Riding a bike in the city is an increasingly precarious pursuit, even when the weather is cooperative. On the nicest spring, summer and fall days, the bike paths are jammed with pedalers, and all manner of other amateur athletes such as skaters and skateboarders, and even those practicing the old-fashioned pursuit of jogging or the ancient activity of walking.
A few days after the winter’s first blizzard, Osgood and I noticed a couple of bikes attached to a metal rack in front of the Carling Hotel in the 1500 block of North LaSalle Street and we decided to have a closer look.
He, of course, saw this as an opportunity for an artistic photo. I, however, saw it as an example of a relatively new form of urban idiocy, as in, “Who would be idiotic enough to ride a bike in winter?”
One of the residents of the hotel came outside to see what we were doing, asking, “What are you doing?”
We said we were taking pictures of the bikes.
“What, some kind of art statue thing?” he asked.
Sort of, we said.
The man did not know who the bikes belonged to and said, “I doubt they’re the bikes of people who live here.”
“Why is that?” I asked.
“Most of the people I know here don’t seem crazy enough to ride no bikes in the snow,” he said.
But a large number are so inclined. Winter bike riding is growing in popularity. People in the industry will tell you so, but so will careful observation; even on the coldest, snowiest days, the bikers are about in frighteningly high numbers.
Much of this has to do with such recent technological developments as Gore-Tex and other fabrics that enable people to comfortably exercise outdoors without risking frostbite, and the discovery that the tires used on mountain bikes work pretty well in the snow (why anyone who lives and ride in the Chicago area would need a mountain bike is a topic for another time).
That all makes sense. But I rather think that much of this winter bike riding trend has to do with macho impulses. It’s difficult to know. One of the problems with interviewing winter bikers is that they are moving very swiftly, as if dissatisfied with the depth of the wind chill or in search of some private and altogether mysterious inner warmth.
