Note: The videos in this post contain graphic violence and strong language.
Two weeks ago a motorcyclist randomly groped a female bicyclist at Augusta and Milwaukee, and then knocked her husband unconscious. Yesterday there was another horrific attack on a cyclist in West Town, just a mile southeast at Hubbard and Kinzie.
The latest victim was Brian Bauer, 31, who works as an old-school downtown bike messenger by day and a food delivery courier at night. At about 4:45 p.m. Thursday, he was cycling from the Loop to his home in Humboldt Park to switch bags for his evening gig. As he approached Canal Street while cycling west in the Kinzie protected bike lane, drivers were lined up waiting to make a southbound left turn. Thatās when a man in a green Honda station wagon swerved into the bike lane while passing the stopped vehicles on the right, missing the cyclist by inches.
āI screamed something at him,ā Bauer recalled. āWhat I normally scream is āHeads up!ā or, more likely, āBike lane, jackass!āā However, he said this kind of thing happens to him all the time as someone who spends much of his day riding around the city, so he didnāt give it much thought and continued west on Kinzie.

Bauer competes in road and cyclocross races in his spare time, and he said his usual commuting pace is a car-like 22-24 mph. As he climbed the hill by the Blommer Chocolate factory, he felt something rubbing against his back wheel, almost like another bike rider drafting him too close and rubbing tires.
Thatās when Bauer realized that it was the station wagon driver tailing him. He said heās convinced the man was trying to run him over. āHe bumped me from behind and tried to steer me right, into the curb,ā the cyclist recalled. āI went left and sprinted ahead.ā
Bauer said he next instinct was to turn on his GoPro mini video cameras. He keeps one on his front handlebars pointing forward, and another under his seat pointing backward. āIāve been doing that a very long time because Iāve seen quite a bit,ā he explained. āDrivers treat you way different when they see a camera. Itās amazing how people will buzz me and as I catch up to them they're like, āOh s---, thereās a camera,ā and that usually defuses the situation.ā
In an effort to hold the driver accountable for trying to run him off the road, Bauer turned around in the travel lane at the top of the hill, grabbed his front GoPro to show the man the camera, and began filming. At the end of the clip below Bauer dodges right to avoid being rammed.
Bauer then slipped between the station wagon and a line of motorists waiting to turn left. āI think it quickly became apparent to him that as long as I was on the bike heād have a hard time catching me,ā he said. āI think thatās when he said āF--- it,ā and ran the [Kinzie/Desplaines/Milwaukee] intersection.ā
Since his cameras donāt have video screens, Bauer wasnāt sure heād gotten the manās plate number, so he sped west after the station wagon to get more footage. At Green Street the driver turned north, and then at Hubbard the motorist headed east again. āHe realized I was right on top of him, screaming,ā the cyclist said. āHe got to Halsted and tried to turn south, but there too much traffic, so he realized that he couldnāt get away. I rode up right alongside him trying to get a good photo of his face. In my head, I guess I believed he would stick around and wait for the police to file a report.ā
In the the second segment of the video below, shot with the GoPro mounted on Bauerās handlebars, you can hear the cyclist yell, āThe f--- was that? The f--- was that? Iām calling the cops. I got you.ā At that point the driver got out of the car. The cyclist headed toward the intersection, but the man sprinted after him and grabbed his rear wheel, flipping him over the handlebars. The camera kept filming, capturing part of the assault.Ā (To view the second segment, click the small arrow at the right of the frame once.)
āHe picked me up and started hitting me and hitting me and hitting me, and then threw me back on the ground,ā Bauer recalled. Heās five-foot-eight and 150 pounds, so he decided it made no sense to try to the fight the man, who he said was perhaps six inches taller and more than 50 pounds heavier. āI did the turtle thing,ā he said, crouching face down on the ground in a fetal-like position, while the man punched him in the back of his helmet 10-15 times, and also administered a few blows to the side of his face. āI found blood on the back of my helmet that wasnāt mine. He was screaming expletives at me the entire time.ā
In the video you can hear dozens of other drivers blasting their horns in response to the beat-down and see people coming to Bauerās aid, including cyclists, pedestrians, and motorists. āEnough people started rushing over that he realized he needed to escape,ā the cyclist said. In the third segment of the video Ā (click the small arrow at the right of the frame twice to view it) you can see the man, still cursing, get back in his car and take advantage of the stalled traffic to flee south on Halsted.
Bauer said multiple witnesses gave him their phone numbers and stuck around to give testimony to the police, and he got the manās plate number. But he said the responding officers seemed pessimistic that the driver would ever be apprehended. āI asked if they were going to issue an all-points bulletin on him and they said, āWe donāt really do that.āā
Officer Laura Amezaga from Police News Affairs provided the basic information from the police report, which shows that the account Bauer gave to the officers matches the story he told me.
Bauer said heās certain that he suffered at least a mild concussion, and his knees and elbows were swollen and bloodied, but he doesnāt have health insurance, so he hasnāt sought medical attention. Heās also taking some time off from work, which means lost income. And even if the police track down his assailant, heās convinced that the man, who was driving a beat-up, decades-old vehicle, doesnāt have car insurance so he wonāt get compensation.
āStatements have been made, reports filed, literally nothing has happened, and Iāll be amazing if anything does,ā Bauer posted on Instagram in the wake of the beating. āIn retrospect I probably shouldnāt have followed, but itās hard to just ride away from s--- like that. Iām going to be fine in a few days but, boy, am I sad at how violent and terrible this city is sometimes.ā
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