ChiWhoBike #14

A person stands casually leaning over their bike in a downtown Chicago plaza, with several other bike riders out of focus in the background. They have black circular glasses, a colorful baseball cap, colorful tattoos on their arms, light skin, and a brown mustache. Their bike is a dark red single speed Feather bike with black drop handlebars, and a matching red helmet hanging off the handlebars.

There’s an assumption that everybody who bikes is pretentious, like, ‘oh I hate motorists, I hate pedestrians, they’re always in my way,’ when really we should probably be blaming the city for poor infrastructure, right? There’s really no reason to get angry at each other. Really I just want a place to bike and I’m not saying to ban all cars. I hate cars, I think they’re awful, but there should be a space for both, and a dedicated space for both. Sharing the road is a very silly idea.

I had a scary experience biking where I got in a shouting match with a dude who said he was going to physically kill me. He said he was going to knock me off my bike and kill me, and actually threatened to murder me. I made a left turn onto a street with no bike lane, and this dude was running late to work I guess, and he was turning, and he started shouting ‘don’t you dare turn left!’ and I turned left because he’s not my boss, I don’t answer to this man, and he started shouting profanities at me. I hopped off and went on the sidewalk because I was afraid he was literally going to kill me. I was having a great day up until that point, I was biking into work, and it just ruined my day.

The same person standing with their bike, but this time standing fully upright with their arms crossed.
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