dwj444

Riddle me this, why is it that when it snows ten inches in two days, the city of Chicago can't find a snowplow, let alone its own @$$hole with both hands, and my neighborhood (Hyde Park) goes unplowed for days and days . . . but tonight, when we're supposed to get less than 1/2 an inch of accumulation (which means absolutely nothing on the road), we have salt-trucks driving around spraying everything in sight with chemicals and big-@$$ chunks of rock-salt?! What the %$ck?!

I rode out to run a quick errand and ended up coming home and deciding to wipe down the frame (because of all the salt and grime). Then while I'm doing that, I notice all the junk in my drive train, so I take that off and clean the whole thing. By the time I have the cranks back on and the chain lubed up again, I've wasted another perfectly good hour on my favorite hobby, my crappy Nishiki conversion. There's something really relaxing about taking the whole thing apart and putting it back together. And now all the grease is fresh and green, and the salt is gone (no thanks to the evil, inefficient, and inexplicably irregular city services), and I'm nice and relaxed with a chocolate soy milk and banana smoothie. Ehh.

highpants

it's because you live on the south side and so nobody cares about you. (that's not supposed to be mean, merely to reflect the weird two-city syndrome from which chicago suffers)

i used to live in pilsen and once went out to my car, only to find an empty street and some construction workers where the car was supposed to be. apparently they hadn't bothered to put signs up announcing they'd be working, so they just went ahead and moved everybody's car. ours was on the next block.

efarrar

Yeah i noticed that on my commute. There was an inch of salt on the road. I was literally sliding on salt.

But look outside now.

My streets don't get plowed too well either, but at least roosevelt/state will always be cleared. Take advantage of this occasion to slide around in the snow. Skid contest anyone?

$0.00/Gal

Because it takes a really long time to plow a city worth of 10+ inches of snow and not that much time to salt less than an inch?

dwj444

High pants is right (although it would be silly to pretend that 0.00/gal doesn't have a point). The south side always gets crappy city services. I think the bottom line is, it's crazy how they salted. It was seriously overdone. And when it matters, they don't do anything at all. I'm not sure why the even salted (although, to be fair, if they hadn't, and there'd been more snow than projected, we'd all be grousing about how they never do their job). Whatever. Like I said in the original post, it gave me an excuse to take apart my bike and put it back together. It wasn't all bad.

I just think it's funny (although I wouldn't laugh about what that much rock salt does to a steel frame, or to the body of your car). Whenever I see people out riding in the winter, or when I go out knowing there's a ton of wet, salty junk in the road, I often wonder if they're going to take the time (or if I'm going to have to) to do the full clean up. How many times do you think you'd have to ride in salty slush without cleaning up in order to completely trash your drivetrain? How many times do you think it would take to begin rusting out your frame? My frame is old and beat up; I worry about it rusting more readily because of all the knicks and dings in the paint as it is. But I so enjoy overhauling . . . next time I'm taking out the BB.

Peace.

salome

they're salting so much because they have so much damn salt that didn't get used this winter. what better place to dump it than on the southside? people up north would complain too much.

but i still love the southside. i would never live on any other side.

dwj444

Amen to that. You'd think that they could hang onto it for next year (save the money we'll spend on salt next year with what we have left over this year, and then maybe we could fund the public schools). But that sounds much too logical for our own good.

And I second that -- as much as I like my friends who have almost all drifted northwards, I cannot go along for that ride. I'm only ever going to be south side.

Romoni_63

I rode in from 5000 north and yep my bike, clothes, shoes, bag are white and even have a salty taste in my mouth but im not complaining

F*ck the southside

Gee.

giboyeux

...I am extremely bad about cleaning up my drivetrain, and I'm out everyday regardless of weather.


I should probably change that, huh.

seely

I've found that in salty conditions, spraying my whole bike down with a generous coating of Boeshield T9 really does the trick. If you let the stuff dry on the frame/drivetrain, water and salt don't seem to stick at all, and it all just wipes clean.

dwj444

Congratulations. You're also not polite.

Why do people always have to trash a thread this way? I'm just enjoying my post, checking back on it now and then, looking for some contact out of the community, especially since it's so much more diffuse on the more-sparsely populated south side, and out of the blue, trashmouth is weighing in to insult me for no reason (notice when I said I wouldn't move to the north side, I didn't decide to get all down on the north side).

The salty taste in your mouth is fine; a by-product of the city's wastefulness. The bitter taste in my mouth is a by-product of how unpleasant people can be for no particular reason. And watch me get flamed for even saying this.

Guest

Welcome to the Terrordome.

You're on the south side. Wrong side of the tracks!

Chicago has great service... if you live downtown or on the near north side.

Koffee

Romoni_63

So i guess Beverly gets over looked

CyLowe97

Shoot... that ain't how budgets work. If you saved the salt from this year and re-allocated the funds elsewhere, how would the salt cartel of the city get it's palms greased?

... but remember.... Da Mayor has no idea about such things, since they take place in his city....

oops, I've said too much....

Wow, I sure miss those days of shovelling out the car over on Wolcott and praying to get a spot when I got back (never took advantage of the 'throw your forgotten furniture on the street' rule to save the spot... )

efarrar

Am I the only one who scores a dozen lawnchairs after a big snow? Sometimes I pick up orange cones just to be spiteful.

shankton

Also great service in Bridgeport, the right side of the tracks.

No_Minkah

More likely because that's where the Daleys are from. Right side of the tracks? Riiiight.

shankton

OK. Compared to Canaryville, its the right side of the tracks.

highpants

i just thought about bridgeport, too, havingn said that about the south side.

efarrar

Bridgeport was pretty awesome. I am trying to move back there next year.

Landgolier

Friggin lake path had so much salt on it the other day it was like riding gravel. Where was all that salt when we were busting our a**es out there during the TdC?

Every time I forget why I like the south side, I go ride north ave on a saturday afternoon. Total wicker park yuppie bobo gridlock.