Author: Greg

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Chicago to New York City – Day One

Thursday, September 26, 2019

Start: Chicago, Illinois
End: Fair Oaks, Indiana
Mileage today/cumulative: 74 / 74
Elevation Ascended: 817′
Weather: Sunny, 59° at start; sunny, 71º at finish
Flat tires (entire group) day/cumulative: 1 / 1

We could not have asked for a better day to begin our ride to New York City. Perfect weather, beautiful views, and low traffic made for a very easy 74 miles. Our ceremonial start was at Buckingham Fountain in Chicago’s Grant Park and we all wore special Chicago – New York City jerseys that we purchased from Adventure Cycling. This seemed like the perfect spot for a group of baby boomers. The Fountain’s water capacity is 1.5 million gallons and depending on wind conditions, the major displays recirculate approximately 14,100 gallons of water per minute. The original pumps and motors are still in operation today. Old and still going, just like us.

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Team Pea Back on Their Bikes

Welcome back friends! In this latest chapter of our “go-go” years, we’re headed out on another epic journey.

This time we’re riding our bicycles from Chicago to New York City. We spent a few days before the trip visiting our friends Deb and Julie in Pennsylvania, where our car will stay for the duration of our journey. Deb and Julie were kind enough to drive us to the Washington D.C. Amtrak station, where we boarded an overnight train to Chicago. We will reunite with them (and our car) at the end of the trip. 

After bidding our friends farewell in the “Kiss and Drop” parking lot, we prepared to board the Capitol Limited train to Chicago. We rolled our bicycles into a baggage car and checked into our “Sleepliner Roomette”. We had expected to hang our bikes on racks in the baggage car, only to discover that racks were not available on this train. The Amtrak agent had us roll our bikes into the car and lay them down. While not the ideal method for storing bicycles, it still beats packing them in a bike box and shipping them in advance or, worse, handing them over to the airlines. The bikes were no worse for wear when we retrieved them from the baggage car in Chicago, but we were troubled by the fact that no Amtrak employee was monitoring the car and we were able to just grab them and walk out of the station.

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Tuscany Cycling

The cycling portion of our trip ended last week and we were very sad to leave Lecchi in Chianti. It is a special place that we’ll think of often and hope to return to someday. 

Before talking about the experience with inGamba cycling, it helps to know a little bit about Lecchi.  This is a village of 80 residents with one main street. The coffee shop/restaurant and small market are owned by a man named Paolo. Everybody in the region knows Paolo and most of them stop by for a caffé at some point during the day. We never saw the locals pay for food or drink when they ordered it but we did see Paolo, during a quiet moment, open a ledger and record what each customer purchased, their accounts presumably to be settled later. In Lecchi, smartphones exist but the locals don’t walk around staring at them and the coffee shop is for human interaction. 

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Hello Legs…

We’ve put Rome in the rear view mirror and begun the cornerstone of our Italian adventure, cycling in Tuscany. The sea and the mountains will be fabulous but they must wait. The cycling  is why we’re here and we must heed the call.

A high speed train ride from Rome and a full day of rest in Florence was the perfect recovery for our tired legs before being picked up by inGamba (our cycling tour group) and driven to the village of Lecchi in Chianti, population 80. Our little cycling group of six has made a sizable bump in their numbers!

We chose inGamba for the experience. More about that in a different post, but this is their classic Tuscany trip, what they describe as “the culmination of all their local knowledge and a perfect expression of the Mangia, Beve, Bici experience.”  Eat, Drink, Bike.

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When In Rome…

You’ve probably heard the saying “when in Rome, do as the Romans do.”  It’s often used to rationalize overindulgence but the origin of the saying can actually be traced back to the 4th century AD when the Roman Empire was undergoing instability and had already split in two. St. Augustine, an early Christian saint, moved to Milan. Unlike in his previous church in Rome, he found the congregation didn’t fast on Saturdays. The older and wiser St. Ambrose, at that time the bishop of Milan, offered up some sage words: ‘when I go to Rome, I fast on Saturday, but here I do not…’

Really? When in Rome, I fast? Not “when in Rome, eat pasta and drink wine?” Hmmm. I guess we got that one all wrong.

We’ve completed the first leg of our Italian adventure, where we spent three days in the heart of Rome. We hit the ground walking on day one, knowing that we must keep moving to avoid succumbing to jet lag. After that, we only stopped moving to eat and sleep. Day One: the Pantheon, which was steps from our hotel; Trevi Fountain, cleaned and beautifully restored; the Spanish Steps; we even stumbled across the Presidential Palace. Day Two: the Vatican Museums, the Sistine Chapel, and St. Peter’s Basilica.  Day Three: the Colosseum, the Forum Ruins, and the Borghese Gallery.  No taxis, buses, or trains – just walking, which we believe is always the best way to experience any city. 

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