A man carries a fish by hand on his bicycle. Photo by Seth Anderson. 

I’m again making this Grid Shots post without a scheduled theme so I looked through the latest photos in our Flickr pool to find a topic. It’s “peculiar”. Just some oddities I noticed.

Did you know there’s a city law about how many hands you must have on the handlebars? It’s Municipal Code of Chicago 9-52-060, Carrying articles on bicycles:

No person operating a bicycle shall carry any package, bundle or article which prevents the rider from keeping at least one hand upon the handlebars.

Notice that it doesn’t preclude someone from riding without any hands on the handlebars provided they are not carrying a package, bundle, or article. A different law may regulate that.

A little girl transports a stroller on the Illinois Prairie Path in Elmhurst. Photo by Clark Maxwell.

A guy bikes with a snorkel in his mouth and goggles on his forehead. Perhaps he’s preparing to ride his bike into Lake Michigan. Photo by Mike Travis.

Mayor Richard M. Daley was mildly obsessed with Paris, France. One of the Parisian transit agencies, Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens (RATP), donated a Hector Guimard-designed, Art Nouveau-style Paris Metro entrance which was installed at the Van Buren Street Metra station along Michigan Avenue. These entrances are ubiquitous in Paris, but they are used only at Métropolitain stations (most like the Chicago ‘L’), not at regional rail stations.

Other “Paris in Chicago” examples: Daley created the landscaped medians on Ashland Avenue, Madison Street, and other roads after seeing them in Paris. He tried to get J.C. Decaux, an advertising company that manages street furniture and bus stops in Chicago (a French company) to build bike sharing in Chicago after a visit to Paris in 2007, during which he rode a Vélib’ bicycle. Photo by Michelle Stenzel.