Wrigley Field 5.17.10

I go to lots of Cubs games living right down the street, and I take lots of pictures. As of the moment I don't really have a "real" camera, like an SLR or even a decent pocket cam, so I end up taking pictures from my 1.3 megapixel camera phone (and they come out okay, most of the pictures on this blog are from my phone).

Here are two shots from Wrigley on Monday, May 15th, a night game against the Rockies. It was very cold and windy, as it's been in Chicago all Spring. The Cubs won in the 11th with a walk off home run from Aramis Ramirez. I put this together on Photoshop.

     click image for large photo

@thegratefulone

Atop The Only Rock We Got

http://twitpic.com/1g1vnh - 2nd row with @thirdcoastchef #cubs about 11 hours ago 

and the MLB.com retweet

#'s 13, 14, & 15. And #'s 25, 2, & 1

So, I've been riding but not writing about rides, though I was quoted in the RedEye about riding. But now that the weather has turned I more or less ride for everything. I've been riding to class, I ride to Dominick's, I ride to the post office, I ride to Wrigley: no desire to get behind the wheel anymore, which is good given the newly discovered cracked radiator. And though I try to change things up as often as possible a lot of the routes are very similar, so in order to avoid redundancy I'm going to focus on new paths, exercise rides, and pavement bombing routes as opposed to the "for fun" and short zen rides.

So since my last ride post I've gone on three document-worthy rides, numbers thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen. Thirteen was pure exercise, I raced myself every minute of the ride. Saturday afternoon... Saturdaaaay Afternooon  ...April 10th, 1pm to 3pm and it was my exact throwback route.

Ride fourteen was a mad dash from point A to B to C. I had 10 minutes to get from Bryn Mar and Kimball to Wrigley Field for the 1st Inning. I made it with 3 minutes to spare, even squeezing out a twitpic walking in. Google Map'd.

The following pictures are from Wrigley. Cubs rallied for four runs in the eighth to win 7 - 6 over the Brewers, great game. Theriot, Fukudome, and Lee all hitting real well.

Addison & Clark Entrance, 04/14/10 - Walking in during the National Anthem

A beautiful day at The Friendly Confines

Five dollar tickets on Stubhub. Of course I snuck down seven rows

Ride fifteen was today. I reversed my normal route and headed Southeast on Lincoln towards the lake, then South into Old Town, East on Division, and then back North on the Lake Shore Bike Path. Winds were around 25 mph and I was hoping to catch the stream heading North but they were crashing in from the West pretty heavily. Google Map'd.

Pictures below are in order corresponding to the numbers listed on the map.

The Hancock Building in the distance from the corner of Division and Astor

#Chicago #Beach

Lake Shore Bike Path on the left, facing North

Starting the hunt for a new bike this weekend. I want to go into this as educated as possible so I'm taking my time doing as much research and test riding as I can. Any suggestions or advice is always welcome and greatly appreciated.

Happy Official Awesome Spring Chicago Weather Riding Season!

-Zach

@thegratefulone

ISO: One Charismatic Solar Deity

6th ride of the season so far. That season being Springter (or Winting as some prefer, though most have trouble with the pronunciation). A rough mash up of almost all four seasons, March can provide quite the sensory experience while riding through the city. The sun warm and new, inviting; after months of hibernation it only takes seconds to remember. I bow. The moving air still crisp, remnants of Autumn and reminders that this isn't California, this is Chicago: a city of four seasons, today we get to see them all. People in shorts wearing sandals, people in scarfs and wool jackets; squirrels searching through dirty snow mounds, a bit confused... but happy nonetheless.

Shortened my ride today in favor for a slower pace: we're supposed to get some good old cold rain and snow this weekend, so I went zen. Mental health is just as important as physical health.

One part of this ride I would like to point out really quickly is a section of brick houses near Wrigley Field called Alta Vista Terrace. The district was built in 1904 in imitation of the rowhouse style of London (this sentence was copy & pasted directly from Wikipedia). It is an awesome street with a super homey feel, probably one of my favorite blocks in the Northside neighborhoods, and definitely worth checking out. There are pillars on both entrances to the street that point it out.

And here is the route I took today, pretty spot on to my old school, and I guess new school, half route.  12.5 miles.

I only took one photo on the go today. The photo I did take, however, is from the exact same spot at which I took a photo during ride number 3, which you can find in this blog, from March 10th. The photo was taken from a walking path behind The Nature Museum off of Fullerton and Lake Shore. In the 8 days since the 1st photo the small lake has thawed. I'm going to try to document the spot over the year.

Alright, that is all for now.
I'm ready for the snowstorm: go springter!
Cheers!
@thegratefulone

Spring is Sprunging and I'm Out Riding

I'm going to start documenting my bike rides on here.

On Sunday, March 7th, I took my first ride of Spring. It was at night, after work around 9pm and was about forty degrees outside. No wind though. None. Made it a quick trip: East across Addison from California to Wrigley, circled Wrigley and then took Roscoe back West to around California.

Today I extended my ride to include my old, mini route. This ride is about 8 and 1/2 miles and takes me North to Winnemac Park, on the corner of Foster and Damen, and then I shoot over to Clark and head South to Wrigley and then back West on Roscoe. The ground is definitely still pre-spring: yellow and brown, heavy and wet, just getting used to the sun.

The ride looks kind of like this:

Soon, this ride will extend down to Adler Planetarium, and maybe even further this Summer.