Kudos to the biking infrastructure in Salt Lake City which I have found thus far to be clear and safe and of course, an astonishingly beautiful ride. The best way to fall in love with a city is from the seat of your bicycle. These past couple weeks have seen my return to bicycle commuting, which I have not done since Chicago.
Chicago was a great bicycle town – and I would know! Leading groups of cyclists on tours for a decade gave me great insight and experience with urban cycling and safety. But also, those wonderful commutes on early mornings down the Lake Front Trail, the sun coming up over Lake Michigan. It was impossible to have a bad day when that was how it began.
In Florida, my first bike was stolen. On the first day I had it. I left it parked and locked (with a CRAPPY lock) on the UCF campus. I went into the bookstore to load up on the semester’s worth of reading and came out with a large and heavy backpack only to find that crappy lock cut and the bike gone. I got another one, and rode it to school nearly every day that first year, always taking my seat with me and putting it in a locker.
Then I moved to downtown Florida and scrapped that Huffy for a more classic bike, enjoying long group rides with the Broadway gang. Later, I got a sweet Columbia vintage that I rode all over downtown Orlando, Lake Eola, and Lake Summerlin … all over. I loved that bike. In Chicago I rode my uncle’s old beach bike until I could afford a nice commuter.
That bike was also stolen from our home in Forest Park. But that was okay, I had given my dad a nice bike that he never used and so I now I ride that. It’s a nice Schwinn, it reminds me of my Chicago tour – guide days and it has really held up well here in Utah.
I will always love the feeling of freedom that only comes from a nice long bicycle ride.