Let Chicago teach you to ride a bicycle

Karlla Guirola grew up in El Salvador during the war. Alex Raynor was raised in Houston. Bryce Polk is 6 years old.

Widely diverse upbringings that nevertheless brought the three together in two important ways.

First, it put them in an elite group: the 6% of Americans who cannot ride a bike. OK, when Raynor was growing up in Texas, she could ride, she says, but couldn’t turn or brake, two skills that complicate bike riding in their absence.

And second, the three comprised the entire class of attendees who showed up at 6 p.m. a few Thursdays back for a Chicago Department of Transportation “Learn to Ride” free bicycling class for adults. (Bryce, being 6, would seem to be too young to qualify; but in that marvelously adaptive quality that city programs sometimes display, nobody seemed to notice or care, and I certainly wasn’t about to point it out.)

I can ride a bike, but I was there because, with all the city of Chicago has to do — combat crime, filter water, wrangle statues and more — that it also teaches residents to ride bikes, for free, well, that seemed charming in a 1930s, WPA, summer camp kind of way.

“Biking is good for our bodies and a cheap, fast way to get around,” said Emme Williams, one of five instructors at the class, known as SAFE (Streets Are For Everybody) ambassadors.

A short section of West Ferdinand Street in Humboldt Park was closed off with orange cones, and the pedals removed from three bikes so the beginners could practice scooting forward.

“Just kind of walk with it and get used to the weight of the bike,” said Chris Zombory, another SAFE instructor. Classes continue until Aug. 29; to find them, put “CDOT bike classes” into Google.

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

As timeless as learning to ride a bike is, the COVID pandemic hovered in the background. It’s the reason Raynor, 29, a law student at Loyola, decided to finally master turning and braking. The pandemic is “the No. 1 reason why I want to ride a bike,” she said. Bike riding being an attractive alternative to buses, trains, cabs and ride shares (though the Divvy system is now sponsored by Lyft).

Speaking of Divvy: On Wednesday the first of an expected 10,500 Divvy power-assisted ebikes will start showing up on Chicago streets, and the Divvy folks kindly brought one by so before class I could take a spin.

It is a sleek black vehicle, with an actual basket, an immediate improvement over regular Divvy bikes, plus an internal locking cable — rather than having to return it to a dock, you can lock it to any convenient bike rack, though Divvy charges $2 for that privilege.

“You’ll see them come out in batches,” said Gia Biagi, CDOT’s commissioner. She said now is a good time to roll out the new ebikes. “We’re seeing lots of interest in how people can get around the city more in a lot of different ways,” she said.

I tried a LimeBike when they were rolled out on the South Side in 2018 and found it a tad over-eager; the electric assist motor kept wanting to push me into traffic when I preferred to stand still. That isn’t a problem with the new Divvy ebikes, which rode very smooth and will be good for eating up ground in the city.

“With the pedal assist, you can go a lot further with less effort,” Biagi said. “It’s very popular in other cities and a helpful part of the COVID response.”

Tyler LaRiviere/Sun-Times

Back at class, two-thirds of the budding bike riders were getting with the program. Raynor made wide looping turns and only occasionally fell over.

“You’re ready for the pedals!” exuded Angel Montalvo, a veteran SAFE ambassador. “You’re doing great.”

“I’m ready!” beamed Raynor.

“You are riding a bike: success!” Montalvo said to Guirola.

“It’s amazing what an hour and a half did,” she said, though later she decided to take another class, the following Thursday, where she was the lone attendee. Then she went out and, after trying a few sold-out stores, bought the very first bike she ever owned in her life, at age 50: a Trek 930 hybrid.

It also took extra effort for Bryce to master bicycling.

“It was hard to go home and not learn what he came for,” said his mother, Cydni Polk. “We were all a little upset.”

“I did my best,” Bryce told his mother as they were leaving.

“I know you did,” she said, soothingly. “We’re going to conquer this.”

And they did. When they got home to Blue Island, they went straight to the park and tried again, even though it was 9 p.m. For an hour.

“We did it every day,” Cydni Polk later said. Tried Friday and failed. Tried Saturday. Failed. Tried again Sunday. Nope. Tried Monday. Almost.

But Tuesday ...

“I think this is the day,” Cydni Polk said, waking Bryce up.

They went to the park and tried yet again.

“Pedal! Pedal! Pedal!” his mother called, giggling. Then something clicked. Everybody was hollering, laughing.

“You just witnessed history for our family,” Cydni Polk told a bystander in the park.

History? Riding a bike? Really?

“It’s so much larger than just bike riding,” she said. “What it increases is confidence for a young person. Something for them to learn to conquer. It’s been huge. Every day since then we have gone bike riding as a family. Every single day. It’s been the best.”