ChiWhoBike #24

Published January 22, 2024
A young woman stands with her light blue Schwinn bike on the street in front of a building. She's wearing black pants, green sneakers with pink laces, a green jacket, and a black heat over medium length brown hair, and has light skin. Her bike is sky blue with blue drop handlebars, an orange water bottle holder on the frame, and a black rack on the back.

I have a car, and I think driving in the city is more stressful than biking in the city. I originally lived in Minneapolis, which is one of the top biking cities in the nation in terms of bike infrastructure, and so it gave me the basic confidence to bike on the street and that sort of thing. And then it also is totally the quickest way to get places a lot of the time.

And something I’m really excited about with biking in Chicago is that you can also bike out of Chicago - there’s a lot of great forest preserves nearby for example. And I think it really increases your connections to the natural areas in and around Chicago. So I would encourage not only getting into biking, but also getting into bikepacking a little bit or starting a hike or something out of your house with your bike.

If you’re nervous to start biking, I think you should definitely start with a group bike ride. A group ride is such a beautiful, safe, way to get around the city, with a bunch of other people who are pretty confident getting around the streets. And I recommend it to all of my friends who don’t bike, because I think it’s a great way to get into it.

A closeup of the same young woman in a green jacket with her light blue Schwinn bike.
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