I've been visiting family north of Chicago and made plans to visit friends downtown by taking the train to Union Station, then walking the 1.2 miles to the restaurant. As soon as I exited the train station I saw the Divvy bike shares everywhere which I had seen on previous visits, but forgot about. I thought about noglider and his bike share rides in NYC, but the train was late and I had started the process of renting a bike. Despite the immediate bike lane I couldn't figure if the route was safe beyond what I could see, plus some of the bikes seemed to have a phone holders, but I wasn't sure if they were secure. So I walked. Turned out it was pretty safe.

I lost track of time at the get together and had a friend give me a lift back to the station.

I wish I would have planned better, as I could have possibly ridden, even for just 1.2 miles.

The original big plan was to bike to the Colorado Springs airport (7 miles) fly to Chicago with my folding bike in its suitcase trailer, bike 14 miles to Northbrook, then on the day of the get together bike downtown (27 miles) and take the train back north and finally biking back to the airport. With an alternate plan being biking to and from the train in Northbrook.

Well, none of that happened.

Maybe next time.

Addendum: I did talk with my nephew who has written from Northbrook to Wrigley Field and gave me some routing advice and I did see upgrades to buy claims along Sheridan Avenue if I wanted to take an extended lake front route and he said that he has done that but not all the way down to the city. Maybe next time I'll just go riding with my nephew that would be awesome.