How I Almost Get Killed in Chicago

Cleveland to Chicago, Illinois. 345 miles.

Started the ride and saw the beautiful white herons with their spindly legs and necks like bent paperclips as I passed the water route from Cleveland through the Sandusky Bay along Route 6. There I met Tom, a biker with a flat. He told me only two other bikers stopped to help, of the dozens that drove by. His buddy had gone for help so he said he was ok and I left him.

Met Chris on Route 2, riding a Kawasaki 750 sport tourer. Nice guy. We ate lunch and talked bikes and biking at a big boy outside Toledo.




At this gas station we met a guy that had just sold his Harley, and he kept trying to convince me I should buy a Harley. Why do they all want me to buy a Harley? Most Harley riders that are actually riding on their bikes don’t say anything. But the ones not on the bikes tell me to buy them. Curious.

Hit Rt. 20 through lots and lots of corn fields and pretty scenery. Ran out of time for the back roads and had to get back on the interstate for hours of boring riding. Sucks to ride at 80 for hours on any bike, but it can be particularly unpleasant on a thumper. The vibration is brutal. Imagine riding a dryer full of hammers, set on tumble, for eight hours a day. The bike is great at 55-65. Hit eighty for any stretch of time and it’s monkey butt waiting to happen.

I was still acclimating. Everything was sore, particularly my knees from being bent for hours. I rode on the interstate and had the embarrassing experience of almost running out of gas. Experienced moto travelers, world riders, if you will, do NOT run out of gas. They know exactly how much the tank holds and has at all times. If anything, we get “low on fuel.” Clearly something else was wrong. I was supposed to get nearly 300 miles from my tank when driven conservatively. I had ridden only 200 or so when my fuel cut out. I switched to reserve and kept going, thinking my reserve was supposed to be good for about another 30 miles. A couple miles down the road it cut out again. Now I was worried. I pulled over, took off the bags, and laid the bike on it’s side to try to drain some fuel in the direction of the petcock. Picked it up again and rode. Cut out after 1 mile. Now I stopped again and noticed the petcock was back on regular fuel. Odd. Must have switched it back when trying to get more gas and not realized it. I put it back on reserve and thought I must have enough to get to the next exit. I rode in 5th at 55mph exactly 4 miles, as trucks and cars sailed past me at well over 80. I looked like the genuine freak puttering along the freeway while people blew past me. Better than having to walk. The exit appeared. I turned into the on ramp as the engine cut out again, and had enough momentum to coast right into the gas pump area. As far as I was concerned this was great. I hadn’t dropped or had to push the bike on this trip so far, so I could still maintain my world-riding dignity.

Refueled, I continued burning down Interstate 80/90 (why can’t they just call it 80 or 90? Why both?) I was doing about 70/80. Probably how I ran out of gas in the first place, but as they say, hindsight is 20/20. How do I feel about all the fractions in this paragraph? Like I want to punch myself in the face every time I read it. Yet I can’t bring myself to erase it. Masochist I guess.

Somewhere along the line I rummaged in my mapcase to move a map around, and the force of the wind blew out a slip of paper, which fluttered away gracefully at 75mph. Normally I don’t worry too much about loss. As the Buddhists profess all things are transitory. However, that particular paper was kind of important, as it held the detailed directions to my hotel. But I couldn’t have gone back to find the paper if I wanted to. There was too much traffic to pull over and it was all going too fast to hunt for paper by the roadside. I hoped I would remember the directions, more or less, to get there.

The sun was very bright and right in my eyes. This becomes apparent as one drives straight West into the sun every afternoon for days. After my final rest stop I put a receipt from a Starbucks coffee under the visor, wedged between the rubber and the Plexiglas so that it would block the sun in my eyes. Not a fool-proof plan, but good enough as a short term solution. I just had to keep the visor down at all costs or my receipt would disappear like my directions did earlier. Not that I needed the receipt. But I did need the protection from the sun.

It turned out to be rather overcast all of a sudden. And when a bumblebee suddenly smacked into my neck and, in a most unlikely turn of events, bounced up inside my helmet and flapped it’s death throes on my cheek, I didn’t think twice before opening the lid to get it out. And there went my sun visor.

Got into Chicago after dark and took a wrong turn into what, I later learned, was one of the worst part of town. Chicago is ten miles wide or so, and I didn’t realize how far outside the city my hotel was. Then my headlight went out. So now I was driving in the worst ghetto in Chicago with no headlight. Did I mention that experienced world travelers also never get lost?

So I pulled over on a street corner near Division and LaSalle. I was supposed to be meeting a friend in the city the next morning so I called him for assistance.

“Hey Tony, what’s going on?”

“Hey Andres! What’s up? Where are you?” I told him. “Oh man, you should get out of there.” Tony’s voice had genuine alarm. “That place can be pretty bad.”

“Yeah, I got that impression.” This was a good sign though, because it meant he knew the city well enough to guide me out. I asked him where I should go.

“I don’t know but you should definitely leave.”

“I’m all for it.” I said impatiently, as a group of menacing toughs eyed me up across the street. “I’m open to suggestions. Where do I go?”

“I can’t say for sure, but you should definitely leave there as soon as possible.” This conversation had begun to get a circular feel to it. I didn’t really know how to adequately express that I had no idea where I was and needed him to give me more precise indications that “leave.” Tony paused thoughtfully for a second before adding. “You know some people were shot where you are a few days ago.” This was not what I wanted to hear right at that particular moment.

“Tony, I’m going to go back the way I came and see if I can find the highway again.”

“Yeah, you should do that. I think you think you need to go about 8 more miles west. But definitely get out of there.”

After Tony’s extremely helpful and detailed directions, I started to work my way back. I tried to “ride casual.” As though maybe if I looked calm and natural like I belonged here, the locals wouldn’t notice me—the freak dressed like a spaceman on a dual sport that was geared up like a Gold wing, riding blind down the road. Great plan. Maybe if I acted weird, well, weirder, I would be shunned and left alone. At a stop sign some helpful people called out to inform me that my headlight wasn’t working. They seemed friendly enough, all mirthfully laughing. They addressed me in their parlance, as if I could’ve been one of their own, and I felt welcomed. They used words like “foo,” as in, “Yo, headlights out Foo!”

posted by goat hill dreamer @ 4:20 PM