to ramp up to a good speed, and grippy enough to roost turns: yet another great day on the bike.  True to form, we rode out just a bit too far again, even though we turned off the trail at Wheeling, not Wisconsin - but this time I'd packed enough food to make it back without incident.  The only casualty was my common sense when at my insistence we pulled into the neighborhood market a few blocks from my house and I emerged with a bag of tortilla chips, some cheap Polish beer, and two half-gallons of ice cream, most of which was consumed in our recovery from the ride.

Oh, and one more thing: there's no way I could have done these rides on anything but a cyclocross bike.  They really are the most versatile bikes, period.  Fast enough to ride on the streets, durable enough to ride any manner of dirt track, and efficient enough to ride both for long distances.  I love my Surly CrossCheck because I built it up to do anything and it hasn't let me down yet.  Alright, here's a pic: