It felt a little odd to leave my hotel Sat. night and wheel a bike out onto the streets of Chicago after 11 p.m., just as the revelers were gettin’ the party on. But I was headed to a party of another sort at Grant Park — the McDonald's L.A.T.E. Ride, a lively fest with 9,000 or so cyclists, live bands and exhibitors. Garmin shared booth space with Shape magazine and Jeep. Our Garmin store associates were there to give cyclists the low-down on our GPS-enabled bike computer, Edge, as well as our nav and fitness products. See the smiling faces of our store associates in the pic? On the left is Gary, then store manager Joel, and Marc, who was my riding buddy for the night. In the back is Joe, hard at work talking to cyclists and getting them signed up for a sweet grand prize from Shape and Garmin — a cycling trip for 2 to Napa Valley plus 2 Edge bike computers. What’s great about the Garmin store associates is they’re not just well-versed on our products. They’re customers themselves. They are runners, cyclists, commuters and travelers who use our products every day. So when you come to the store, 663 N. Michigan Ave. (right next to Nike Town), you can get hands-on experience with our products as well as advice from folks who know their stuff.

The ride

After mingling and milling, Marc and I made our way to the ride lineup. The first wave of riders set off around 1:30 a.m. We started around 1:40 and made decent time, sailing through mostly blocked-off streets through Chicago and the suburbs, including a spin through “Greek Town.” It was great having our Edge units along for the ride, to continually update our speed, distance and other data. No need for elevation stats here — the ride was super flat. And, I must say, the hybrid bike I rented was not a bad ride. Far cry from my road bike, but it was comfy, it could cruise, and this was a ride, not a race. I was very impressed with the number of course marshals and volunteers who were stopping traffic for our motley crew. However, at one point, we joined a pack of about 15 cyclists led by some marshals who weren’t familiar with the course and we overshot the route by several blocks. No biggie. The last leg of the ride was about 6 miles on the lakefront path. At about mile 22, legs were tight and our speed slowed a bit, but we pedaled on, finishing our ride in about 1:44 total riding time. See our ride stats in MotionBased. If you’ve never done a night ride, especially in a bike-friendly city like Chicago, Peg highly recommends it.