Dismantling The Michigan Avenue Bomb

Hi! My name is Zach, and I am a 25 year old Chicago bike rider.

I love Chicago, and I love riding, and every day I get to spend outside on the streets brings me a step closer to nirvana.

For the beginning of the season I have been working on a nice, easy at times/treacherous at others, 24 mile bike ride that takes me North to Foster & Damen, using Winnemac Park as one anchor, and South to Roosevelt & Lake Shore, using Adler Planetarium as another, hitting up several primo neighborhoods in between, such as Roscoe Village, Wrigleyville, Ravenswood, Old Town, and the Loop, just to name a few.

Part of the ride through the Loop incorporates a slightly insane, mostly harrowing, and somewhat reckless bomb up Michigan Avenue, heading North. Riding alongside the gawking rental cars, slicing taxi cabs, and impatient bus drivers who seem to transform into ferocious tribal warriors atop twelve ton metal elephants that are purposely trying to crush you and your bike below, you start to understand that you are now in the machine: you are the city. As I go barreling down the hill between Ohio street and the Hancock building, survival rests on comprehension. Rapt with heightened awareness, I rise up from under the brick and steel shade and navigate from above: the streets, the sidewalks, the people, the traffic lights, the crosswalks, the cars, the turn signals, the potholes, the more people! All a flash of a moment and a blur through my eyes, but all worthy opponents and dangerous obstacles that become even more real when riding alongside them.

Atop my bike, these become my most lucid moments, and this is when I love my city the most. Riding on Michigan Avenue is one of the best adrenaline rushes you will find around here. And after being thrust out of the Loop and finding the winds at your back, when you finally get to Mariano Park where Rush and State meet, it's like you've stumbled upon a slice of heaven that lay completely unaware of the madness below.

And that's the Michigan Avenue Bomb.
Cheers!
@thegratefulone