Bike Lady Tells You So

What a pleasure it is for the Bike Lady to see so many other Evanston residents out and about on bikes, especially in the morning on the way to work. Your Bike Lady feels compelled to share some wisdom on making sure that your bike remains where you left it at the end of the day.

It's a painful truth, bike theft is rampant in Evanston. There are bad, mean, evil people standing around with hidden snippers waiting to cut your cable and ride away on your nice bike. This happened to the Bike Lady and it can happen to you, even if your bike is parked in a very public spot like right under the Metra Station at Davis. An investment in a steel cable AND a U-lock and using them both can keep your bike secure, encouraging the thief to go looking for another bike not so carefully locked up. Locks are cheap compared to replacing a commuter bike.

Children's bikes are not safe. The Bike Lady can tell you sad stories of very young people pushed off bikes on their own block, bikes taken out of back yards, bikes taken while a mother went back down the basement stairs to lock a door, and little kids bikes taken by teens, who were obviously cruising around hoping to grab one. Police tell us that these bike do not end up at home. They are often dumped in alleys. The Evanston police station has a basement filled with little bikes, yours may be there.

The Bike Lady was gardening last summer and saw a man riding by who just dumped a bike behind a car and kept on walking. She called the police and they came pronto asking for very specific descriptions. There are people who will walk by your open garage door and take your unlocked bike. They may even trade a junker bike for your better bike, which greatly suprised a neighbor when he went to take his bike off the garage wall and did not recognize what he found there.

While your child's bike may be safe thrown on the sidewalk in front of the library on Central Street (how rude), this is not true anywhere south of Central. Get your kids a lock, make them use that lock every time. Yell at them about it. A little more yelling by the Bike Lady may have kept her from replacing a certain teenager's bike, twice.

There are safer places to lock your bikes. The Maple Ave. garage has a big bike rack right in front of the security guards and their cameras. There are folk who park their bikes overnight here, and in the Sherman Ave. garage. People, it's not nice to park your bike to the little downtown trees. Chains are not kind to bark. There are large racks at the Rotary Building and in front of Chase Bank. New and improved racks have been promised by the City and the Chicagoland Bike Federation. The Bike Lady hopes to be seeing signs of them soon?

And here's an idea? For all those big lakefront festivals we Evanstonians enjoy, how about a bike valet? The City of Chicago will have safe and secure monitored bike parking at all it's large festivals this year. Wouldn't it be great to bike to the Ethnic Arts Festival and not have to lock to a tree? The Bike Lady wonders if a non-profit could make a little money this way. She would pay a dollar or two for secured bike parking at a festival. Would you?