Epic rides in cold, grit and gravel

Me and Kevin Clark: Photo by Ben Popper

For a while now, there's been some noise among some of us from the Half Acre and Killjoy squads about spending Saturday mornings out in the far reaches of Chicagoland, putting in good long efforts, with few respites for a breath or nature break. Earlier in the week, it was determined that today was to be the first of many of these jaunts, with the weather forecast more in line with that from the gray drear of February than the middle of April: 37 for a high, snow showers, mist and fog. I've never been much bothered by such conditions – my only major dislike is the cold below 25. My hands freeze and my toes turn numb, and the whole effort of riding my bike becomes just less an exercise in pleasure, but more of an obligation. But 37 degrees? I can handle that; I've handled worse.

So it was this morning that I drove down to the rendezvous point at Kevin's place in Logan Square, and followed Ben out to Yorkville. The plan was to ride the Prairie Path out until we were near exhaustion, then turn around. I was on my Voodoo, Kevin on his Jamis, and Ben on his Kelly mountain bike. I was the only one genius enough to use fenders, but as some of Ben's pictures from the day show, my butt ended-up with a fair dousing of muddy water.

The ride out was at a hard pace – it's almost comical how all rides, no matter the plan (ride slow, tempo, easy, whatever) degenerate into a quasi-race, with relentless attacks and on-the-rivet efforts. Today was no different. Paris-Roubaix is tomorrow, and this ride was in a way a homage to that brutal test of strength, will and weld strength. 20 miles out and 1:40 into the ride (hey, riding offroad on 'cross and mountain bikes can be slow going, compared to the open road), we came to Elgin, stopped at a Marathon where we made a mess while we purchased some coffee and apple pie, and turned-around the way we came to York.

On the return trip, we opted to ride on an alternative trail, which was no less treacherous, and less encumbered by stop signs. Our energy levels at this point started to flag, but no way did we take things easy - we just stopped attacking each other at every slight rise in the elevation. We made better time on the return trip, due to a tailwind, but when your feet are numb from the cold, your hands are sore from gripping the handlebar, and your legs are throbbing from turning the pedals, time seems to slow down and each mile becomes longer than the last.

Once we got off the trail and our bikes, our immediate assessment of each other was "Man, you're just covered in mud." As mentioned before, I was less filthy than the other two, but I was still sopping wet, cold, and just glad to have made it back alive. Few times in my career as a mediocre cyclist have I ever felt that way at the end of a ride, and while the 'epic' nature of this ride related mostly just to the weather and conditions, it ranks up there on my list of misery. But don't get me wrong – misery in cycling is often synonymous with amazing and fun, and certainly today's ride was that as well.