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Metamorphosis of a Bike User
Commuter Inspired by Bike The Drive

By Claire Micklin

Jennifer Davis often envied the cyclists who passed her while she waited for her bus to work.

“I was waiting and a bicycle whizzed by, and I said to myself, ‘Gee, I wish I had a bike,’” said Davis.

So when she read an advertisement for last year’s Bike The Drive, Davis saw an opportunity to experience urban bicycling. Davis was hooked. She began commuting by bike to her job as a manuscript editor at the University of Chicago Press.

The benefits were immediate. “I’m in a better mood when I come to work,” she said.

She also became connected with the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, which introduced her to a community of people dedicated to bicycling. “I was glad that there’s an organization of people for it (bicycling) and they all help each other out,” Davis said.

Davis has found reassurance that there is a growing culture of bicycling in Chicago – one in which bikes are used for shopping and other short trips, too.
“I used to be under the impression that only a few really hard-core bicycle enthusiasts did it,” Davis said. “But there are lots of normal people who ride their bikes to work.”

Claire Micklin is a volunteer Bike Traffic writer and editor