A relatively recent addition to the Chicago bike scene is Femmes + Thems Bike Chicago, which describes itself as a "safe space for women, femme, nb, and trans Chicagoans to ride bikes together." The group was co-founded by Sammy Schneider (she/her), who grew up biking around Skokie. After after moving back to Chicagoland from Miami, she decided that she really hated having a car.
Another core organizer of Femmes + Thems is Nat Dille (they/she), who had been biking regularly for about two years before Femmes + Thems, including many recreational rides on trails. Dille also dislikes driving.
Streetsblog sat down with Schneider and Dille to discuss the organization, and bike activism in general. The interview has been edited for length and brevity.
Cameron Bolton: Can you tell me a little bit about how about how Femmes + Thems started?
Sammy Schneider: Basically, I had started biking all winter, [and there was a lack of diversity] on these rides. I felt like on a lot of the rides people nerding out about bike parts, and like, "Oh, that gear set you have." And that's never been something that I really care about. Or I try to go on these roadie rides, and they'd all be wearing this fancy Lycra and be stick-thin.
And I was just like, I don't feel like I really fit in completely with any of these groups. So I actually posted on Twitter, and I was like, "Hey, I really, really, really want to love biking again, and I really need a ride with some of my femme friends, some of my non-binary friends, some of my trans friends, like anyone who's not a cis man. I really need a ride with you guys right now.' And so together with my friend Emily, who was involved in Chicago, Bike Grid Now!, as well as Jen, whom I had met through Bike Grid Now as well, and just on Twitter, actually. I was like, "Hey, would you guys be down to help me host a bike ride next weekend?" So actually, this all happened within a week.
CB: Nat, can you tell me a little bit about some of the events that you've organized, and stuff you're working on now?
Nat Dille: Maybe the ride that I'm most proud to have been on was a ride with both [the local lesbian cycling group] Dykes on Bicycles and with Themmes + Thems. That was a ride that I actually was the ride leader on. And I also gave the safety speech that we do at the top of our rides. At the start of every ride, we try and give a speech that's informative, but also kind of fun and engages people. I think we've done a pretty good job of keeping our riders safe and a pretty good job of doing a little bit of bike education and bike etiquette along the way, which I'm pretty proud of.
Another thing that I feel really good about is I've been part of the team that organized the custom build series in Femmes + Thems, and that's a ride just for trans and gender diverse people, so just TGD people. And so it tends to be a lot smaller, and it doesn't happen as often as the main Femmes + Thems rides, but it is a ride that's really near-and-dear to my heart.
CB: Sammy, earlier, you mentioned being involved in some bike activism. Do Femmes + Thems do anything like that?
SS: Honestly, in these times, in 2025, experiencing joy on the streets, and taking up the entire street when we do our rides, is a form of protest in itself. You know, it's really the most beautiful thing that I see every month, all of these smiling people who are diverse in gender and expression. Everybody has such cool outfits and music, and everyone's so happy. It feels like home, honestly, for so many people, that actually, when we had to cancel our ride this weekend, people were like, upset and worried for their mental health, because it's become this place where people really found their people, and found a place where you can be yourself and not have to worry about the outside world as much. And so I would say that is our biggest form of protest.
Of course, we're going to support and share things from bike activist groups, and our Discord is very active. We have, I think, over 300 people in our Discord now. And there's a lot of chatter about whenever someone needs to sign a witness slip, or someone needs to sign a petition, go to a public meeting, and I think a lot of stuff is happening there, although we do not do any specific actions as a group, besides our rides, which I would say are a form of protest.
CB: Where do you typically do your rides?
ND: We try to alternate where we do our main ride. So that's our big flagship, our social ride is the one that's on the Saturday. And so we try and alternate that between like the North side, the West side and the South side. It's not like a perfect one-to-one, but we found that there are a lot of riders who don't have access to group rides, or just don't have a lot of people down there, or sometimes just lack the bike infrastructure. For instance, I live up in Edgewater now, and I love how many bike lanes there are. I love that the lakefront trail is right there. I love that buses are very accessible as well.
When I was in Logan Square, I didn't have as much stuff. Milwaukee Avenue is not the same as the Lakefront Trail. It's just not nearly as safe or easy to ride, even though it's a main artery for the city.
And I know people who are farther out from the more privileged, affluent, whiter neighborhoods in Chicago don't always have access to such good infrastructure. And what we found is that when we partner with organizations like Blackstone Bikes or South Shore Bicycle, we, first of all, have a really great time. And second, so many riders that we haven't met before come out to our rides, and we get to see some of the coolest communities in Chicago as well.
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