march mass

by now, i've realized that the thing to do is buy beverages downtown or along the ride, instead of hauling things up from hyde park. so with a little research, i found myself selecting some 6-packs at warehouse liquors on 634 south wabash. all four in my basket made my brief ride to daley plaza a little tipsy, but not in the way you're thinking. not yet, at least.

so i'm lane-splitting up dearborn, and just as i pull up to the light at washington i see a bike cop to my right. "hey, is one of those for me?" he asks. "maybe if you ask nicely!" i reply. the light changes, and i pedal onto the plaza.

some UofC friends were hanging out on the southeast side (i know, what else is new?), so i joined them. i offered beer to xerocrats who were passing out maps of the route and invitations to an "up in smoke" fish cookout on montrose beach in the following week or two. one guy, perhaps todd gee, suggested i at least make a half-assed attempt to cover my basket's contents. "don't make it easy for them," he said. i had some spare clothing in case the ride home got too cold, so i threw a shirt over the cargo. i also put two of the 6-packs in my bag, so my bike would want to tip over less often.

some police officers were not thrilled with us riding around in their district, so they decided to tail the mass with their sirens blaring. i suppose the reason for this was to hurry us along, not to deafen us, but the latter was definitely the only of the goals they attained. whenever i, say, stopped to give someone a drink, i'd find myself suddenly near the rear, then i would sprint up a bit to avoid later ringing headaches.

i was pretty annoyed, but howard later pointed out on the listserve that their presence had a positive: everyone was avoiding the back, which kept the mass's ass end nice and tight. just how we like it.

seriously. it's unsafe otherwise. the last block or two of the group will typically be quite spread out, which is dangerous because drivers may see a brief gap in cyclists and take the first opportunity to blow through a group that's held them up for a couple minutes. i've seen drivers do this too many times to count; it seems to be the maneuver of choice, in fact, especially when the car doesn't actually have enough room to do it safely.

there are a few ways to avoid this. corkers, physically stopping cars from driving into the mass by standing in front of them, are a huge help. most are wise enough to yell "close the gap!" to approaching riders, who are sometimes wise enough to heed them by speeding up. sometimes corkers rejoin the mass when they see the end is near, though, and groups who are further behind can get severed. while it lasted, the, uh, gentle loving nudging from chicago's finest kept the stragglers from straggling this month, though.

so we rode our bikes, drank some beers. one purchase was this tasty-ass nut brown ale from a brewery whose name i've since forgotten. i saw leslie underneath some bridges. i saw scott, whom i met when i commented on his fuzzy purple jacket in january, and was reminded of his name thanks to some goggles he was wearing(!). a road behind a grocery store brought joy and sorrow: some rat patrol kids dumpster-dove bagels and threw them to other massers, but tracks on the same street took down two bikers that i saw. biking tip: always try to cross tracks as perpendicularly as you can. if you ride along them, your wheel could get caught in a rut. this is one of the easiest ways to fall off your bicycle.

we almost-but-not-quite went out to navy pier. we snaked between cars on michigan (though i have since learned that this is a Very Bad Thing to do). also on michigan was a not-entirely-legal incident with a billboard truck, brought up by t.c. in the post-script of an e-mail...

P.S. I have never approved of vandalism or property
damage-- even to the truly deserving-- on a CCM ride,
but I'll admit what happened to that billboard truck
at Oak and Michigan was hilarious.

after howard asked what happened, i sent my recounting of it to the ccm listserve. many knickers were subsequently tied in twists about the vandalism issue...

though i was slightly ahead of the action*, a friend later relayed it to me.

if you're not familiar with those obnoxious billboard trucks, you need
to know that there is a door on the back. it's a small door, but large
enough for someone to get inside. some clown** tested the door handle,
and lo and behold, it was unlocked! he opened the door to reveal a
space of light, which he insists was pretty despite the trucks' ugly
function***.

the "dreadlocked wookie" mentioned earlier was not the tagger, but he
was the one who stuck his head inside the open door and turned off the
lights that illuminated the ads on either side of the vehicle. shortly
after the lights were off, someone else tagged the billboards.
although, honestly, there were lots of kids with dreads on that ride,
and the the tagger might have also had them.

lauren

*whoops on weaving through traffic, my bad! i know to stop next time,
so as not to thin out the mass.
**this is a Hint.
***if you could call it that.

at some point in the ride, i noticed igor ahead of me and took the opportunity to grab his ass. "you're the third person who's done that to me," he said. seems steph and leslie had beaten me to the punch. thankfully, i was able to control the urge to push them off their bicycles.

we poked around chinatown before eventually going back to the loop, ending outside a bio-burlesque show on 742 north lasalle. one turn and a half-block later, i fell. i hit a patch of clumsy in the open, obstacle-free road, and i just went splat on my left side. recycling spilled from my basket, but a handful of friends were nearby and helped me collect myself -- igor, katherine, steph, and some others, including "john the generic," yet another marauder whose name i often forget. (earlier in the mass i tried to guess his name, remembering at least that it was a generic guy name. i started with dave and dan, but he told me it was john before i got further. i've since decided that all the marauders should have "the something" appended to their name, to follow in jimmie the saint's example. i could be lauren the shiny, for example.)

i headed south with the aforementioned hyde parkers, but they went for mexican while i went to a party in bridgeport.

the end?