Once you dock it, it’s as though you never had a bike, and that is surprisingly liberating. But with bike share, your bike appears and disappears in an instant. When you are riding a privately-owned bike, you are responsible for it until you get it back home. Like Seattle, Chicago has a long way to go before it has a connected network of truly safe bike routes (and like in Seattle, I-90 sucks here, too!).īut another nice thing about bike share is that whenever you feel a little sketched out by the street you’re on, you can just pull over, dock the bike and walk or catch the L instead. However, there were times when the bike lanes would suddenly end (I’m looking at you, N Clark Street) or where we’d need to navigate the few busy streets that cross the freeways or rivers when I certainly would have preferred wearing a helmet (maybe some football pads, too). The Dearborn Street protected bike lane has made Chicago’s downtown core feel way less mean. And people who drive (except for one jerk) sure give Divvy riders a lot of space, something I was not expecting in a city where people drive so aggressively it can feel like you’re playing chicken every time you try to merge onto the freeway.
The bikes are so upright, heavy and slow that I just didn’t feel threatened. In fact, I drive so rarely that I have even started to feel a bit naked when I get in a car without a helmet.īut for the most part, it did not feel dangerous to ride a Divvy without a helmet, especially in the city center and on streets with good or decent bike lanes. Like most of you, I am so accustomed to wearing a helmet when I bike that I feel a little naked if I don’t have one. Unlike in Seattle, Chicago does not have helmets available at bike share stations. Quality bike lanes like the ones on Dearborn through the heart of the Loop and the fantastic Lakefront trail definitely helped, but somehow I feel even more comfortable biking around Chicago than I do trying to navigate on foot and transit (and way more comfortable than driving a car here, which is terrifying). At first I was a bit intimidated by the idea of biking in this sprawling car-filled metropolis, but once I got on the bike the city softened. For the first time, I actually think I know where I am most the time, and it’s all thanks to bike share.īiking around also had a very unexpected side-effect: The city feels a lot less mean.
But I have never had this much fun getting around town, and I have definitely never had this clear of a picture of the city’s geography. Louis and went to college in Illinois, so I have been to Chicago a fair number of times. I have been out of town since Seattle’s bike share system launched, so to deal with my intense Pronto jealousy I had to check out some Divvy bikes while in Chicago.
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