Tour of West Town Discussion



This is a discussion page for the Tour of West Town, picture posts, map updates, and all matters and events related to the Tour of West Town. Here is the chainlink event page for the site:

http://www.thechainlink.org/events/tour-of-west-town

This is the final tour of the second season of Big Shoulders Realty's neighborhood bike tours. Next month begins our second Winter Cycling Series, more details on which will soon come. In the interim, one can vote for the four rides for the Winter Cycling Series here:

http://bigshouldersrealty.com/winter

Back to the point...Tour of West Town. This is our first partnership with West Town Bikes and Ciclo Urbano. We are very proud to work with an organization(s) that we are ardent supporters of. It is our hope that this ride gives them another opportunity to be visible and raise some much needed funds. As always, our neighborhood tours are completely free, but we are also asking for donations for West Town Bikes. They do a lot with a little, and every bit of help they can get goes a long way. Donations will be accepted onsite, or you can donate right here, right now:

http://tinyurl.com/donatetourofwesttown

If you are unaware of the great things that Alex Wilson and West Town Bikes have done for the city of Chicago, for bicyling and in particular for the young people of the west side of Chicago, than please take a moment to visit their website and see all of the great programs they have ongoing, and all of the great things they have done.

Here is their website:

http://westtownbikes.org/

and Ciclo Urbano’s:

http://ciclourbanochicago.com/

This tour is our most ambitious to date. Some of the features beyond the typical 15-esque mile tour of a wonderful west side community area with loads of architecture to oogle and gape at and a historical narrative on the ride include:

- 60 second-bike tune-ups and pre-ride checks courtesy of West Town Bikes
- This is Halloween so it is of course a costumed ride with prizes for best costume, best Halloween themed-helmet and best bike costume.
- Early ride time allows us to end directly in front of Ciclo Urbano to witness/participate in the Haunted Paseo Boricua parade.

This is also the day after the Halloween mass, and a perfect opportunity to get a little extra-mileage out of your Halloween efforts, have fun on a Saturday morning/afternoon, join the party at Haunted Paseo Boricua, and still get off in plenty of time for Halloween evening. To that end, we are hoping a large group of folks find this a good opportunity to bring their children and make it all a great bike-filled fun day. Hope to see many families, costumes and cyclists of all stripes for our season finale.

If you would like to get a first-hand role in shaping the tour, we encourage you to join us for the planning rides. Our first one is tonight at 6:00 directly outside of Ciclo Urbano. Here are the details on the Chainlink event pages for the rest of the planning rides:

West Town Planning Ride #2 - Monday October 12 at 6:00 PM
http://www.thechainlink.org/events/planning-ride-for-tour-of-west-1

West Town Planning Ride #3 - Sunday October 18 at 2:00 PM
http://www.thechainlink.org/events/planning-ride-for-tour-of-west-2

West Town Planning Ride #4/Pre-Ride - Saturday October 24 at 11:00 AM
http://www.thechainlink.org/events/planning-ride-for-tour-of-west-3

Thanks for checking this out and sorry for the lengthy post! Stay tune for some pics and map for tonight's planning ride. - Cheers - Lee Diamond

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Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on October 7, 2009 at 8:52am
Here are some pics of Humboldt Park and leading up Paseo Buricua towards West Town Bikes...and of course West Town Bikes









Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on October 7, 2009 at 9:55am
Here is today's planning route.

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/il/chicago/235125494879545140

There will be a few ducking into streets as well. I have a list of 400+ possible spots for areas west of Damen. Seems like it is sunny and nice and would present some good photo opportunities.

For anyone that is interested, the first planning ride is at 6:00 in front of Ciclo Urbano. Cheers - Lee
Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on October 8, 2009 at 7:33am
Thank you to Thang and Mike for joining me on the ride and Alex for the use of the shop as a meeting place, and for letting me use what was easily the best headset locknut wrench i have ever laid my hands on.

The ride was productive, if not a little too dark. That's what I get for trying to accomodate work schedule times! Alas. The next one is on Monday the 12th at 6:00. http://www.thechainlink.org/events/planning-ride-for-tour-of-west-1

I will be there at 5:00 to do a little touch up work on the bad photos, speaking of which, they are below.






Permalink Reply by Kevin Mulcky on October 8, 2009 at 8:04am
What boundaries are you using for West Town?
Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on October 8, 2009 at 6:36pm
I always base the tours on city community areas, which are well established, and there is a map of each on the city web site. Here is the West Town map:

http://egov.cityofchicago.org/webportal/COCWebPortal/COC_ATTACH/Com...

Here is how the Encyclopedia of Chicago describes the borders of West Town, and it corresponds with the Community Area map:

"With its official boundaries roughly corresponding to Bloomingdale on the north, Kinzie on the south, the Chicago River's North Branch to the east, and a shifting western boundary that goes as far as Kedzie"

So those.

However, they are also not restrictive. Within the boundaries of West Town are numerous neighborhoods like Wicker Park, Noble Square, Ukrainian Village, West Town, Humboldt Park, East Village and River North. In many cases, these neighborhoods don't all stay within the borderline of West Town and stretch into neighboring Community Areas. Most people thing of Bucktown as part and parcel of West Town, and associate it closely with Wicker Park, but it is 100% in the Logan Square Community Area.

Then on the other hand, there is Humboldt Park the neighborhood which starts at Western Avenue, well east of the Humboldt Park Community Area. The Community Area maps are springboards to learn about that community and that often includes some unauthorized dips across borders.

Cheers - Lee




Kelvin Mulcky said:
What boundaries are you using for West Town?
Permalink Reply by Primitive Don on October 9, 2009 at 3:49am
This is going to be a great ride Lee! That Russian Orthodox Church is a real treasure.
Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on October 9, 2009 at 5:09am
Here is the awesome poster by the amazing Ross Felten!

Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on October 11, 2009 at 5:36pm
Here are some pics from yesterdays scouting. Too many fantastic buildings and murals and gardens and everything. This is overwhelming as far as material is concerned. Here is a sample of about 1/10th of what I saw:














Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on October 12, 2009 at 6:13am
Here is the map for today's research ride:

http://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/il/chicacago/426125536754750973

Cheers =- Lee
Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on October 12, 2009 at 2:57pm
Shots from tonight before it became ridiculous trying to keep camera steady for slower shutter speed. Alas.


Cheers all...next planning ride is Sunday the 18th from 2 to 5. Meet at Ciclo Urbano.

http://www.thechainlink.org/events/planning-ride-for-tour-of-west-2









Permalink Reply by jen on October 12, 2009 at 7:03pm
dont forget about the "shit fountian" next to the angel barn at augusta and wolcott

http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/out-there/12086/fountain-of-waste
Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on October 13, 2009 at 6:47am
Hmmmm....I completely missed that somehow. Fortunately, it is hardly architectural...phew!

jen said:
dont forget about the "shit fountian" next to the angel barn at augusta and wolcott

http://chicago.timeout.com/articles/out-there/12086/fountain-of-waste

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