Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Riding the Garden of Eden


Riding in the traffic congested confines of Chicagoland makes me dream sometimes about distant places I can escape to without some asshole in a SUV pinning me into the gutter. The above photo fits the fairytale wish of a world where I can ride for mile after mile amongst a beautiful backdrop of mountains, streams, trees, and winding smooth roads.

I tell my friends that if I ever were to suddenly become a billionaire, I'd buy a huge parcel of land and create a cyclist's haven of swooping loops, hills, and interconnected trails. Road and offroad. Maybe even a nice place for the BMX'ers and trackies to rip it up. I'd ride for hours and hours without the dirty automobile to fuck it all up.

Sounds cool, eh?

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Sounds idyllic.
http://www.pladadet.com/

strangelife said...

Pla d'Adet sounds like it'll be pretty damn cool. I'll have to look into this further. Thanks for the link.

s

The King said...

Try too look at trafic with more optimism. Treat it like the game of frogger and enjoy the challenge. If you became a billionaire you probably would be toolin around in a new SUV. Most likely an Caddi Escalade or Better yet a Hummer H2 all decked out.

Would your new found haven contain a place for our Tri friends to enjoy as well?

strangelife said...

King: If I was a billionaire, I'd probably drive a modest station wagon and have a nice stable of bikes.

Also, there would be no aerobars allowed in Eden, so triathletes wouldn't be interested.

solobreak said...

The idea of a cycling theme park is one I've had for a while. Then yeah, Hincapie beat me to it. Not sure what he has planned, but I envisioned a village like Stratton mountain, where the town square was setup with Belgian pubs and the cobbled road was made for racing. Several big races a year, a classic, a World Cup cross race, and yes, maybe even a track. All service roads (vehicles) would be separate and only see the loading zone, like at an outlet mall. I'd have a couple of golf courses to help finance the thing, and run the race courses around them on an elaborate cart path. Finding the right area would be tough. You'd need a decent climate. Maybe West Virginia. Land is cheap and they're looking for any business they can get. Vermont is great and all, but 4 months of decent cycling weather doesn't quite cut it.