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SKaiser writesLearn Your City’s Streets with Tour de Fat’s Car For Bike Challenge
Chicago has over 200 miles of on-street bike lanes and routes. It gets a wee bit easier each passing year for riders as the Department of Transportation works to grow the network of bike facilities.
CHIRP Radio supports our bike-friendly city's efforts and is partnered with New Belgium Brewery for the Tour de Fat celebration in Palmer Square on Saturday, July 11. Click here for details on entering the 2015 Car Trader challenge. Entries are due by Wednesday, July 8.
Dave Pabellon, Car Trader of 2011, knew of Tour de Fat's car-for-bike swap and thought, "Why not me?" The time spent commuting by bike made him more in tune with Chicago and the city's strides in building a strong bike culture.
CHIRP: Where do you currently live and what are you doing these days?
Pabellon: Still residing in Chicago, but have moved out of Humboldt Park further North, past Lincoln Square. Also, I'm still employed as a senior designer at a wonderful studio, Faust but soon I will be transitioning into a new position at Dominican University as a professor in design.
CHIRP: Why did you take the challenge to give up your car?
Pabellon: Well, in 2011 I had this Saab that kept dying on me and at the time I thought it was a necessity because the Faust studio was located in Riverside IL (now we are in Pilsen). But after doing some google mapping and talking to some friends about going car-less I decided to go for it. I've loved attending the Tour de Fat's in the past and thought, "why not me?"
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesThe Week That Was and Will Be: What’s Up at CHIRP Radio (6/29/15)
SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS:
- The search continues for the next New Belgium Chicago Tour de Fat Car-for-Bike trader. Bill Bushnell did it in 2012, and Iggy Igz did it five years ago. We had a chance to speak with both of them about their experiences. If you’re interested in being considered, go to the New Belgium Car Trader page for more information.
NEW MEDIA:
- CHIRP Radio has partnered with Chicago Commnunity Trust to launch the new broadcast and podcast series Volunteering: Stories of Philanthropy. The first episode examines the range of volunteering opportunities in Chicago.
- Tyler Clark takes us on the first of CHIRP's Summer Road Trips with a spin around Indianapolis.
- We play the MP3 Shuffle and wish a Happy Birthday to New Wave singer Terri Nunn
SKaiser writesAre You the 2015 Car For Bike Trader?
You won't regret it or fear it. That's the repeat message thus far from the featured Car Traders of New Belgium's Tour de Fat car-for-bike challenge.
CHIRP Radio is partnered with New Belgium Brewery for the 2015 Tour de Fat celebration in Palmer Square on Saturday, July 11. If the experiences shared by these guys motivates you to step up and throw your hat in the ring, click here for more details. Entries are due by Wednesday, July 8.
Five years ago Iggy Igz accepted the challenge and last winter was the first he hadn't commuted by bike. What happened over those five years? Read on and find out.
CHIRP: Where do you currently live and what are you doing these days?
Igz: I currently live in the River West / West Town area. Currently, I am doing facility management downtown and just recently started a painting company.
CHIRP: Why did you take the challenge to give up your car?
Igz: I took the challenge because I believed I could. Honestly, I probably wasn't the best candidate in the sense of "revolutionizing" someone to delve deep into bike commuting and culture. I was already kind of there. I was driving at the time, but largely because I was dealing with a new dog that had severe separation anxiety and I had take him to work with me. It was also time to stop doing that. I took the challenge last minute and didnt get an opportunity to make a video.
Clarence Ewing: The Million Year Trip writesFriday MP3 Shuffle: Happy Birthday Terri Nunn Edition
(Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images)
Today we celebrate the birthday of Terri Nunn, lead singer of the American New Wave band Berlin. In addition to singing, Nunn appeared in several extremely '80s TV shows (T.J. Hooker, Lou Grant) and even auditioned for the role of Princess Leia in Star Wars. Fortunately for her band mates, she also kept her focus on music. In a sea of electronic blips and bleeps, Nunn had the kind of solid vocal punch that stood up to and elevated the synth-pop sounds behind her, putting her in the same league with the era's top front-women like Belinda Carlisle and Debbie Harry.
Combining a hair spray and skinny ties New Wave aesthetic with an air of '70s-style Studio 54 decadence, Berlin had success with chart hits "The Metro," "No More Words," and "Sex (I'm A...)." For a brief moment the band hit the stratosphere with a song written for the blockbuster (and also extremely '80s) movie Top Gun. "Take My Breath Away" (1986), written and produced by Giorgio Moroder, was far and away the band's biggest hit, but ironically also led to the end of the line as the group broke up in 1987. Nunn reformed the band with different personnel ten years later and today they work the '80s nostalgia circuit while also producing new material.
Wish Ms. Nunn a happy birthday by pressing the "shuffle" button on your MP3 player and sharing the first 10 songs you hear:
Tyler Clark presents: Local Mythologies writesCHIRP Radio Road Trips: Indianapolis
Pitchfork. Lollapalooza. Riot Fest. If you never left Chicago between the months of June and September, you could make more great summer music memories than some people make in a lifetime. Although we're partial to the city we call home, we here at CHIRP also understand the value of exploring the world while the weather's still nice. In our new Radio Road Trips series, we'll be profiling the music scenes and secrets of Midwestern cities within driving distance from Chicago. This week: Indianapolis.
Most Musical Neighborhood: For years, Broad Ripple reigned as the Indianapolis's go-to hip neighborhood, but a decade of gradual bro-ification rendered the once-proud strip packed with sports bars, spray tans, and backwards baseball caps. Thus, if Broad Ripple is Indianapolis's Wicker Park, think of Fountain Square as its Logan Square. Bouncing back from its nadir in the 1970s (when construction of I-465 cut the neighborhood off from the rest of downtown), the once-seedy square is now home to some of the city's most vital arts and music venues.