InsaneJournal

ghost bike

Over the weekend I finally got out and did some serious bike riding.  On Saturday morning I rode to an ANAD meeting which was a couple of miles away and then on Sunday I rode to work. 

It’s taken me an inordinately long time to get back on my bike this year.  Part of it has to do with the crazy weather we’ve had this spring (I actually just missed being caught in a really bad storm yesterday) but it’s mainly fear, sort of a delayed reaction to my accident last summer that was really brought home when I found out that two cyclists had recently been in fatal accidents not too far from my neighborhood (one death was literally a block away from where I live).

On April 20, 22-year-old Tyler Fabeck was hit by a car at the intersection of Logan Boulevard and Western Avenue.  On April 30, 24-year-old Amanda Annis was killed at the corner of Kedzie and Armitage (another girl was killed at the same corner back in September). 

When I rode my bike to work last year, I often went through the Logan Boulevard/Western Avenue intersection and frankly it made me very nervous because of the heavy traffic and poor visibility because of a highway overpass.  When I was riding over the weekend I tried to stick to side streets, though you really have to get on a main thoroughfare with a light to get across Western Avenue. 

Right after Memorial Day weekend, something called a Ghost Bike was put up to mark the spot where Fabeck was killed.  A Ghost Bike is a bicycle that’s stripped down, painted white and chained to a place where a cyclist died as a memorial.  After it appeared, I hiked down to the intersection and took some photos of it.  Since then some more candles and flowers have been put around it.  It’s really a chilling reminder of what can go wrong and I’m trying to be really careful when I ride this year and also to drive more carefully and pay more attention to bicyclists.