Ok so I know a lot of you guys hate me and maybe a few of you love me but this thread is about a girl. Today I came back to the glorious city of Chicago and I saw the twin of our beloved Absntr on a bridge(right by halsted and ????). She had been in a serious accident again much like our friend Absntr her wheel was caught in a slot in the metal grates. She was taken away by the ambulance as she was bleeding copius amounts of blood from the temple. Does anyone have any info on her condition? And what can we do about those damn bridges as it seems to be quite a hazard? Anyway if anyone here knows her give her a call maybe to see if she is ok, and lets start a movement to get something done about those gaps

mind the gap???

For anyone wondering about what Josh is talking about (because at this point, everyone knows who Josh is!), he's referring to a girl who has almost the same set up as I do. She's got a black Soma and when Marcus at Yojimbo's originally ordered the first set of coloured Phils (pink), he had three.

One set went to Molly, one to me. When I came to pick my wheels up, I saw hers there and saw that she had gone the same route, but with bladed spokes on the front and a Fusion rim. In any case, a week or two later, Marcus remembered to tell me that the girl that set of wheels was built for, had the same black Soma frame as mine.

Many friends and many of the DCC have thought that they saw my bike outside of places or riding around, but was Molly.

As for the accident, mine was in March when my face and head met a grated metal bridge and with the help of many on the forums (my gratitude runs deep), I recovered well.

As for the gaps on the bridge -- this has been a long standing issue. The metal bridges have been a cause of concern for years now. Kathy Schubert who's very active with the Chicago Bike Federation and Critical Mass (she helped organize the Critical Mass in March that was dedicated as a fundraiser and an awareness ride for the metal bridges in my name) years ago did a faceplant on the Wells street bridge.

She DID start a movement and a few years later got the City of Chicago to plate over a bike lane on the Wells Street bridge and only on the Wells Street bridge. You may also want to see the Boub case.

The City of Chicago's stance on this is that it takes a lot of money and effort to figure out (or rather, no one wants to spend the money or time) to produce the extra counterweight for balancing the bridge now that you've plated or filled in the concrete holes on the bridge. Since the bridges do come up often for ships and boats on the river, they didn't want to do this.

Kathy Schubert kept as it and started a postcard awareness program. The City knows that this happens on the bridges to cyclists and doesn't want to take responsbility in the same way that you're considered a vehicle (aka "car") and thus anything that happens to you on the bridge is the same as a car -- you don't get any special rights and you abide by the rules of the road that way. It is "your" risk. By giving you special rights over the bridges, they claim responsibility and thus if something happens, they'd have to be responsible.

They do no want to be.

I do not know Molly personally but I am sad to hear this. I know my bridges intimately these days and which ones have grates that travel against the tire or with the tire and I avoid and take the sidewalk out of an odd paranoia since.

I hope she's better and that it was nowhere as serious as mine was.

If anyone does indeed know her (and I feel like I should for some reason, after all the sightings and bike twin-ness), please let me know.

I saw this girl riding up Wells street two weeks ago.

She has a water bottle holder on her bike, right?

i see her all the time downtown, and a lot of her crowd (or someone's crowd) hangs out on wells, like around 600 north, at some cafe.

i will stop in tomorrow morning and inquire, as i have always wanted to stop her anyway.

here's some wishes for her speedy recovery - -

I haven't had any problems with bridges yet, but it's just my luck...

the north ave bridge by home depot I hate the most — the zipper-like teeth at the seam don't line up and sometimes I feel like it tries to grab my wheel by the rims. can you guys tell us which bridges are most notorious? I'd like to be aware before I pull a face plant.

Yeah I wonder when they are going to expand the usage of metal sheets?

That looks like it must be fun to navigate in the rain.

I was thinking the same thing. Sadly that is an improvement on the steel deck...but not much.

can someone take a pic of the offending gap? naz, you have one?

I'm not sure which bridge Molly went down on - on Halsted there are 3-4 bridges alone, but I highly suspect one of them. Josh - was it the one at Chicago or the one at Division?

The bridge I went down on, I went back later to take a photo of but didn't see any offending cracks - granted it was a month or so later too, so maybe they fixed it, I don't know. I was actually sort of hoping/scared that I might have some flashback of what happened since I remember nothing 20 feet from where I went down and until I came to in the hospital.

Bridges are everywhere in Chicago. Ask Judah - when he was in town, he was shocked. Bridge after bridge after bridge. Of course, it's all downtown in the business district though.

See if THIS LINK works for more pics and article.

right about that.

was trying to find a way into rivernorth (work in the gallery district) without bridges — impossible. I used to take the chicago ave bridge but got nailed twice by SUVs. that bridge is a bottleneck, one SUV cut me off into a manhole and I pulled an endo, another SUV started pushing me forward with it's sideview mirrors, I looked at the driver and he just stared blankly at me and didn't slow down, I had to untangle my bag to get free.

grand ave bridge is better. but since it's out of the way, I've been taking the two on division.

all thos bridges sound like a nightmare

too bad you all don't have awesome hover bikes like mine.

They all feel sketchy. Only a couple are deadly, the rest you can kinda stop thinking about after a while. Have you seen the latest Batman movie? All of the bridges in there are located around downtown Chicago.


https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Chicag...0.028743&hl=en

https://www.glasssteelandstone.com/Fe...tmanBegins.php

Here's the satellite view as well - just follow the river and you can see the many bridges spread across the city:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Chicag...9508&t=k&hl=en

How odd, here's the bridge I went down on, dead center:

https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Chicag...9754&t=k&hl=en

Is Wells the only bridge with a steel cover over the bike lanes? I could've sworn there was one on Dearborn, but now it's gone. I just ride on the sidewalk sometimes. No way am I going down in rush hour traffic.

Yep, Wells is the only one, as far as I know, or at least the only city sanctioned one.

I believe she is a courier

man, you just get a lite fog or mist comming off the river, and you mineaswell be coasting on black ice.

According to the linked article, it's special non-slip metal... Not sure how that's possible...

Probably corrugated or sandblasted or something like that. Probably doesn't work that well in the rain either.

It looks like there's some sort of traction surface on there, looking at the upper right photo.