"There's a road I'd like to tell you about...

[emptysea]

The ride north...

It would have been nice to have a rear-facing GoPro for our departure from the sidewalk in front of Buckingham Fountain. Oh, yeah, Forgot to mention: as we arrived at the fountain, I was prepared to have us park with our back wheels to the curb and snap a quick picture or two and get out since it's a no parking zone and there is through traffic in the curb lane where we'd be parked. Veech, the consummate Chicagoan and the rider to my immediate right, says "Wanna go on the sidewalk?" The curb is nothing more than a crack that separates the street from the walk, so sure, the sidewalk it is. We just acted like we had permission, parked, posed, and left. So, the GoPro. Our bikes were parked in our riding order, with Todd graciously volunteering for sweep duties (Chimney-sweeps are in all black, right?) at the opposite end of the line from me. With everyone signaling "ready", I pulled out and could see in my mirror that everyone else pulled out in order and fell perfectly into line. We were like the Shriners, sans fez. It was a little thing, but it was still a pretty cool moment.

There was a notorious section of Lake Shore Drive called "The S Curve". Up until 1937, there was a north section and a south section of Lake Shore Drive and they both ended at the Chicago River. However, the two ends did not meet up, but were offset east to west by about a quarter mile. In 1937, the Link Bridge was opened, continuing the north end of LSD south across the river. A connecting piece of road was built running west from the bridge to the south end of LSD. I'm not sure why they thought it would be a good idea to bend an eight lane road 90 degrees twice within the space of a couple of city blocks, but that's how The S Curve came to be. I have always thought that it should have been called "The Z Curve". It was a nasty little section of road to on which to drive, with cars routinely crossing what remnants of lane lines were there. I can only imagine what it would have been like on a motorcycle. In 1987, a reconfiguration project was completed and a softer S Curve was opened with exit ramps to Navy Pier and Wacker Drive. The Link Bridge was the widest, longest, and heaviest drawbridge ever constructed at the time and is still in operation today.

The new S Curve is much more motorcycle friendly, but there are still plenty of folks who cannot stay in their lane...
[url=http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/emptysea43/media/LSD%20Trip/4846a0e6ab09b91cadc6135c27bdc4de_zpsfkdbbz5c.jpg.html]

A car to my right blocked me from getting a good picture of the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier, but I was able to catch this view north as we came off Link Bridge...
[url=http://s1318.photobucket.com/user/emptysea43/media/LSD%20Trip/ce3e5370b4c16ac3033f3f71c2e7dee3_zpshe01wbxz.jpg.html]

Fun Fact: The first ever Ferris wheel was built for the oft-mentioned World's Columbian Exposition.

Trivia: Lake Shore Drive is part of U.S. 41 which was also immortalized in song. Name the song, artist and quote the relevant lyrics.