Lincoln Square Tour, Planning Rides, Discussion and Photo exchange

This month Big Shoulders Realty's neighborhood bike tour visits the northside community of Lincoln Square. The tour will be on Sunday August 30, 2009 at our usual starting time of 1:00 PM.

This tour is brought to you by Big Shoulders and the Chainlink. Yay!

Yesterday evening, Leah, Julie and I tooled around looking for interesting buildings, parks and elements of the community. Even this little sneak peak displayed how this area will provide a tour rich with architectural treasures, community parks and places, and even a plethora of green-space. Neighborhoods within the community include Ravenswood, Bowmanville, Budlong Woods, Lincoln Square, and Ravenswood Gardens.

I will be exploring the area a great deal over the next 3 weeks and will announce on this forum discussion at least 2 or 3 other public planning rides for those that are keen to contribute to the tour, or see how we make up our tours.

This will also serve as a post-ride photo-exchange, and any discussions related to the community, its neighborhoods and the built-environment of Lincoln Square.

Cheers all - Lee Diamond!

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Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on August 6, 2009 at 7:02pm
Photos from Research Ride # 1







Schedule of Research Rides - Open to anyone
For the Tour and all research rides, we will meet at East River Park Fieldhouse, 5100 N Francisco, by the front steps of the fieldhouse.

Planning Ride #2 - Tuesday August 11 - 3:00 - 6:00
Planning Ride #3 - Friday August 21 - 5:00 - 8:00
Planning Ride #4/Pre-Ride - Thursday August 27 - 6:00 - 8:30

Tour of Lincoln Square
Sunday August 31, 2009
1:00 PM
Free
Wear your helmet please.
Free bike rentals are first come first serve - contact me directly - Lee Diamond - 773-255-6347

Cheers - Lee
Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on August 7, 2009 at 6:08am
Whoops. Originally when I sent out the event invites for the planning rides, I had the wrong day, date AND time for the next ride. Just to be clear, the next research ride is Tuesday August 11 at 3:00 PM

Cheers and take care all - Lee Diamond
Permalink Reply by vxla on August 7, 2009 at 7:25am
Agreed with h3; Ravenswood and Lincoln Square are two very different neighborhoods (unless the tour is actually of the Lincoln Square community area?).
Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on August 7, 2009 at 7:32am
The Community Area of Lincoln Square...which includes Ravenswood (which it shares with Uptown), Budlong Woods, the neighborhood of Lincoln Square, Bowmanville and Ravenswood Gardens. Here's how it breaks down:

Lincoln Square Community Area - made up in the 1920s by a bunch of grads and profs at University of Chicago. This is community area #4 and stretches from the North Shore Channel of the Chicago River to Ravenswood train tracks. Southern border is Montrose. On the north it is Bryn Mawr to Western and Peterson from Western to Ravenswood.

Lincoln Square Neighborhood - Damen to the River, Foster to Montrose. This is more how the neighborhood residents define their space.

Budlong Woods - Neighborhood - Boundaries are Bryn Mawr to Foster and Chicago River to Western.

Ravenswood - Neighborhood that crosses Lincoln Square into Uptown. -

Ravenswood Gardens - East of the river from Montrose to Lawrence to Western (argued)

Ravenswood Manor by the way is NOT part of Lincoln Square as it sits west of the river to Sacramento. A slivery little neighborhood not affiliated with our tour.

Bowmanville - Some argue whether Rosehill Cemetary is part of Bowmanville or it northern boundary, but it goes down to Foster. Ravenswood to Western.


And so other sections/neiighborhoods don't feel left out, and to alleviate your confusion Howard, here's a few more shots.....





Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on August 7, 2009 at 7:39am
Yes. All of my tours are based on community areas. When doing that, it creates the problem of what to do about crossover areas....we basically cover all crossover areas too, so in this tour, we will go as far east as Hermitage because it has tons of great stuff (Dr. Wallace C. Abbott House, Carl Sandburg House, All Saints). That keeps it in Ravenswood, but outside of the community area of Lincoln Square.

Whatchyagunado?

I do my best, but yes, I am aware of the cross borders. It is part of the fun of the tour....i try to ground people when we get to a place "you are now standing in Ravenswood Gardens, which goes from...." so that they get an appreciation for how it works.

The reason I do it this way is that while the Community Area Map may indeed be antiquated and not representative of how Chicago defines itself, there are 77 comunity areas, which is a reasonable goal...77 tours before I do something different. it actually may be fewer because i seriously doubt we will do O'Hare, and some are too small to do on their own.

If I did by neighborhoods, there are like a billion of them. This strikes some balance and recognizes both.

Cheers - Lee

vxla said:
Agreed with h3; Ravenswood and Lincoln Square are two very different neighborhoods (unless the tour is actually of the Lincoln Square community area?).
Permalink Reply by Alan Ortiz on August 7, 2009 at 11:16am
Are you planning on having a group size limit? Just thinking of the Hyde Park one we just did. If you used your bike-mounted PA system during that ride, I don't think many of us were able to hear you, at least I was not able to -- only at the stop/break sites was that possible. Still a fun ride regardless. :)
Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on August 7, 2009 at 5:30pm
You know I am always, always up for a know-down, drag-out, chicago-style neighborhood boundary debate.

h3 said:
Sorry, I just had a hankering for a good old-fashioned knock-down, drag-out, Chicago-style neighborhood boundary debate-- well handled :-)

I came across an old old book on Lincoln Square somewhere not too long ago . . . if I didn't know better I'd have thought it was one of those neighborhood names that realtors or the local CoC came up with in the 70s to try to move some real estate. I lived in Lincoln Square around '95 for a little over a year.
Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on August 7, 2009 at 5:58pm
Well, I can't say for sure. My plan is to have three portable rigs that I bring on every tour. I have to drive anyway to bring waterbottles, sign-up stuff, pumps, helmets, loaner bikes, etc. Therefore I plan to have a small group option (over 20 under 40) - which is the bullhorn gifted to me by Leah and Julie (THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!), the rack-mount system Howard built me we used on Hyde Park would be fine for groups of say 40 to 80, and then a new cart-based system that can handle more serious crowds like we had for Hyde Park. There were 141 people at the height of Hyde Park, and that is just not anything I was expecting, though I was definitely excited that it did so well.

All in all, I have to have the flexibility to do smaller tours as we have had tours of such varying sizes, but be ready to go if there is another Hyde Park (or bigger) on our hands.

My goal for a serious system is simply in need of a non-generator based constant-portable power supply for an active monitor I have that will work just beautifully. Bryan Kennedt has a wagon that I will help him fix and then we can go with that for the big, big tours, but it offers new logistical problems. First of all, Bryan is our sweep pretty much every ride, which means this goal would require that we get another sweep so we don't have to wait for the tail of the ride to get ready to talk. It is fine to wait until all have caught up to start talking, but if we have to wait until the last rider is there to just start getting set up to talk, it could cause a lot of dead time.

Still working on the power issue......

One thing I never want to do is limit attendance. I don't know how one could succesfully do it. By the Chainlink count, there were only about 17 people coming, but we had many times that in the end. So many of the people that came would not have done so if they had to pre-register. The idea that makes them attractive is that we don't sell anything, it is (in theory) entertaining, it is easy to try and free for anyone that wants it. I don't frankly have the desire or ability to register people or limit attendees.

Frankly, I just need more power!

Cheers - Lee

Alan Ortiz said:
Are you planning on having a group size limit? Just thinking of the Hyde Park one we just did. If you used your bike-mounted PA system during that ride, I don't think many of us were able to hear you, at least I was not able to -- only at the stop/break sites was that possible. Still a fun ride regardless. :)
Permalink Reply by Alan Ortiz on August 7, 2009 at 6:11pm
Yeah. It was a Hyde Park critical mass in a way. That was neat to see. As far as your plans for sound, does that mean that you could talk from way in the front and we would have speakers in the middle and rear of the pack from which we could hear you? If I've interpreted that correctly, that would be cool -- real-time narration in motion.
Permalink Reply by Lee Diamond on August 7, 2009 at 6:17pm
Now that...would be something. No...my solution is simpler. It is a powerful portable PA monitor. It could blow away the rack system, and in fact, I would have to be sure to make sure noone was right in front when it involved talking.....as i said, I need POWER!

Alan Ortiz said:
Yeah. It was a Hyde Park critical mass in a way. That was neat to see. As far as your plans for sound, does that mean that you could talk from way in the front and we would have speakers in the middle and rear of the pack from which we could hear you? If I've interpreted that correctly, that would be cool -- real-time narration in motion.
Permalink Reply by Alan Ortiz on August 8, 2009 at 2:04am
Hmmmm... maybe if someone handy with electronics could wire short-distance / low-power receiving walkie-talkies to relatively low-power (but still powerful enough) amp/speakers, maybe even bullhorns. Two to four sets of that with you talking into the transmitting handset might do the trick. Distributed power requirements that way. Perhaps more common and less $$ components. Have a flexible strap/bungie/whatever mounting system that would allow you to mount it to any riders who show up with racks on their bikes and have them ride evenly spaced out in the group. Possible?
Permalink Reply by vxla on August 8, 2009 at 6:00am
Alan Ortiz said:
Hmmmm... maybe if someone handy with electronics could wire short-distance / low-power receiving walkie-talkies to relatively low-power (but still powerful enough) amp/speakers, maybe even bullhorns. Two to four sets of that with you talking into the transmitting handset might do the trick. Distributed power requirements that way. Perhaps more common and less $$ components. Have a flexible strap/bungie/whatever mounting system that would allow you to mount it to any riders who show up with racks on their bikes and have them ride evenly spaced out in the group. Possible?

Most FRS radios have a 1/8-inch output jack. It would be easier to just wire that out to a speaker system. Or a handheld CB radio.

Anything higher power will require a license or expensive equipment.

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