Bicycling
Monday, February 6, 2012
Posted
by Joey Jachowski on
Mon, Feb 6, 2012 at 1:31 PM
- By Jos van Zetten/Wikimedia Commons
I’m pretty new to Chicago, the city of a shitload of hard-core bicyclists. I started as an intern here last month, and arriving most recently from California, I was thrown by the sight of a bundled-up biker pedaling his way down Dearborn two weeks ago during a snowstorm. One of my fellow bus-stop loiterers gave a “Woo!” of excitement and encouragement and the biker cheered back. I thought, "You have to be crazy to bike through slush, ice, and snowfall in the midst of Chicago city traffic." Less than ten minutes later a second bicyclist rolled by.
About a week later, I was browsing ads, looking for a part-time job, and stumbled upon a post from the Chicago Messenger Service looking for bike messengers. “Large downtown courier service adding to biker fleet,” the ad read, leaving out the “in the dead of winter” part. Although the weather has been nice the past couple of days, I doubt I would be up for delivering packages and letters at breakneck pace, when the weather could deteriorate at the change of a traffic signal.
Continue reading »
Tags: Bicycling, cycling, bike messengers, city life, Video
Permalink
|
Thursday, January 26, 2012
Posted
by Julia Thiel on
Thu, Jan 26, 2012 at 3:09 PM
I first stopped by
Heritage Bicycles last fall on
Park(ing) Day; the store wasn’t yet open but owner Michael Salvatore had set up a bench, several plants, and a couple of the bikes the store would be selling on AstroTurf outside. Salvatore showed me the inside of the Lakeview shop, which was still a work in progress: the bike repair room, the spot where the coffee bar would be, and the long table for customers to sit and sip their beverages.
Continue reading »
Tags: Heritage Bicycles, bike shop, bike store, bike store and cafe, Michael Salvatore, Mike Salvatore, Bowery Lane Bicycles
Permalink
|
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Posted
by Julia Thiel on
Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 12:37 PM
Local authors and cycling advocates Greg Borzo (
Where to Bike Chicago) and John Greenfield (
Bars Across America: Drinking and Biking From Coast to Coast) read their contributions to the anthology
On Bicycles: 50 Ways the New Bike Culture Can Change Your Life at
Cole's bar (2338 N. Milwaukee) from
8 to 10 PM Thursday. The new book, edited by
Momentum magazine cofounder Amy Walker, features 50 essays on cycling. Topics include the environment, cargo bikes, folding bikes, electric bikes, biking with kids, riding in the rain, and designing cities for bikes.
Continue reading »
Tags: Greg Borzo, John Greenfield, On Bicycles: 50 Ways the New Bike Culture Can Change Your Life, Amy Walker, West Town Bikes, bike sharing, freakbikes, Megulon 5, Deb Greco
Permalink
|
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Posted
by Julia Thiel on
Tue, Nov 8, 2011 at 12:44 PM
Biking in the rain can be kind of fun in the summer, but the colder the weather gets, the less pleasant it becomes. For the last couple hours of work yesterday, I had the same internal debate I always have when the weather's dicey: to bike or not to bike (in this case, from the
Reader office in River North up to west Rogers Park, then home to Ukrainian Village later in the evening). As usual, this involved obsessively checking weather.com (even though I know how often it's wrong) to see what the odds of rain would be later in the evening, as well as figuring out possible routes via public transit. I also considered going home to get my car first, how much longer that would take, and how much sitting in traffic on the way up would make me hate the world. And as usual, biking was the fastest and most convenient option, so I took my chances that my ride home would be rainy.
Continue reading »
Tags: biking, Chicago, biking in the rain, Lakefront Trail, rainy biking in Chicago
Permalink
|
Friday, October 14, 2011
Posted
by Heather Kenny on
Fri, Oct 14, 2011 at 7:39 AM
An article in Crain's Chicago Business posits the existence of the "Mary Poppins Effect," in which people who dress up a little when they ride their bikes, as opposed to wearing bike or athletic gear, experience better treatment from drivers. "It helps drivers realize bicyclists are people too," Dottie Brackett of Let's Go Ride a Bike is quoted as saying. Other items that may help include helmets and child trailers (even if they aren't being used to cart infants around).
Continue reading »
Tags: bicycle fashion, bicycle chic, Crain's Chicago Business, the Chainlink, Let's Go Ride a Bike
Permalink
|
Monday, October 10, 2011
Posted
by Julia Thiel on
Mon, Oct 10, 2011 at 2:42 PM
I stopped by the Hideout on the early side Saturday for the Bike Fall festival—too early, as it turned out. It was supposed to start either at 11 AM or noon, depending on which website you chose to believe, but at quarter to 1, things were still being set up and the crowd was pretty small. Eventually John Greenfield sang a few bike-related songs (with some pretty entertaining lyrics), and the Racketeers performed. Now a year old—they celebrated their birthday last week with an alleycat ride/scavenger hunt and party—they're a BMX dance troupe that performs at bike events like Critical Mass and this year's Tour de Fat. Other activities and demos were scheduled for later in the afternoon, with bands and a bike film festival in the evening, but I wasn't able to stick around for those. More Racketeers photos after the jump; all photos by me.
Continue reading »
Tags: Hideout, Bike Fall 2011, Racketeers, John Greenfield
Permalink
|
Monday, October 3, 2011
Posted
by Julia Thiel on
Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 2:24 PM
The first
Open Streets on State Street shut down seven blocks of State (from Lake to Van Buren) to vehicles on Saturday, opening up the streets to pedestrians, cyclists, and skaters. From 10 AM to 3 PM, there were break-dancing demos, yoga and zumba classes, a dunk tank, bouting by the Windy City Rollers, play areas for kids, a skate park, and activities like foursquare, hula hooping, and relay races. Even the
Bucket Boys were out, drumming away. I don't know if they were part of the official lineup, but they drew a pretty good crowd—as did the event overall. It was a cool, sunny day, and people seemed to be enjoying wandering the streets. More photos after the jump.
Continue reading »
Tags: Open Streets, State Street, Open Streets on State Street, Chicago Loop Alliance
Permalink
|
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Posted
by Julia Thiel on
Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 4:45 PM
Chicago Transportation Commissioner Gabe Klein announced today that Chicago will implement a large-scale bicycle-sharing program next year, the
Sun-Times reports. The plan is to have 3,000 bikes available from 300 docking stations around the city by next summer, and then add another 2,000 bikes and 200 stations over the next two years. Members would get free use of the bikes for the first 30 minutes, then be charged a rental fee; the focus of the program is short trips around the city.
Continue reading »
Tags: bike sharing, bicycle sharing, bike sharing Chicago, B-cycle, bike sharing program, bicycle sharing program
Permalink
|
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Posted
by Julia Thiel on
Sun, Sep 18, 2011 at 12:53 PM
Unlike
last year, I didn't make it to all of this year's
Park(ing) Day spots on Friday, but the few I did stop by were really well done.
Urban Habitat Chicago (photo above) featured yoga by the yet-to-open
Tula Yoga Studio and free bike repair at its spot outside Revolution Brewing.
Continue reading »
Tags: Parking Day, temporary parks, Architecture for Humanity, Moss Design, Urban Habitat Chicago, Heritage Bicycles
Permalink
|
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Posted
by Julia Thiel on
Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 4:19 PM
Park(ing) Day, an international event in which metered parking spaces are converted into into temporary parks, returns to Chicago tomorrow for its third year. The project began in San Francisco in 2005 when the design company Rebar created a park (complete with sod) in a single parking space for two hours. The goal is "to call attention to the need for more urban open space, to generate critical debate around how public space is created and allocated, and to improve the quality of urban human habitat."
Continue reading »
Tags: Park(ing) Day, Parking Day, temporary parks, metered parking, Moss Design, Urban Habitat Chicago
Permalink
|
