youth cycling

“I thought to myself, what if we could get 500 bicycles on the streets of Bronzeville?” said community activist Angela Ford, discussing the eureka moment that led her to organize this Saturday’s bike giveaway at Wendell Phillips High. “That would help instantly create a culture of cycling.”

[This article also ran in Checkerboard City, John's column in Newcity magazine, which hits the streets on Wednesday evenings.]

Last Thursday evening in a tidy storefront at the bustling, multicultural intersection of Lawrence and Kedzie in Albany Park, ten teenagers were hard at work wrenching on bikes as pop-punk played through someone’s laptop. One boy scrubbed the headset of a green BMX with a wire brush. Nearby a girl was installing a derailleur cable on a white mountain bike. Another boy in a striped knit cap was installing a crank on a navy-blue road cycle. There was an atmosphere of intense, professional concentration, broken up occasionally by exchanges of repair tips and good-natured ribbing.