Shifting Gears

People who bike year-round in the Chicago area (I can’t bring myself to write “Chicagoland”) amaze me.  I turn into a baby once the temperature goes below 60 degrees.  Then again, people who bike in January and February strike me as stupid.  Really, in the snow or when the temperature is 10 degrees, sans wind chill?  No thanks.  Feel free to get yourself killed or have a heart attack, though.    

So, I bike inside and try to switch over to my one other talent, walking.  Ask anyone who knows me, and they’ll tell you walking anywhere with me is like trying to survive the Bataan Death March.  I’m sure my daughter has some sort of story about keeping up with her father for fear of being lost forever in the deep, dark woods.  Get over it, kid.

But I do like to walk and have been known to take one of the ‘L’ lines to its end and then walk home; for a native South Sider, Milwaukee Avenue is another good challenge, going forever, it seems, northwest of downtown.  Maybe this year, I’ll focus more on the 606.  If nothing else, I know there won’t be any cyclists like me tooling around.

Funny, but cold air walking doesn’t bother me in the least the way it does biking.  I’m a sucker for the urban landscape with those old two-flats and factory buildings that line the trail.  And the light, there’s something about the Chicago sky from January through March.  The sun on the winter clouds produces an incredibly rich shade of orange tinged with purple.  It’s almost worth the snow and cold to see it.  Now, all I have to do is motivate myself to get outside.

I mean, the Bears are on, and college football….