ChiWhoBike #96

Published October 28, 2026
A young woman stands posing with a black fixie bike along a lakefront path with the Chicago skyline in the background across the water. She has pink hair tied back in a ponytail, a nose ring, and is wearing a blue denim jacket decorated with pins over a black crop top, a layered plaid skirt, and black boots. Her bicycle is a black Vigorelli track bike featuring silver lettering, black drop handlebars with a silver stem, blue pedals, a white rear rim, and a thin silver front rim.

This is Lucii. I got her back in May, earlier this year, and she’s a fixie - I love my fixies. I’ve been running fix for 15 years now, and for my fixie heads, it’s a 48-16 ratio, and took her on my first century ride this past week.

I grew up in the city of Chicago, so I feel like fixies are a great way to navigate the city, especially within traffic. I feel like it’s comparable to manual cars - I feel very in tune when I’m with my bike. It is a very Chicago thing, I’ve noticed, but I don’t know. I just enjoy it.

I feel like biking you really get to slow down and take in our beautiful city. I had a car at one point too - I stopped biking for a couple months and then I just realized I felt very stagnant and not fulfilled. So I feel like cycling really helps me feel fulfilled, and I get to see Chicago at a different perspective on a bike because you get to go down different streets. Even if I’m going down the same routes all the time for commuting, if I just take a different turn, I’m like, ‘Oh wait, I’ve never went down this way before.’ I think it helps me be more present, and feel fulfilled in life.

We can definitely do better with infrastructure. I can say that luckily in the last couple years I haven’t been hit by a car, but growing up as a teenager, I’ve been tapped by cars, because they’ll just ride too close to me and because there’s just paint. Paint is not protection for cyclists at all. I think it’s important to talk to your aldermans, because they’re the ones who can provide infrastructure and you gotta remind them like, ‘hey, it’s important because people want to bike in Chicago, but people are too scared to’, which I personally also understand because even though I’ve been biking for a long time, like I do have my fears, you know? I’m like, all right, I don’t want to go down this street because people just have a lack of consideration in different parts of the city. Like different parts of the neighborhoods, you see where they care more about the safety of cyclists and where they don’t. So I think that’s my biggest fear and I hope we can improve that in the future.

A closer shot of the same young woman looking off camera with the lake and skyline behind her.
Back to All Interviews