On my morning jog, I was aghast to see the Cook County Forest Preserve District bull-dozing the most fun part of the North Branch Bike Trail, replacing it with a long, winding, safe roundabout.
Generations of kids have learned to avoid death-by-bike on that treacherous blind curve after the steep drop at the start of the trail in Caldwell Woods.
The bike trail that follows the North Branch of the Chicago River starts at Milwaukee and Devon avenues at the city’s northwest edge. You can ride it all the way up to the Botanic Garden in Glencoe or down to the LaBagh Woods.
It starts with a steep drop, followed by a 90-degree turn to the right, trees and foliage blocking your view of other bikers and joggers who may be coming around the bend toward you.
My five kids learned to squeeze the back brakes on their bikes, just as I learned years earlier to pump my less-sophisticated bike’s brake with my foot.
Thoughtful parents ride ahead to act as spotter, signaling to kids when the lower path is deserted and it’s safe to careen down the hill and swerve right.
I’m sure bikers over the years lost control, plowed into the grass, flipped over, crashed into other cyclists and joggers.
I never injured myself on the dangerous steep drop. But, ironically, today, as I returned on my bike and followed other bikers down the new, safer, flattened curve, still unpaved and under construction, I wiped out and got a nasty gouge on my leg. Relax, Forest Preserve District: I will file no claim for the cost of the Neosporin and Steri-Strips. I LIKE a bit of peril.
Do I sound like a Chicago Speed Racer lamenting the 1986 straightening of Lake Shore Drive’s “S Curve?” I’m not. I supported that straightening as a teenager.
I’ve worked through the stages of grief to acceptance: I’ll grudgingly admit the Forest Preserve District is doing the right thing here. But I will miss the thrill. Where will young bikers learn to manage risk now?
Making Caldwell Woods more accessible
Forest Preserve spokesman Carl Vogel explained the flattening out of the path entrance is part of a $750,000 upgrade to Caldwell Woods, most of which is covered by a grant from the state Department of Natural Resources. A primary focus is making the trails and other forest preserve facilities accessible.
Fair point: You would not have wanted to brave the old steep-grade trail in a wheelchair.
Taking on the role of Michael Palin’s Sir Galahad in “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” I asked if we could keep a few steep-grade portions of the trail to build character: “Oh, let me have just a little bit of peril.”
Vogel laughed and answered as John Cleese’s Sir Lancelot would have: “The improvements will make the trail less perilous.”
The improvements include paving the path joggers and bikers have made from the corner of Milwaukee and Devon avenues to the start of the trail. Over the decades, I’ve watched it grow from a 2-foot-wide dirt path to an 8-foot-wide obstacle course, where above-ground tree roots serve as bike hazards.
When I covered the forest preserves as a Sun-Times reporter, new risk manager Sharon Gist Gilliam saw the toboggans on this same hill and had visions of a child suffering a severe accident and the family suing Cook County. She ordered the toboggans closed.
Then-Commissioner Ted Lechowicz, whose adventures in government could fill a column of their own, fought to keep the toboggans that had thrilled generations of families, including his. I supported Teddy on that crusade. But he lost to Gilliam’s dollars-and-cents warnings.
Thank God they left us the Whealan Pool, even though kids can be injured in pools. The grant will help make the Whealan Aquatic Center more accessible, Vogel said.
The forest preserves are becoming safer and flatter in a part of the country that’s already too damned flat. It’s not even that big a hill. It’s just … it’s all we got.
Working through my grief this morning, I jogged over the bridge and walked the banks of the river amid birdsong, breezes rustling the leaves overhead, geese honking, critters scampering through the underbrush and the gurgling of the slow-moving river waters. A young buck waded into the water and munched maple leaves from branches overhanging the river.
My kids always liked walking or biking these paths, spotting deer and ducks. A walk along the river is cheaper than therapy.
And I moved to “acceptance” that our trail will be a bit less wild.
Former Sun-Times reporter Abdon Pallasch manages communications for State Comptroller Susana Mendoza.
The Sun-Times welcomes letters to the editor and op-eds. See our guidelines.
The views and opinions expressed by contributors are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Chicago Sun-Times or any of its affiliates.
