ChiWhoBike #40
This is my first electrical bike. I’ve always been riding single speed and fixed bikes, and I finally got a commute that was long enough that I had to consider another way to extend my leg range. And so I tried this bike, it’s a very cheap electrical bike and it’s wonderful. It’s been a blessing. I commute fairly far, from Lakeview to the south side of Chicago every day, which would be about an hour and a little bit if I didn’t have an e-bike. This cuts down commute time really significantly and helps me do errands. I pack all the groceries on here, and so I couldn’t do that without the e-bike probably, or at least wouldn’t do it in the same capacity. And it’s also been a wonderful way to kickstart even more exercise for myself. I find myself riding much more since I got an e-bike, and even exhausting myself much more than when I rode my fixed gear bike, so it’s been really nice.
I think Chicago’s a really big city with amazing infrastructure and an amazing population, but it hasn’t done the job that other big cities in the world have done to support biking infrastructure and even transit infrastructure. This is all connected, and there’s a really great opportunity with a lot of advocacy groups fighting for that. If people listen to that and don’t think of bikers against car drivers, but really think that we’re all just trying to be in the city safe together, and getting to the place we want, I think we will get a much nicer and safer place to live here in Chicago. And there’s a lot of places to look out for. New York has done a lot of good work, Paris, Tokyo… Chicago has everything, and it’s flat, so everybody can bike.
