It started on a Tuesday in April when, tired of looking at an amber light on the dashboard, I took my car in for repairs. On Wednesday, I got the bill: $1,079.22. Thursday, I bought a bicycle from the store next to the auto repair shop. And Friday, I pedaled the bike from Chicago to Joliet.
I was fuming about that car bill, especially since I don’t use the car much. Not being entirely rational, I decided to teach the car a lesson, to show it that I didn’t need it, even for a long haul. Growing up in Joliet, I often wondered what it would be like to ride my bike the 42 miles between home and Chicago. It was something I thought I’d never do–impossible!–and so I struck it from my mind. When I bought this bike, the idea popped right back into my head.
The thing is, there’s no direct or non-dangerous way to Joliet unless you’re in a car on the interstate. There are no direct bike routes, there’s barely any room on the shoulder, and it’s city streets and highways most of the way.
So off I went from Old Town, out North Avenue and down Ashland, where a fellow biker sped by me shouting, “Ashland sucks!” obviously referring to the heavy traffic.
It probably was a mistake that I left at 5:15 p.m.; that I didn’t have a front or rear light on the bike; that I was wearing a black windbreaker and bluejeans, black stocking cap instead of a helmet and black knit gloves; that I hadn’t ridden a bike for about six years.
But the whiz of the gears and the euphoria of freedom and spontaneity reminded me of the great bicycle events of my life. There was the day I learned how to ride without training wheels. A neighborhood kid pushed me along, shouting, “Pedal! Pedal!” and then let go and ran beside me with his clenched fists in the air. I felt like I was flying. There was the day I got my first new bike, a green Schwinn Varsity 10-speed with a generator light, and I pedaled it up and down our street in the snow on Christmas night.
I recalled my college years when I rode a 10-speed built for women. I had gone off-campus to buy it, answering an ad in the school newspaper, and found myself in an immigrant Asian family’s cramped apartment. I had dragged my roommate along to help with the haggling (he was a business major; it made sense to me at the time).
“I cannot pay $20,” I told the man of the family, pointing to the ad I had torn out of the paper.
“You take it,” he said.
My roommate chimed in with, “We’re prepared to enter into a transaction, but we’d like to discuss the terms.”
The man smiled. “OK,” he said, wagging the back of his hand at us. “You take.”
“Yes,” my roommate said, “we will take, but not for $20. How about $10?”
“You take,” the man said, smiling.
My business-savvy roommate then realized that the man was telling us to just take the bike already, no charge.
My first bike in Chicago was a royal-blue Schwinn Hollywood one-speed with dazzling chrome fenders and a blue and white seat with the classic “S” on it. I rode it to and from work downtown, my silk tie flapping over my shoulder. I’d arrive at the office sweating, hair sticking to my forehead and a dark ring around my collar. “What did you do, swim here?” my boss would ask.
From Ashland, the route to Joliet took me west on Ogden and south on Western to Archer. Archer took me through neighborhoods where the smell of tortillas, pizzerias and laundromats was intoxicating. Then it took me past Midway, where jets rose directly in front of me, and into Summit, where I came to a daunting challenge: the I-294 interchange with U.S. Highways 12, 20 and 45.
According to my map, Archer picked up on the other side of the exchange, about three-quarters of a mile away, so I pedaled up the ramp and found myself on a peninsula, with semis and SUVs screaming past me on both sides in the same direction. I felt like I was clinging to the tip of a sharpened pencil–inside the sharpener.
When I saw an opening I went for it, pedaling as hard as I could. I made it across the highway, onto the shoulder and then maneuvered past another exit ramp, merging like any good motorist would, and finally whizzing frantically down the off-ramp and back onto a two-lane stretch of Archer Avenue in Willow Springs. It was like coming into a harbor during a storm: the winds quieted, the noises of the ship subsided and the ride became suddenly smooth and gentle.
A few blocks later a kid raised his hand and mouthed “Hi” to me. I lifted my hand right back, and gave him a silent “Hi.” I saw my 1976 self in that kid–a little boy out riding his bike, waiting to be called in for dinner.
Soon I was in a forest preserve marveling at the afternoon light sifting through a heavy cover of leafy trees. I was among nature–real nature, not some city park–and it reminded me of how unconnected city dwellers are to the earth and its quiet elegance. A few miles later, I saw people dressed in black walking into an Eastern-looking church, and then found myself amid the oil refineries of Lemont, which exploded with much loss of life and shook my bedroom windows when I was in high school.
I stopped for a breather in the middle of Lockport’s serpentine bridge to look down at the mighty Illinois and Michigan Canal. On the other side of the bridge I thought about freedom again when I pedaled past Stateville prison.
A few blocks from my parents’ house, I tooled into the parking lot of my old Little League field and coasted down the slope that took me right to home plate. I couldn’t hear the roar of the crowd or smell pizza slices or anything corny like that, but I did stand there over my bike for a minute and think back to those sweet summer days when it seemed like I lived on two wheels.
On that four-hour trip, I began to think of my bike as not just a means of getting from here to there, but a kind of time machine that took me back as I pedaled forward. Still, I felt like I had been on that thing for two days instead of four hours.
I’ll drive my car or take the train to Joliet from now on, but in the city I’m on the bike. It’s quicker than the “L,” has a better view than the bus and is so much more poetic than a car. No matter how fast I go, it always seems slower, more relaxed. When I lean into a corner without slowing down I get the sense that I am picking up speed.
People say you never forget how to ride a bike, but I guarantee you that you will forget what it feels like until you do it again.
