My Urban Life

I have been commuting to SRAM through the streets of Chicago for over a year now, and as you all know after a while you get used to the bad drivers, the busy intersections, and the traffic. But last week I saw something truly breathtakingly crazy. When I rolled into the office I saw John Nedeau. Since he is in sales I realized that he would appreciate a good story - so I told him what I saw. John insisted that I share that story with everyone today.


My urban commute takes me down Clark Street to Halsted in the morning, and it is usually a pretty calm ride. But last Monday I was nearly sideswiped by a rider on a motorized drift trike careening in and out of the bike lane going south on Clark.

For all of you who don’t know what a drift trike is, picture a big wheel tricycle, like kids use on the sidewalk. This one was a little bigger with a mountain bike front end welded to a tricycle rear end. Between the rear wheels, which are made of plastic so you can drift the trike sideways was a large un-muffled snow-blower engine. As far as I could tell, there were no brakes. Just a handlebar and a throttle with a crazed 20 year-old helmetless rider trying in vain to keep the thing going in a straight line and stay in the seat as it alternately slid and bounced down the road.

He swerved past me in the bike lane, careened into traffic, skidded back into the bike lane and blew right through a red light without looking either direction. I decided to follow to see what happens next.

Now, despite my duty to SRAM, I admit that I was not thinking about what Stan said a few months ago about identifying opportunities to increase our market share of the Urban Market.

No, I was thinking the same thing you are thinking, which is, “What is this guy thinking?”

I was also thinking that this is like watching performance art, and I wish I had a camera, because this is going to be a short performance.

Predictably, I soon got my answer. At the next intersection, just north of Belmont, I watched the rider blow the stop sign at full throttle as a black Cadillac SUV entered the intersection in a clear collision course. The rider amazingly slid completely sideways barely avoiding being crushed by the SUV but never eased off the throttle, swerved in front of the Cadillac, and missed it by inches. What the rider was thinking became clear when he raised his free hand as he - at full speed - skirted the front bumper of the Cadillac and gave the driver the finger.

As far as this particular share of the Urban Market goes, my recommendation is to avoid it completely. It’s going to be a dead end.