Speed dating

CULTURE: STREET SMARTS

She’s one smart cookie—and you always make passes at girls who wear glasses. Hit the road to impress your high-IQ hottie.

Even if you’re so dim-witted that a bike with one gear offers too many confusing choices, you know that multiculturalism is hot. So start your intellectual outing in Chinatown at 1 Feida Bakery (2228 S Wentworth Ave, 312-808-1113), which offers picnic-perfect finger food such as barbecue-pork and sweet-top custard buns, and sweet, flaky moon cakes. Grab a couple of drink boxes from the cooler, and you’ll still get away for less than $10. Hopefully that’ll make you look wise, not cheap.

Pack the goods on your bike and head south on Wentworth to 26th Street, then east almost a mile to South King Drive, and turn south in the bike lane. Turn east at Oakwood Boulevard (just before 40th Street), cross Lake Shore Drive and then head south along one of the most scenic parts of the lakefront, Burnham Park. Cross back west under the 63rd Street underpass (if you pedal past the green-roofed 63rd Street Beach House, you just missed your turn, genius). Now you’re on Hayes Drive, where ahead you’ll find an incredibly shiny replica of the Statue of the Republic from the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition; bear right and look to your right for the bridge that leads to the Wooded Isle in Jackson Park. Enter the park, cross the footbridge and bear left to the 2 Osaka Garden (5800 S Lake Shore Dr).

PAINT IT BLACK Think deep thoughts about Andres Serrano’s work (background) and Randy Regier’s piece (foreground) at the Renaissance Society.

Photo: Tom Van Eynde

Here’s where you win her heart. As the two of you picnic in the serene, manicured Japanese garden, drop some history on your bikey bookworm: The Osaka Garden was built for the Exposition and is said to have influenced Frank Lloyd Wright’s style considerably. Bike north to exit the other side of the isle, and take a left on 59th Street. At University Avenue, take a right; at 58th, walk your bikes across the University of Chicago campus to the 3 Renaissance Society (5811 S Ellis Ave, Cobb Hall, fourth floor; free admission). The current show, Black Is, Black Ain’t (through June 8), features 26 artists and their interpretations of the black experience and—this is deep—post-blackness. Check out the work of Andres Serrano, the man behind the famous/infamous Piss Christ, which depicted a crucifix submerged in a jar of the artist’s urine. Good luck deconstructing his work for your cultural companion. Bike west across Washington Park to the Green or Red Lines to return to your starting point. It’s probably going to take your girl the whole ride to explain that art exhibit to you.

DISTANCE 9 miles (one way)

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