Chicago

Jul 27, 2014

Three years in Fort Wayne and today was the first time I made the trip to my favorite city, Chicago.

We did the tourist thing. We went to the Shedd Aquarium, the Navy Pier, and of course China Town (dim sum!).

It was a warm day but we decided to use the bike hub system, Divvy, to get around since it's only $7 for the entire day (with 30-min limits for each check-out without extra charges). And the bike system was just... Awful. The initial start was an omen to our experience with the bike system; the hub didn't read our credit card. So we walked to another station and that one worked. The bikes were scarce in the museum campus of the city. So we had to walk to another station which was over 20 minutes away.

The entire system is ridiculous because the bike count at the stations would be phony since many riders go to a station to "drop off" and immediate "pick up" in order to avoid extra charges. And we encountered multiple stations where the hub wouldn't read credit cards or would not even allow "drop off"s even with empty slots. Divvy has much to work on to make it usable in my opinion; my experience was immensely unpleasant. It definitely threw off the day's schedule. (Chicago is a very bikable city though)

But I had a great time and met a guy that caught my shirt!