Website contains pages of tidbit stories of unique experiences , Bicycling and Personal.

Larry’s Chicago Adventure (2011, my first ride)

(a short story written for my grandchildren, dedicated to the search for the answer to the question: “why?”, and the challenge to bicycle manufacturers to build for old clydesdales)

During a very rainy and over cast early morning, on the Wednesday before Memorial Day 2011, Larry set out on a planned 215 mile solo bicycle trip.   His plan was:  This will be an unsupported solo road bicycle ride to Chicago, starting from Little Chute, WI.  This adventure would take 3 days to complete.  The daily mile totals were adjusted in order to stay with a niece and her family, a daughter with grandchildren, and then with friends.  The first day was Larry’s longest ride of his life (to south side of Germantown).  The second day was his fourth longest day ride ever (to Kenosha) and the third day to the Southside of Chicago would be his third longest day ride of his 51 years.  What made this a very large challenge was that  Larry, a person who physically should not able to complete this ride, was to do this in three consecutive days with little to no muscle recovery time or experience at this type challenge.  Larry deduced over one 90-mile trail run that nourishment was going to be the key to this success.  Strength would have to come mostly from the mind since Larry is overweight for this type of challenge. It was to be 215 miles, but it turned into 240 total miles.

One obvious reward for achieving this self-inflicting ride challenge was to attend, with all who would want to ride with Larry, the “Bike the drive” event.  This event closes lakeshore drive, downtown Chicago, for 15 miles on both Northbound and Southbound lanes and bicycle enthusiasts from all over; ride on the actual divided multi-lane highway.  This would be a 30-mile round trip route, once around the route, with breathtaking scenery and camaraderie.  This event was brought to Larry’s attention by his cousins Wayne and Annette.  They had done this ride many times before.  They talked with persuasive enthusiasm about the ride.  That during the ride they had view points of the Chicago Skyline not able to be seen on any other day by foot or on a bicycle.  This turned out to be not exactly right on that day but that will be explained later in this story.   Larry added the 210-mile ride down to the “bike the drive” event and made it a challenging activity.  The challenge had to be very hard in order for Larry to consider such a feat.  Larry had to feel he could fail big or die or it would not be worth attempting.  Assessing and altering plans on the go is always acceptable.  Failure is never an option.  Challenge was accepted! 

 Larry was born and raised in the Southside inner city of Chicago and has not visited being back, experienced the south side people, seen it’s sites, spoke to its people, tasted the south side food, and smelled Chicago’s Southside’s air for years.  A smell that gives a city’s son a feeling of “I am home”.  As a reward, Larry thought it would be awesome to go back and experience the changes.  Larry has heard of the many lake front changes in Chicago since the days of when he grew up just 15 minutes from the lake front by car.  In fact, Larry and his wife (first love high school sweetheart) planned their future family walking along Megs field, the Planetarium, the beaches, and the Shed Aquarium area when they were teenagers. Larry was nicknamed “Baby Larry” as a child.  It was not because he was named after someone.  It was not because he was small in stature.  It was not because he was larger than others in stature.  It could be because tears come to his eyes when he writes words on paper but it was what mom and dad called him.  It was likely because he was 10 to 20 years younger than his generation of first cousins.  The name stuck many years into his adult life.

Before I get to the story of Larry’s Chicago adventure bicycle ride, let me start by first going back three years, before Larry’s Chicago Adventure, when he and wife first relocated to the Appleton, WI area.  He read about an event where racers race ninety miles around Lake Winnebago on bicycle.  He thought that would be great to do but there is a minimum speed requirement in this race, which Larry was not able to achieve at this point.  So he took his lifetime collection of specialize trouble solving project management skills and laid out a plan.  The time to achieve this to be solely based on his body’s and mind’s response to changes in activity.  Last May 2010  Larry hopped on the bike with only 1 bottle of water and decided to ride south out of Little Chute until he could no longer pedal and then turn around.  He had no true endurance nutrition knowledge.  He didn’t want to over think this desire.  He just wanted to go until he couldn’t go anymore.  At the fall down point Larry will know where his body is at, health wise.  It will be the first benchmark.  There was a little fear in his mind as he started this benchmark ride.  If the doctor and all the tests were right and he would just pedal past the pain and the chest tightness then he would be fine.  If the Doc was wrong, well then, they would find Larry on the side of the road.   Larry made it about 20 miles, through a hilly area, when the pains began to be hard on him.  Larry texted his immediate family members to let them know where he was located.  Larry was thinking, he could lay in this park for a couple hours until his wife could pick him up as she returned from her Cedarburg visit with her family.   You see, Larry told no one of this plan to ride.  It was a sudden decision that morning as he sat alone in his home.  He received shocking texts first from his wife like; “what are you doing?”  She knew some of  Larry’s doctor’s opinions and his health.  After a while of laying in the grass, Larry texted his family to say he will start back, but he will likely need to be picked up eventually.  Larry’s son then called from work and said, “hey, you are halfway to Fond du Lac”, where his son lives, “just keep coming to Fond du Lac and I will meet you in between Fond du Lac and where you are at now.”  So Larry turned around and started pedaling again south toward Fond du Lac.  After a while, they did meet up on the road, not too much to Larry’s surprise his son meant that he would meet halfway on his own bike, and ride back to Fond du Lac with his dad and Larry’s wife could pick him up there.  So Larry’s first endurance ride as an adult was 42 miles, one year ago.  This is not a high benchmark to be proud of achieving but it was a benchmark for Larry to build upon.  During last summer, after this first benchmark ride, Larry went on many rides improving my cycling ability but still has a problem with my power to weight ratio.   Larry laughs about that because he would tell people, “I would never have thought a round man wasn’t more aero dynamic than a flat stomach rider.”

During these improvement rides last summer,  Larry learned that qualifying and completing in the race around Lake Winnebago, within their time limitations, is going to be a an long journey of multiple accomplishments.   Larry’s son then brought up a different ride to accomplish before “race the lake”.  It is yearly event that allows bicyclists to ride across Iowa (490 miles), no minimum speed requirements, just riding and fun.  So Larry of course tells himself again “challenge accepted” and quietly and mentally puts together a plan.  First the plan had to include a solo ride to Chicago along with containing many training rides and goal achievements, followed by goal advancements.  The Iowa ride was still too hard to complete, to just do at his present health.  First step, after 20+ progressing workout rides this spring Larry planned and rode 90 miles around Lake Winnebago alone, at his own speed.  He was learning what he needed to know, to have, and test his newly gained nutrition basic knowledge.  Larry completed that Winnebago ride and learned enough to create the “to-include-list” and the nutrition plan for the trip to Chicago.  Now it was time for Larry to tell the wife, “Honey, I am doing this 3 day ride, in 3 weeks and I need some bike accessories!”  She knew he was thinking of something, with all the workout rides in the cold and rain this spring, but with her facial expression it was obvious she didn’t think her chubby husband was going on a 200+ mile solo road bike ride.  “Who does things like that?”

Where did Larry plan to get the strength to do things like this without achieving a better physical stature first?  From one place only, mental strength.   Larry’s dad was his #1 mentor.   Larry lived his life in the shadow of dad’s accomplishments even after his dad passed away in 1983.  It was a great life of continuing his dad’s work and have the opportunity to match up achievement comparisons up to someone that was so good at what he did and was loved by all who met Larry’s dad.   Larry’s dad always reminded him that:

“Total strength comes 90% from the mind, and 5% from muscle and 5% from knowledge.  It is not how much you know or how much muscle you have, it is how much of what you have, that you use, that gets you to where you need to be.”

What makes a person, who never before road bicycles during his adult years, start riding with endurance riding as an interest?  Larry’s interest in bicycling started sometime when he was seven or eight years old.  He grew up on the south side “city” of Chicago.  He is a city boy.  Bicycling was the way kids got around in the city at that time in his neighborhood, besides the CTA.  No family had two vehicles during those times.  Any stay-at-home-parent was never able to drive the kids around like families do now-a-days.  The city’s neighborhoods were also divided into block-by-block friend groups for the young kids due to distance they could reach by bicycle and their safety.  The friend group would extend as kids got older and their travel distance grew.  Sometimes groups of friends would get together with their bikes and ride around the neighborhood, sometimes pushing our distance from home limits without our parent’s consent.  The kids would collect and carry chalk, mostly broken drywall from bungalow construction in our neighborhood prairie lots.  They would chalk out routes for others to follow by using the chalk to scribe directional arrows on the sidewalk.  The routes always had start points and end points.  Sometimes it would simply go around the block, so all ages could follow without crossing the street.  Other times and as the kids got older and more experience the route would be more complicated.  Sometimes the routes would lead people to a park to play.  Sometimes lead other kids to corner candy stores.  The routes always contained limericks, riddles, their names, drawings, just a statement, or any other idea that would come to the creator’s vision of fun and relationship building.  The city dynamics of block-by-block friend group structures would create overlap of a part of each chalked route creation, giving kids the capability to complete one route and link to others, sort of like the rails to trails group turning old rail routes into bicycle routes.  This creation would spark competition to make each route better than the last one followed.  The bicycling kids had no control over how many days this route would remain readable.  The rain would come sooner or later to wash it away leaving the creators with the need to reinvent the route and constantly improve.

The last “life push” that tipped the scale for Larry to actually attempt this ride was a loss of a another friend and Larry’s last mentor from the WWII era generation.  This mentor filled the part of the large void created when Larry lost his dad over 25 years ago.  This mentor was a large lighthouse of experience and positive guidance for Larry to talk about life too.  Larry remembers when this mentor would call Larry’s cell phone, out of the blue, just to ask how and what Larry was doing.  Sometimes Herb, this mentor, would call just to get Larry’s opinion or research on something this mentor was contemplating.  A tear falls to Larry’s eyes when he thinks of his dad and other mentors and the lessons they have taught others.  One can imagine the feeling when one gets, when a successful mentor, from the tough WWII days, would call just to ask what Larry’s thoughts were about anything.  That feeling will be missed.  The nights before his family laid this mentor to rest in March 2011, Larry asked himself, “Where have all these everyday positive influencing heroes from the WWII era gone?  Heroes that are powerful influences for many, not just for one.  After many hours of thinking, Larry’s best conclusion is;  they are gone but no future than our hearts and our memories.  And people that were strongly influence by these lost Heros has to step up to -- lead more, accomplish bigger, conquer bigger, and influence bigger.  Throw any negative in your face media influence entitlement type thoughts to the gutter where they belong and make a path through life for others to follow.  This last loss triggered a little fear in Larry.  The fear of what others will think while sitting in the church during Larry’s memorial in the future.  Did Larry “live without really living” or will he “Live life by living big?”  The way his father taught him too.  “What if someday, someone near me may look to me for guidance, mentoring, and role modeling?”   Larry was sitting in that church when he decided that he must turn on his own lighthouse light and be available to influence those looking for positive influence when they need a light to follow during a time of “fog” in their life.  Larry needed re-build more confidence in himself so that he has enough to share with other family and friends, like Larry’s mentors did for him during their life.  It will not be overnight; it will take Larry more than a day and hopefully less than nine years to achieve and regain enough positive influence to share with those around him, so they have the confidence to challenge themselves and succeed without ceilings and road blocks.   Larry sat in that church and decided, “I am doing this Chicago ride.”

7:00 AM Wednesday morning; the first day of the ride. The bike is packed.   Larry is packed, half suited up, and watching the weather.  It is cold (50 degrees), raining one inch an hour, windy, and storm fronts are rolling through the bicycle route.  It is not going to let up all day.  Storms are all day and all the way to my first overnight, in Germantown with my niece’s family.  Tomorrow is not promising better weather either.  Fear runs through Larry’s body.  Doubt is running through his mind.  He questions himself:  “Why am I doing this? You know, I don’t have to do this.  The sun will rise tomorrow if I don’t do this.”  Larry is communicating by email and texts with others about what he should do at this point.  Then Larry gets this email from his Texas friend, Scott, Herb’s son.  “Think of the rain being a benefit, it will cool you and you will not over heat.”  His next email was “give her hell”.  Larry emailed and texted everyone, “I am going.”  He shut down the computer.  He finish “suiting up,” borrowed an incentive idea and wrote “NOW”, with permanent marker on his inside forearm, and was on that bicycle in fifteen minutes to begin this adventure.   Larry reminded himself that failing is also a success, not attempting is failure.  “ We swing on 3rd strike”, “Failure is not an option.”  We all learned this later one in our Apollo history.  If you ever corner Larry and ask him what those first 30 minutes felt like he would tell you he was tearing up from fear of failing big.  Larry was fighting the thought of, “I can turnaround and quit.  No one will know I was scared.”  Larry was riding with dark skies, an inch an hour rain, and cold.  It wasn’t easy to keep going forward.  South of Johnsburg, WI.   Larry turn on to 11 miles of road called “seven hill rd.”  It was the right rode according to the Google map print out but Larry did not see that name on the printouts, so he thought, how bad could it be?  Let’s just say that your vehicle’s fuel mileage will be half what it is rated when you drive on this road.  No one probably knows who named the road, but any who has been on that road knows they couldn’t count; there are more than seven hills.  There are seventeen hills.  Those hills made a grown man cry just at the sight of the next one.  They were continuous.  When one downhill ended the next hill began upward.  There were a couple of hills  Larry had to finish by walking and pushing his bicycle in this dark windy rainy weather.  There were some inclines that were so severe that Larry’s bike just stopped going forward while he was giving it all in the lowest gear.  On the second hill  Larry pulled his groin muscle severely, it sounded like a pop followed by a warm rushing feeling flowing from his knee through his private middle area and ending above his right hip.  A minute or two of rest didn’t help.  A decision had to be made again.  Forward or make a phone call.  After a minute of rest Larry could not, at this point, see any other options but to go forward.  The fear of thinking of the simple option of “I can quit and no one will call this a failure.  Continuing this attempt is not normal in most eyes.  The other fear of failing big with an undesirable result or an accident was still prevalent.  The muscle damage was a constant throbbing pain like a bass drum, and continued to grow over the remainder of this adventure and linger for months afterward.  The pain did blend into the rest of Larry’s other developing pains that just was mentally accepted as a part of the ride.  It was as if the pains became a part of the heartbeat.   Larry again learns the true understanding of the benefits of self-hypnosis of repeating to oneself, “no pain, no pain, …”.   Larry had a great lunch at a place in Campbellsport, WI.  But coming out of Campbellsport  Larry took the wrong rode and added another 15 miles to the first day’s trip plan.  Who knew a small town of Campbellsport would have two parks that can be used as a landmark.   Larry was reminded that a compass is a great tool, especially when it is raining heavy and no sun to tell direction.  Larry had the compass in hand the day before but thought, “I have never been lost on a bicycle before, so why should I carry what I thought I wouldn’t need.”  He was wrong.  It will be added to all of Larry’s tool lists in the future.  Larry also popped two spokes on the rear wheel on this first day and luckily wobbled along another 50 miles to the Trek store in West Bend for repairs.  They took great care of Larry.  The owner of the store was definitely someone who knows, loves bikes, and truly cares about the riders’ safety and positive experiences on their bicycles.  Since Larry was running late and it was getting dark the store owner and one other “experienced” customer were concerned for safety and convinced Larry to purchase a rear blinking light.  At first thought you may think it was a sales ploy but they offered Larry a free one first, but Larry wanted a brighter one so he upgraded and took the advice of the professionals.  Larry finally made it to his first overnight stop, his niece’s, Carol’s home.  He arrived after sun down, two and half hours later than planned.  Carol was concerned for her Uncle because he was so late.  Carol and her husband were outside waiting.  Larry deeply appreciated their extension of care, concerns, food, washer/dryer, and a bed her family gave up for Larry to use for the night.

Thursday Morning, the second day, Larry packed the bike and played marbles on the floor, with his great nephew, at his great nephew’s request that morning.   Larry was thinking that morning, “yesterday I accomplished something that people with my overweight build almost never does.  Larry thought he could stop right here, play marbles all morning, and live with the pride of that accomplishment for the rest of my life.”  But something inside said it was not enough.  You see, Larry spent the first productive portion of his career living and listening to that feeling, of needing to do more than he has already done.   Larry remembered how he succeeded in the past then suited up, and waved good-bye to his niece’s family with great thanks.  This time Larry was teary eyed for the first 20 minutes with the fear of the unknown future right in front of him today.  “The great fear of the unknown was gone and now replaced with memories of physical pain.”  Inexperienced, and out on the road Larry arrived at his halfway point for that day, the Milwaukee lake front park.  It was a very beautiful ride from Germantown to the Milwaukee lake front park.  The paved trails portions were beautiful.  It was a day with a 25 mph NE wind.  Temperature topped at 45 degrees.  Larry’s shoes, and now socks, were sopping wet from the day before.  He sent his family; pictures of the Milwaukee skyline to let them know where he was located.   Larry texted some humor, “click click click, there is no place like my warm home.”  It didn’t work.  He was still on the bicycle with freezing feet.  His daughter, Janet, sent a “LOL” back by text.  His wife, Sharon, texted, “she was glad I was having fun.”  I texted back, “is that what this is?”  She was joking, but it made Larry wonder for the first time, how many people would understand what this ride is like to experience and he should tell the story of the ride?   Larry entered the downtown area.  He was traveling west now, with a 25+-mile per hour north wind squeezing through the streets around the tall buildings of Milwaukee.  Larry was working his way through the tall buildings, to the bridge in order to cross the river.  Larry was about to gain his first “real” rode bike experience.  As he was approaching an intersection, there was a vehicle with his front fender about twelve inches from Larry’s left pedal.  Larry was to the far right of his allowed legal three feet to ride, which was still too close to the parked cars but the vehicle obviously wasn’t giving Larry his legal cushion of another three feet after allowed three foot riding area of the vehicle lane.  Larry was wondering what was this drivers problem to endanger a bicycle rider like that?  There were no other vehicles near us and the driver of the vehicle had a lane to move over into, but refused to for no apparent reason.  They entered an green light intersection together and the second Larry and this vehicle passed the corner’s tall building that 25+ mph wind directly hit the side of his bicycle and in less than a second the bike pushed to the left, right toward this moving vehicle.  Larry hiked out leaning into the wind and fighting to hold the bike in a upward, rubber down, position.  This wind was so strong that with all Larry could do, the wind still slowly pushed Larry’s bicycle slowly toward the car while still coasting through the intersection.  Larry’s left leg was up and perfectly horizontal with the left thigh partially on the seat due to hiking out, like a sailor would do while racing scow style sailboat or sailing a catamaran.  Larry was looking into this vehicle’s passenger window with the bottom of his shoe perched and ready to kick off the window to push away from the apparent likelihood of going under this vehicle’s wheels.  The driver was on the phone with one hand, swinging the other hand at Larry, mouthing something muffled through his closed window and wind in Larry’s ears.  The driver of this terrifying vehicle still wasn’t moving over to the open lane that contained no other vehicles.  Larry bent his leg readying himself for the worst.  Just before Larry was about to kick off this vehicle’s window, the two of them finally crossed that intersection and the next corner’s tall building blocked the wind and this immediately allowed  Larry to stand the bicycle upright and continue to pedal on down the road.  As the driver sped on Larry thought for sure that driver was going to stop and want to fight or argue it out since he was starring at the bottom of Larry’s big shoe coming at his passenger side window.  But that driver just continued on his way not caring one bit more about how close he came to Larry and his bicycle falling under his tires than he did before they both entered that intersection.  That driver never turned right at the next intersection and Larry never saw a reason for that driver to need that right lane.   Larry’s heart stayed in his throat for a few miles but he was pretty proud of himself being able to stay on that bike, not getting crushed by vehicle wheels, and standing that bike back straight when the wind ceased pushing him under that vehicle.  Larry finished that day’s ride to his daughter’s, Barb, home through the high crime areas of Racine without any problems.  After arriving at his daughter, Barb, Larry immediately started playing on the floor with his grandchildren.  Later that evening,  Larry’s seven year old grandson’s (1st), Zachary, singing show at school.  All the pain it took to get that far magically disappeared for short time  Larry spent on the floor with his grandchildren and also for that hour of the school musical.  Zachary sang and smiled with his group and it felt like he was singing just for Grandpa Larry.  As a grandparent, seeing and hearing that musical was worth any trip or pain I had during the previous two days.  Larry is the type that can spend hours watching his grandchildren, smile, grow, and learn.

The third and final day of this ride started early, with breakfast with Larry’s grandson, Zachary.  He is an amazing grandchild.  For the first time in Larry’s life he was able to walk and wait at the end of a driveway for a school bus.  It was Zachary’s school bus.  Zachary was worried grandpa Larry would embarrass him in front of his friends.  He made grandpa promise to be “cool”.  At the end of that driveway, while waiting for that bus, Zachary asked Grandpa Larry, “how do you do that, ride your bike from home, that far?”  He impressed Grandpa Larry with his understanding of this accomplishment, it was grandpa Larry’s first large accomplish, in Zachary’s lifetime.  Of course, grandpa Larry had to watch what he said, so grandpa Larry told him it takes planning, determination, and, in a very loud and direct voice, YOU MUST BE AT LEAST 18!  Larry spent the next hour prepping to ride the last leg to Chicago while having one on one time with my daughter.  That doesn’t happen much and Larry cherishes that time when it happens.  She added her insight, being in the criminal justice field, and asked Larry to carry her pocket knife.  She also adjusted the route of this final leg due to construction and safety, which added a few more miles to the plan.  As Larry started the final day Larry received calls and text from Henry and Tom, who live in and around the final destination, Chicago.  They told Larry if he needed to be picked up they or someone would be available.  Henry and Tom, being great lifelong friends, each from different friend groups, knew they were poking and prodding me with those statements.  They did this without communicating with each other, which may tell you the consistency of Larry’s personality.  Larry’s text answer to both of them was this, “the only place you will need to pick me up at will be from a hospital or at the bicycle store because my debt card was empty!”  Larry thinks that was the answer they were expecting; while they were laughing to themselves knowing it was the only answer Larry would give any time after the first five minutes of the first day.  This day’s ride started uneventful until Larry hit the Illinois border.  It was as if the drivers in this area never seen a bicycle before today.  One driver actually blew her horn and drove Larry off the road.  Yes, she actually drove her car off into the rock apron to push Larry into the grass ditch area past the rock apron.  And of course she was on the phone at the same time.  Her and her teenage passenger flipped Larry off, laughed, and drove on.  The vehicle was inches off my pedal, pushing me off to the right by the use of fear.

At this point Larry wondered why the bicycle manufactures and our government hasn’t pushed for more driver education about the laws of sharing the road with bicycles, like the motorcycle industry does.  Larry may be new to the recreation but Bicycling has been around longer than vehicles.  Bicycles are required to use three left feet of right LANE, and driver must give three feet.  That means six feet of the lane is for the bicyclist, not the park cars area and not the curb area, the vehicle lane!  Drivers must wait for oncoming traffic to subside so they can pass a bicycle correctly and safely for all.  You can correct Larry if he is wrong, but he is from Wisconsin.

So if anyone questions on Larry or watch how cities go out with the police force to selectively attack, like Chicago done recently.  You will learn why bicyclist go through red lights, or use the crosswalk at intersections, or swerves back and forth in park car voids, or within three feet of park car door swings,  they do this due to their experience of fear by keeping away from Larry’s self-proclaimed ratio of “one in forty” vehicle drivers who don’t respect the safety, laws for, or the rights of bicyclists to be on the roads.  Bicyclist cut corners to avoid their own risk of life they experience ON EVERY RIDE!

This was the second very close call on Larry’s first big ride.  Larry put himself back on the road and kept going.  Larry was looking forward to that lake front ride from the north shore down to soldier field.  While traveling through the north shore, near the North Shore Country Club, Larry was cut off again for the third time.  This time it was by a SUV Mercedes.  So it appears that income and self-imposed class is not the division of respect and ignorance and the lack thereof.  It was just a swerve around me that cut Larry’s front wheel close for no visual reason, on a residential very low volume area of Sheridan road.  Larry made it to the lake front trail along Lake Shore drive.  It was beautiful.  It was relaxing.  It was safe.  It was full of people enjoying the path with respect for others of all activities.  While riding Larry was remembering the lake front from his childhood.  It was so much different today.  Larry rode from the north point of lake shore drive down to soldier field, 18th street.  The recent former Mayor Daley did a beautiful job improving that lake front.  You know Larry has a newspaper picture of Chicago’s former mayor, when he was a senator (I think?), with his grammar school basketball team, they took 2nd place in a De La Salle tournament in 1974.  The memories kept flowing as Larry peddled closer and closer to the end of his ride, the old neighborhood.  Larry stopped and laid along the water’s edge soaking up the view.  When Larry scheduled this “bike the drive” ride, he tried to get as many people to join on that Sunday.  Larry’s oldest friend Henry told him that he wasn’t going to pay $45 to bike lake shore drive.  He would rather spend it on beer and pizza with Larry.  So while laying their Larry texted Henry and told him “to get out his wallet because I am going to succeed at this trip.”  Henry was happy and soon to be a little lighter in his wallet.  While traveling down the beach path Larry needed to use a rest room.  There was no place to lock up a bicycle around the rest room facility.  Larry went back and forth then stopped and wondered how he was going to use this facility and not lose his bike.  After many minutes another cyclist stopped and walked his bike with him into the restroom.  Larry started to laughing to himself and proceeded to enter the facility with bicycle in hand rolling next to me.  Yes, inside this rest room structure everything was roomier than other locations of rest room facility design.  Larry was able to keep his bicycle at his side.  Larry thought to himself this can’t look right, but when you learn something new, one must be willing to learn to accept how some new tasks are completed and appear to others from a “need to do” point of view.  Larry arrived at the Shed Aquarium area, and of course what would an old Chicago south side boy get first, near the end of this accomplishment?  Yes it was two hot dogs from a street vendor, a young polish women with a pretty, familiar, and comforting accent.  Larry was relaxed.  The tension of the ride was gone and Larry only had to travel a short way up Archer avenue to the Mc Kinley Park area.  As I rode past Soldier field Larry felt a short lived visual unhappiness coming over himself.   While the inside is said to be awesome, the outside was not the old soldier field Larry grew up knowing.  They should have just taken it all down and started from scratch.  But that is just an opinion.  Don’t hate for that visual opinion.  While riding up Archer Avenue to the home of Larry’s longest and close friend’s parents, close enough to be Larry’s second family, Larry experienced a portion of my old childhood neighborhood.  It seemed to have more bicycles on the road and more vehicles’ recognition of bicycles sharing the roads than other areas Larry rode through over the past three days..  It could be that the bicycles in this area were used as a way of life by many people and drivers were adapted to being able to see them moving along the road.  Another example which shows that income and outside imposed class is the not the division for respect for others with the intelligence to adapt to one’s surroundings.  Larry arrived at my final destination, my oldest friend’s parents’ home, Mr and Mrs D.  Larry made it.  Who better to celebrate the first moments of success than with strong parental figures.

While growing up around his oldest friend Henry, Larry always seen himself as “the extra child around the “D” family home that his parents were glad they never had!”  It was a quite typical feeling with many of my friends’ parents.  Larry always makes that statement with laughter and love in his heart.  Because you know the old story always goes; when crossing the line as a child, we always blame other friends for getting ourselves involved in something our parents were not happy to find out about.  And that happened very often during the last 46 years with Henry’s siblings and Larry.  They are an extended family for Larry.  Larry was welcomed and relaxed in their home.   Sitting there the first few minutes Larry was so relaxed he forgot the pain for a while.  Larry is lucky when it comes to friends, because this type of closeness happens with many families in his life.  Larry received his first congrats from Mr and Mrs D. (Mrs D “mom” and Mr D) and Henry.  Now is the time Henry has to take him out for pizza and beer as he promised.  Where else does a southsider go for great pizza? Connies, on archer, of course.  Henry and Larry sat, ate, drank, and talked one on one.  Larry couldn’t remember how many years it has been since it was only Larry and Henry alone and out for dinner.  It was another result from the ride that was worth the ride.  And yes, the beer bill was three times the pizza bill.  And Henry spent twice the cost of “bike the drive”.  He should of decided to join Larry on “bike the drive,” to save money.  Henry is pretty cost efficient when it comes to his wallet, so Larry enjoyed spending his money, and that is only the second time in our life where Larry helped him spend his money.  The next morning Henry had to work a half day, so he took Larry to work and impressed Larry on the man he has grown into, from the business side this time.  Later that Saturday Larry visited with an old lost friend and his family, and then was treated to a cook out at Tom’s home, where Larry’s wife met up with his travels.  At Tom’s and Laura’s home, many of their family were there.  The food was great.  While Larry did get the, Why? question, Larry also received requests on stories of the ride. We bounced around what Larry would call the story, and the title “Larry’s Chicago Adventure” was born.  And the challenge of putting this story in writing was self-declared.  Why put it on paper? To remember. To share.  To smile.  To know, there are no limits, at any age, or shape.  Tom is another life long friend with a bond where, when together, we complement and complete each other’s thought with their actions.

Tom, Sharon (my wife), cousin Wayne, and his wife Annette, and Larry rode the “Bike the drive” on Sunday morning.  Larry felt a special feeling inside to have Tom and Sharon, join him on this ride just because they were asked, and to celebrate a journey.  Larry doesn’t know if they knew how much he enjoyed riding with them on the Drive.  It didn’t have the promised skyline views, because it was all fog with only about a hundred yard visibility.  But that did not take anything away from Larry’s feeling of accomplishment and celebration.  Tom, Wayne and Sharon stopped after fifteen miles.  Larry would have been satisfied with just 15 miles with his co-riders.  They sacrificed to be there just to get backside pain, Larry thanked them.  But Annette was determined to make it 30 miles for herself.  Larry could not pass up that challenge no matter how much pain he was in from that first day’s large muscle pull.  We had a late start but Annette and Larry completed the ride with minutes to spare before they opened lake shore drive back to vehicle traffic.  Annette was fun to ride with.  After the first few overpasses on the North loop of the ride, Larry would get to the bottom of the downhill side, slow down and turn and look for Annette.  Larry had trouble recognizing Annette passing him, until she started calling Larry’s name out, because while going down the incline she would bend down, with her face down low to her handlebars, for aerodynamics.  Kind of like those pictures and commercials with kids, with their tongue out the side of their mouth biting down on the tongue, grinning or just screaming “wee wee,” because of the free feeling associated with the speed they were traveling down the hill.

This was a trip that was worth, the experience, pain, tough lessons, easy lessons, and the pleasures brought from achieving and setting a standard for Larry to surpass in the future.  Maybe Iowa?

Larry challenges the bicycle manufactures to build stronger FX style of aluminum bicycles (36 or 38 spokes ) for us old athletic, and now overweight, strong minded individuals wanting to get healthy and ride bicycles more than just around the neighborhood.

During the days right after Larry completed this adventure he was asked by many people, Why?  I know they were looking for words of great wisdom, but Larry would not and could not tell them why at that time.  Instead of answering, Larry only would laugh until they didn’t ask the question anymore. 

The first part of “Why?” is simple to conclude after understanding and knowing Larry’s life influences that made him and the experiences gained over his lifetime.   Larry set out toward completing this one ride to relearn what many of us are lucky enough to learn when we lived under our parents’ and mentors’ wings.  How to do what we need to do, in order to “accomplish”.  It was to Reinvent, Retrain, Retool, and Rebuild a man’s confidence and mental strength to be stronger and better than he was before these tough economic times.  “Driven” People who once employed, must never stay mentally idle in order to fight the growing bad influence to conform and accept, instead of reaching, building, and confronting fear head-on.  If one doesn’t like what they are doing, then change your surroundings, by picking yourself up and go down the street to surround yourself with influence from another group of people (or just put yourself on a bicycle) and do what you need to do to accomplish and complete yourself.  The future is never the same as your past; it is always different especially when you learn to run toward fear and challenges.  Larry is different with this accomplishment.  And Larry will be different after every accomplishment in the future.

The bigger part of Why can be seen in some of Larry’s close friends  and why they didn’t ask why?  Those closest to me knew there is a mission in Larry’s head that is yet to be accomplished.  They knew this is one of Larry’s mind exercises and is only one step forward.  Those that know Larry only want to know, where is Larry headed after this accomplishment?  While knowing that no thought of mine ever has a ceiling to the potential achievement involved.  There is always more than one simple answer.

What keeps Larry getting back on a bicycle, after a long healing period following this First Annual Ride?  My children.  My grandchildren.  In recent years, Larry’s son, decided to reinvent him-self to personally reach a higher level of achieving.  He started down the path of learning about, working out, and participating in marathons, mini triathlons, and he picked up a road bike.  He knew of his dad’s interest in cycling.  He keeps dad’s interest in being active and bicycling.  Larry is lucky that all three of his kids are responsible, goal achieving, and self-sufficient.  They incite Larry to get up, out, and do.  Larry hopes to succeed in this retooling of him-self, so the kids can learn from him and see Larry’s beacon of light to follow when they need guidance.  Larry’s first daughter researched and purchased her bicycle three years ago and pushed him to purchase his bicycle, because she knew about the stories of Larry’s childhood on a bicycle.  She also created a riding song list for my Ipod and Larry’s son did purchase one song for riding.  Eminem’s “not afraid”.  It is wonderful reward when your children take the lead, so you can follow.

Yes, if you quit, the sun will still come up tomorrow.  But it will always look different to you, depending on how much of yourself you put into each attempt toward each success during their previous days.  Larry can tell you the day after completing his ride, when Larry drove to work with Henry, it was the most glorious sunrise I have seen in a long time.  And Henry and I have been in a vehicle during sunrise many times in our 45+ years.

Larry Teeling Sr.

Appleton Wisconsin area.

Larrylarrylarry@outlook.com

June 1, 2011