A few weeks ago, B somehow talked me into signing up for the L.A.T.E ride. Which stands for "Long After Twilight Ends," which is an annual after midnight bike ride throughout Chicago. He was all excited to do it again and tried talking me into it, with the added pressure of a Groupon. So I eventually acquiesced to the badgering, knowing that I had a bike that had recently been purchased and still needed to be fixed. To which he promised he would take care of and he kept his word, taking it into the bike store and picking it up for me.
So the day of reckoning arrived and I was oddly nervous. In my head, it was going to be not unlike the Tour de France. We waited along with 10,000 other bikers to start the ride. This was my favorite part of the race, standing there surrounded by so many people with the same mission in mind, it was kind of surreal. Then the ride started and the numbers dwindled as heats of riders were released. I thought the starting out part was going to be a mad dash, but it was anything but, we slowly headed north on Halstead where we hit a lot of traffic and lights. It improved but not by a lot, I felt like the bike ride was analogous to Chicago vehicular traffic. It was stop and go and there were a lot of a-holes out there, making things worse for everyone. But I did have pleasant chats with everyone in our group, B, B's dad and the lovely Allison. And I will admit that riding at a nice clip around the lakefront path is not something that you do every day. It reminded me that it is nice being with someone who takes me out of my comfort zone and we go on fun adventures together.
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