Julie comforts me after surviving the DIVVY bike.

Julie comforts me after surviving the DIVVY bike.

Last month I referenced riding my bike with my friend Julie in Chicago.  When I went to link to this story, I realized that I’d never posted it.  So here’s a plank story from about three years ago that never got it’s moment to shine.  In re-reading it, I also realized that in last month’s blog I clearly over-estimated the time I was riding the DIVVY bike.  That’s how awful my experience was:

So I’m visiting my best friend Julie in Chicago and she asks me if I’ll ride the DIVVY bikes with her to a barbecue.  DIVVY bikes are basically like zip cars.  You can rent them in different parts of the city and return them to stations throughout the city.

Now I am not the greatest bike rider.  And I’m nervous riding my bike on the road in suburban Connecticut, but google claims it will take 21 minutes to get from Julie’s house to the barbeque and Julie claims it will take over and hour by bus, so I agree that even if I’m really uncomfortable, I can handle it for 21-minutes.

Fifty-six minutes later (although it felt like hours) we arrive at the barbeque.  It took us so long that we had to detour and switch DIVVY bikes because you are only allowed to rent them for 30-minute intervals.  Julie had ridden with ease while I was dripping with sweat when we arrived.  At times she would have to wait through two light cycles for me to catch up.

We laughed the whole way about how impossible it was that I was such a bad bike rider.  The next day when one of her friends suggested we ride DIVVY bikes, we both just laughed.  But it turned out I ride a bike wrong.  Her friend taught me.  At the time I was 33-years-old learning how to ride a bike on the streets of Chicago.  Lessons are helpful as I learned when I took swimming lessons.

 

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