Last Ride of the Year

I'm taking next week off so I won't be biking back to work until January.

Luckily for me this ride was pretty dry. I woke up this morning to near torrential rains to the extent that my front yard was developing a nice little pond. I planned to work a half day and on my bike ride home stop at South Wabash to pick up my wife's watch from a repairman. At 10:00 am it was still raining and the weather system to the southeast still looked pretty bad. So I checked the Doppler Radar for the Chicago area and saw the rains would be passing us by within the next few hours.

When I left work at around noon it was a balmy 50° with stiff winds from the south. Very nice. I didn't wear my long underwear bottoms and hoped to avoid a freak rain shower. Otherwise my attire was pretty much what I've been wearing for the past month or so.

At Roosevelt Road I managed a left turn on State Street to head into the loop. Vehicular traffic was pretty backed up north of Congress. All the stopped traffic formed a nice bike lane between the cars. Normally I stay to the right but too many cars were hugging the curb and blocking my way. There are definitely better streets for biking than State but I wasn't planning on staying there too long. I turned east on Monroe and worked my way to Jewelers row. The watch repairman was nice enough to meet me on the street so I wouldn't have to risk my bike getting ripped off. After getting the watch I worked my way to the Lakefront Trail.

The stiff tailwind wasn't as good as I'd anticipated. I guess all the buildings along Lakeshore Drive create currents of their own in heavy winds. Along Belmont Harbor I faced a pretty steady headwind. Oh well. I was pretty fortunate to have such a good day for riding nonetheless.

Distance Traveled: 24.5 miles
Distance to date: 1486.8 miles
Price of gas: $2.54