Have snuck on a few times in the past just to see what it was like, seems like a cool deal.
Was considering throwing on the race wheels and making it a training ride this year, wondering how open it is, if I’ll be able to go flying down the road, or if it’s a more crowded, casual thing.
Thanks.
I did it a couple of years ago because I happened to be in Chicago visiting family and needed to get in a long ride…everyone told me that there was lakeshore drive…or, well nothing. So I jumped into Bike the drive and did about 75 miles. It was a casual ride but there were packs of faster riders who were trying to use it as a training ride. The main thing is to be cautious since there are alot of kids and families out there. Most of the fast people were on the left lane so it worked ok. Cool oppurtunity to ride on a road that’s usually swarming with cars! Parts of the road are rough though so be aware.
I’ve found that if I get out there in the morning right as the police are shutting down LSD, you can totally hammer for a full loop (~30 miles) before it gets crowded. By around 7:30 am, it starts to become a total mob scene, with 1000s of folks who dust of the family bikes for this event once a year, and as a result have poor bike handling skills and ride very unpredictably. We live right off of one of the LSD entrance ramps, so will usually do a loop on our race rigs, then switch out for our commuter bikes for another easy-paced loop and just enjoy the morning and crowd-watching.