Hyde Park Pre-Ride

Details

Time: September 10, 2010 from 6pm to 8pm
Location: Washington Park Fieldhouse
Street: 5531 S Martin Luther King Drive
City/Town: Chicago, IL
Website or Map: http://maps.google.com/maps?q…
Phone: 773-255-6347
Event Type: pre-ride, research-ride
Organized By: Lee Diamond
Latest Activity: Sep 10, 2010

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Description

This is the pre-ride for the Tour of Hyde Park, Saturday September 11, which is our first ride of the new series and tour model. The pre-rides are shorter than normal rides as we do not do the individual stops, we ride the route and determine if there are necessary detours, best place for group stops in the event of unexpected changes to the route, construction, etc. The primary importance is being able to have a plan for anything unexpected before the day of the ride.

Attendees of research rides can earn $5 off the price of admission to the paid rides, and can earn free rides by volunteering to be a ride marshal on the day of the event, in addition to the research ride participation. Research Rides are opportunities to address intersections and traffic flow concerns to future ride marshals.

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Comment by Jason Duba on September 10, 2010 at 8:42am: Sorry. Something came up. I hope to go on a Big Shoulders tour soon.

Comment by Lee Diamond on September 10, 2010 at 4:03am: Hey Serge, no worries if you can't make it and in general, no, these rides are not ideal for pics. Pre-rides are not for pics, in fact, we try to get through the whole tour relatively quickly. I want to make sure of a few things:

1 - no surprises on the route - bad roads, detours, etc., should be known, whenever possible in advance
2 - that i know the route - i have ridden the routes dozens of times, so it should be intuitive, but often it is months ago that i last rode it, so it can be tough to really remember everything without referrencing it again.
3 - stop locations. - the average tour has about 100 sites of interest. We may only stop at 20 or so, but, we talk about a lot of things that you willl see on route to the next location. Sometimes, if the group is fluid, you have opportunities to create some optional stops that can be inserted as needed and wanted, so this is a chance to look at that.
4 - possible changes - Even old rides are constantly being updated as things become possible, other things become known, etc. Some rides have very little, but some have a lot. For example, the next ride after this is Logan Square, and it has nearly 7 additional miles in it, so I definitely have less familiarity with that ride than others, so recent changes are refined and just an additional opportunity to remember the route better.

In general, it is about 2 hours to cover 18 miles, so the pace is not speedy, but there is stopping, note taking, discussion, note checking and the like interspersed with the ride. If people wanted to try to take pics, they are welcome to do so, but I am not waiting around at locations. My goal is to finish before the end time, and start at bike time. (6:15). I have someone coming to my office this afternoon and then a quick stop at West Town Bikes, and then off to Washington Park.

Cheers! -