As he explained it, Bensenville is about six miles directly west from Harlem Avenue along Irving Park Road. To ride there, we had a choice. We could pedal to Union Station, put our bikes on the train, and take Metra to downtown Bensenville. Or we could take the CTA to River Road and bike south around O’Hare Airport, slipping through Schiller Park and into Franklin Park before riding northwest into Bensenville.

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So at about 10:45 in the morning we boarded the Blue Line at Irving and rode to River Road. In the good old days, when Harold Washington was mayor, it would have taken us, oh, I don’t know, maybe ten minutes. This time it took us almost 20–I was timing it on a stop watch–because the tracks are falling apart and there are slow zones galore.

Remind me never to do it again. Franklin was hardly the warm, fuzzy bike-friendly road I foolishly thought it would be. It was like traveling through an industrial hell: a two-lane, potholed road bounded by a gravel-filled shoulder that’s really rough on bike tires.

Five minutes later, we crossed some railroad tracks and rode into Bensenville.

After about an hour, rain clouds were moving in and we decided to head home. I told Mr. Bike that I’d rather not deal with Franklin, so we took our chances with Irving Park. Man, it was like biking on the interstate–the cars and trucks were pushing sixty. At least it had a pretty decent shoulder to ride along.

For no apparent reason, the train stopped just outside Montrose, where we had the pleasant view of the expressway clotted with bumper-to-bumper traffic spewing exhaust.