ChiWhoBike #84
I used to work in the suburbs, but have been working at Northwestern for about 13 years, and when I started there I figured biking is a nice way to get to work. So I started getting into Divvy - I was one of the first 500 people to get a Divvy membership. So I was riding Divvy quite a bit then, but those bikes are kind of bulky and whatnot, so I picked up this single speed at The Bike Lane in 2019.
I love biking, obviously, but my wife, not so much - she’s a little scared of drivers around the city. We have a 7-year-old, and I always wanted to get her into biking, and when she was two or three, I wanted to get a cargo bike, but my wife was against it. So we didn’t get a bike, but then last year my daughter went to a bike camp called Pedal Head, learned how to ride a bike, and now I’m like, all right, this is a great chance for me to get her around the city, on a bike.
We don’t go too far, like her school’s about a half mile that way, and in the mornings every day we’ll bike to school and bike back home. Now we’ve been going a little bit further, like she goes swimming by Damen and Grand-ish, so the most she’s done is about two and a half miles each way.
And my daughter loves biking, but I wish there were more bike lanes. I probably shouldn’t be saying this, but Jackson goes East, and there’s no bike lane going West here. So we’ll just get on the wrong way in the mornings and go West on Jackson. Coming back home, we have a bike lane, so it’s really nice. And she loves biking, so I feel like I’m gonna turn her into me as she grows up, and be a Chicagoan Who Bikes basically.
I think biking is the best way to see the city. A lot of Chicagoans, we tend to stay in our neighborhoods, but during the pandemic I actually started biking with a friend. We would go to Lincoln Square to a brewery, get a beer, and then bike back home. So you can go to a different neighborhood, see the city, get a little bit of exercise. And I encourage more people to bike - it may seem dangerous, but you’ll be fine! Encourage more people to get out there on bikes, because then less cars will be on the street and it’ll be safer for everyone too.
