I heard of the Chicago L.A.T.E. Ride last year from some buddies at the Rockford Bicycle Company, who described flashing red lights far ahead, and headlights far behind. It seemed hard to believe what 10,000 bicyclists looks like in the middle of the night on the streets of Chicago. So I committed to the ride this year.

My wife, Heather, and 12-year-old daughter, Allison, joined me on the 25-mile ride. We caravaned the 90 minutes or so up I-90 from Rockford to downtown Chicago and arrived at Buckingham Fountain around 10:30pm. Checked in, got our numbers and t-shirts, and found a grassy spot to park and rest before the 1:30am start. McDonalds was the major sponsor, so there was plenty of free coffee and various McDonald’s characters milling around. Ronald judged the Best Lit Bike and the Best Decorated Helmet contests. Chelsea Peterson, who has done the ride every year since she was 8 years old, won the Best Decorated Helmet contest with a diarama of the Chicago skyline during the L.A.T.E. Ride mounted to her head.

The ride got under way at 1:30am and the peleton of 10,000 was truly amazing. A river of bikes flowing through the streets of the Loop. We rode through Greek Town at bar time where partiers hooted and cheered and slapped hi-fives to the passing bikers. We cruized at a slow pace, after all it’s not a race, through stop signs and red lights where Chicago’s finest closed the streets for us, and made it to the rest stop, half way through the ride, at about 3:30am. The others in our group had passed my wife, daugher and I early in the ride, but surprizingly we found them in the park almost immediately.

Some bananas, granola bars and Gatorade, and we were back on the street, headed East, back downtown for the second half of the ride.

We reached Lake Michigan on the north side of Chicago and turned South onto the bike path. The John Hancock building and other illuminated skyscrapers of the Chicago skyline reflected in the water as dawn broke over the lake. The sky slowly brightened as we made our way south, past Navy Pier toward the museums and the aquarium and finally back to Grant Park, where McDonald’s kindly supplied breakfast and coffee.

We were tired and sore, but energized and excited to have finished the ride. Looking forward to doing it again next year. We’ll have a segment in the Episode 7 of TrailTapes Mountain Bike TV.