As I zigged and zagged my way down towards Chicago, the traffic got steadily denser and more congested. My map did show which routes would be the worst, but I didn't realize that all of the roads would be busy. After one particularly hair-raising section, I stopped at a gas station for some juice, and this huge, burly black man with a shaved head came up to me and said, "Hey, where are you going? I've been leap- frogging you for and hour, an' I gotta know." So I told him in a somewhat abbreviated explanation, and this big grin came over his face, "What route are you going to take through Chicago?"
"Well, I really don't think I dare ride through there".
"Sure you can; it won't be any problem."
"That's easy for you to say."
"No, man. Every cop in the county is patrolling the streets down there for the political convention.
"OF COURSE!!!"
There probably isn't a safer place in the state."
"That would be great, wouldn't it; but there is still the issue of the rest of Chicago outside of the loop..."
"Yeah, I guess you're right..."
"Maybe the ferry across Lake Michigan is the answer, but I'm still in a quandary."
One last bike trail to experience, this one is the Green Bay trail, and it runs intermittently from the Wisconsin border to Chicago, through towns like Lake Forest, Highland Park, Glencoe, and Winnetka. All of these suburbs are very pretty (almost parklike) villages with large houses sitting on large city lots, shaded by huge deciduous trees. The bike trail is built right next to the commuter rail line (making this technically a rail with trail), and on this afternoon was almost deserted, except as it passed through the village of Ravinia, the summer home of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The CSO had the evening off, but I could hear George Benson practicing some licks for his performance that evening. At 4:30 a crowd was already queuing up at the gate.
And then I was in, once again just ahead of a thundershower. I continue to defy the odds with my artful dodging of the rain.
I had determined to take several days off my bike, to rest my weary butt, and stoke up the engine for the final push.
At this point Babcock is chasing Turner into the city of Chicago, somewhat disappointed that they are not riding in together. But this does not flag his enthusiasm for getting there to have the bikes refitted and the bodies revived:
From Elgin to Chicago we ran in over what is known as the "Century road," where Chicago riders make their fast runs, and reached the city about 4 p.m. July 30, somewhat worn out with two days of excessive heat. Had it not been that we have become accustomed to being stared at, we would have been unable to run the gauntlet of Chicago streets; more than ever did we realize that our appearance was extraordinary, for the people of Chicago, used as they are to strange sights, stopped to look at us.
We went to the Ariel agency on Wabash avenue, turned our wheels over to the proprietor and sought a hotel to remove some of the removable marks of the trip and put ourselves in condition to turn the tables on Chicago, and for the past two days, while our wheels have been reposing in the window, equipped as they were ridden in, the observed of many people, we have been taking in Chicago--the same old Chicago which you all know so well, though you may not have seen it since the bloomer girl and the bloomer boy struck it.
To our rustic minds Chicago is immense and full of interest, but the height of the skyscraping office buildings, the stream of humanity on the streets are not a circumstance to the parks and the wheel riders. It is estimated that 256,000 wheels are used in this city, and just at evening the boulevards and parks are crowded. The riders are there on all kinds of wheels and in all kinds of wheel costumes. The bloomer girl, though in the minority, is in evidence and she is occasionally a scorcher. With body from hips to shoulders horizontal, and head bent low over drop handle bars, feet held on the pedals by toeclips, she rivals the boys in speed. She doesn't flirt; she hasn't time; her one inclination seems to be to get there, and she does it.
Fast riding is prohibited, and most of the riders hold themselves down to the eight-mile rate, but occasionally we see a string of them of both sexes going along the boulevard at a speed which makes the park policeman a trifle angry. He knows he can't catch them without a lot of hard work, if at all, and on they go like a lot of salmon up a Western river in spawning season.
Speaking of the bloomer girl, let me repeat that she is in the minority. No matter that the great metropolitan papers picture her more than other riders, her costume is not the favorite; the short skirt, with leggings, is the proper caper, judging from Chicago riders as we have observed them. I heard a story in Dubuque which amused me, but I'm easily amused and you needn't feel compelled to smile at it. A Dubuque young lady riding a drop frame machine rode out several miles into the country and stopped at a farmhouse to get a drink of water. She leaned her wheel against the pump, and, the farmer coming up at that time, inspected the wheel with undisguised interest. Finally, as if in apology for his curiosity, he stammered out: "Wal, that's the fust female one I've ever saw."
Jackson and Washington parks and the boulevards joining them make a wheelman's paradise. We took a tandem spin through Jackson park over the muchtrodden ground of 1893, but the whole scene is changed. Where had been the "Dream City" now is simply a park, with now and then a building of the many that went to make up that wonderful creation of three years ago. We stopped a moment at the spot where the Washington building had stood. The place is now occupied by a mound of flowers, not in honor of the departed building at all, but because Chicago people love flowers.
Yesterday we met Mr. Sheneman, who has had a similar trip to our own from Seattle. He is in good health, has had a good trip and his experiences have been much like our own, though he came by a more southern route through Wyoming and Nebraska.
Tonight and tomorrow we are to be guests of the Englewood Wheelmen's Club in an excursion across Lake Michigan. Their plan is to cross the lake, take a wheel run ten miles to a peach farm for dinner and return. This afternoon we shall try to visit the great rubber tire factory of Morgan & Wright, and hope in another letter to tell something of the workings of that great factory.
We have not decided when to leave Chicago, but we shall remain here several days.
It took me 88 miles to get in, and I'm ready for a rest.
Not on the road for awhile.
Dennis