Big miles are being put onto the Scott. The big wheels and the extra speed and the new bike glow have gotten me a bit ambitious. I took on the idea of a Des Plaines River Trail (DPRT) commute. The DPRT for those who are unfamiliar are the woods that follow the Des Plaines River. The trails are mainly of a two track style very wide and flat following the meanders of the river. Nothing special as far as mountain bike trails are concerned. As far as dirt riding of any kind in Chicago is concerned, they are the best kept secret stash of dirt in the region. Nevada Dave racks up miles by the triple digits on his rides to the DPRT, he loves that place. Like a singletrack reverend he preaches the gospel of dirt from the book of the Des Plaines River. My commute is lucky enough to necessitate my travel beeing north and west. The DPRT fits inot my route perfectly. It runs north-south and dumps me off at a very convenient location to continue my travels into work. Friday was a rather eventful day on the bike. Three things stood out for me.

1. Enjoying a rather tasty section of trail I was startled, to almost falling of the bike when my approaching wheels woke up a local derelict sleeping next to a log. His presence alone was enough to startle in a place where one enters with a slight feeling of solitude. However much one can entertain that notion inside the limits of Cook County.

2. On the way home, getting to the DPRT has me riding past the section of Bensenville that is currently being completely bulldozed to make way for the expansion of O’hare runway expansion. A strange site it is, hundreds of houses at a time being culled by the blade of nonstop bulldozing for more runways. It was along that stretch that I got my first flat tire on the new bike. Spotted while it was to late and no where to go was a pile of hypodermic needles. Like the dirt junky that I am, I plowed right on through, hoping for the best. The best did not happen, and I spent ten minutes fixing my flat replaying the Basketball Diaries, and Pulp Fiction on the movie screen in my head.

3. On a particularly graffitied and teen angst ridden section of the trail I am usually on my toes looking for young ne’er-do-wells. Around the corner I heard a familiar electrical groan, and then saw a flood of light. Voices then filled the woods, my mind raced for a second wondering what weird little trap am I rolling into now? The next thing I saw was a group of people, maybe eight people surrounding a badly beaten bloody teenager. Three guys stopped me as I rolled on the site. Mr. Curious wondered what was going on here, to his possible demise. The group, was the crew, the bloody teen was an actor. A small film crew shooting a movie in the woods about raping and pilaging, according to a crew member. They made a dumb joke about my bike, I made a joke about kicking over their generator, and we left it at that. Good luck with the movie guys.

It’s little adventures like these that may be one of my favorite reasons for pedaling a bicycle.