Out Our Front Door Newsletter - April

Cheers to an awesome April and Hootenanny Vol. 4 Photo by Amy Terkelsen

​Welcome

Hope y’all are getting hyped for some consistent good weather and lots of being outside and biking. We just wrapped up our best Hootenanny Fundraiser party ever! We had a number of fun day rides and social hangs in April. And now, we are full force towards the ride season filled with all kinds of bike adventures! We have a couple of adult overnights this month that are sold out, but definitely lots of rides to look forward to including some great Family Overnights.

​Upcoming Big Adult Overnight Adventures - Dunes and SWMI

We featured Battle to the Dunes and the SWMI ride in the last couple newsletters. There are only 22 of the 70 slots available for Battle to the Dunes and 12 of the 28 spots available for the SWMI ride. So if you’ve been lollygagging to book your spot on these rides that so sweetly celebrate our dear dear friend, Lake Michigan and the ecosystems and history along its shores, don’t wait too long because these rides very likely will sell out over the coming month. You can learn a bit about what the Battle to the Dunes (June 1-2 to Indiana Dunes’ Dunewood Campground) is like here and what the heck we get up to on the 5 day bike camping and vacation ride on SWMI (July 11-15) here. You can register for both of them here. 

Full house at Midwest Coast Brewery for the Hootenanny Vol. 4 Photo by Amy Terkelsen

Recap: The Hootenanny Vol. 4

Y’all. It just keeps happening. We keep leveling in so many ways and this year’s Hootenanny was no different. We SOLD IT OUT with 140 folks buying tickets.

We set a goal to bring in $12,000. WE brought in $13,200!

Incredible props to all the volunteers who helped plan and pull it off as well as Midwest Coast Brewery for generously hosting us and SRAM and Keating Law Offices for sponsoring the event. And The Wild Scallions for playing live bluegrass and all our volunteers who made all the food including the vegan and gluten free chili mac and cookies!

Also, huge thanks to 27 local and national brands that donated over $7,000 in raffle prizes. And special thanks to everyone that came out and bought raffle tickets or raised their hand to donate to OOFD during the event. It was a party. It was a celebration. It was a success. And it has launched us into the full blast bike camping season in amazing shape! You can check out photos from the event here.

Riding on the bridge through Wolf Lake on our way to the Indiana Dunes

Upcoming Rides and Events

Monthly Hang, Tuesday, May 7th, 730pm-10ish at Palmisano Park in Bridgeport
Come out and hang with OOFD crew and the OOFD curious to get hyped for the bike camping season. More details here.


Multiple Sclerosis Day Ride with UIC patients on The 606 Trail, Saturday, May 11
We are partnering with UIC’s Exercise Neuroscience Research Laboratory on this ride for folks with MS. Please help spread the word about this free ride with anyone you know with MS! Their families are welcome to join here. Registration and more information here. 

Adaptive Field Trip Day Ride with LADSE schools in the Western suburbs
LADSE is the first special education organization to be established in Illinois.  From 1957 until today, LADSE has continued to be a leader in special education, and we are heading out to their school to have a bike day for 5 different classes where the students can get on our special adaptive tandems and feel the joy and freedom of a bike ride!

Adaptive Rides at KEEN Chicago’s Community Day at Rauner YMCA
KEEN Chicago is about as high level and amazing as it gets for a special recreation organizaiton. We are so honored to have such a delightful partnerhship with them. We'll be out at their big Any K event, providing some guides and tandem bikes to get some of their youth with disabilities riding!

Adaptive Field Day Rides at Northside Learning Center
We get to head out to this excellent Chicago Public School's Field Day and give the students bike rides on our fleet of adaptive tandem bikes. Those new Adaptive Hase Pino Tandems that we got with our big Laureus grant over the winter are getting some good use!

Adult Day Ride to Fermilab, Saturday May 11
Did you know there’s a whole herd of bison at the Fermilab? And hiking trails? Come log some miles, eye-spy some bison, and meet nice bike folks as we cycle from Wheaton, IL to Batavia, IL to visit the United States’ premier particle physics laboratory: the Fermilab! Free registration here. 

Battle the Dunes, June 1-2
The next couple of months of adult overnights are already sold out so this is the next available overnight! The epicly fun ride to camp at Dunewood Campground in the Indiana Dunes National Park. This ride will have about 70 folks, and we have a whole loop at the campground reserved for our crew of bike campers! Registration and more information here. This ride will sell out!

Family Bike Camping Trip to Camp Sullivan, June 14-16
Our first family overnight of the year! Load up the kids and camping gear and enjoy a weekend in the great outdoors with this very doable overnight at Camp Sullivan in Oak Forest, and ride some of the excellent trails of the Southwest burbs as well as the great system of forest preserves. Registration and more information here.

Free Essential Workers Bike Camping Trip to Shabonna June 22-23
In alignment with our value of gratitude, we are giving back to our Essential Worker community with a free ride to appreciate the work they did for us during the pandemic and continue to do for us today. If you or someone you know is an essential worker, please consider bike camping with us. The whole ride, camping, dinner, breakfast, guides are on OOFD. Registration and more information here.

 SWMI 5 Day Bike Camping Trip - July 11-15
In my personal opinion, one of the most fun 5 days of the year! Biking, frolicking in Lake Michigan, living outside for 5 days with a bunch of rad folks. Last year I swam in 8 different beaches along the shore of Lake Michigan over the course of the ride. Registration and more information here.

Another awesome bike org’s event: Goodspeed Cycles Bike Camping Clinic, Tuesday May 7th
Check out this awesome bike shop in Homewood. They lead their own bike camping trips each year, the Off-Leash Overnighters. They are hosting a Bike Camping 101 starting at 630pm.

​Sold Out Rides

• What Lies West, May 4-5 to Blackwell 
• The Good Land - May 17-19 to Milwaukee with camping at Cliffside in Racine
• Train O’ Lakes - June 29-30 to Chain O’ Lakes State Park
• The Great Confluence  - July 20-21(from Chicago is sold out - there’s still tix available from the Milwaukee starting point) ​

Gearing up for our first Adaptive Bike Ride of the year with South Suburban Special Recreation Association in Tinley Park

April Events Recap

Adaptive Day Ride: The Adaptive Program got rolling with the first day ride this year in partnership with South Suburban Special Recreation Association out in Tinley. A crew of OOFD guides went out to Tinley and guided a family on a short day ride, putting our new fleet of Hase Pino Adaptive Tandem Bike to great use. 

 Monthly Hang: The weather in April didn’t really accommodate an outdoor monthly hang at Smith Park so we moved into The Beetle Bar in Ukrainian Village and had nearly 30 folks come out for what has steadily become the place to be on the first Tuesday of each month, the OOFD Hang. Catch us at a park or bar near you soon! 

 Where the Wild Things Grow: We rode what I believe is our 7th annual Where the Wild Things Grow Ride for Earth Day to the Major Taylor Trail. The Major Taylor Trail Keepers have been awesome partners over the years and its become an honor to be able to be a part of their annual Earth Day Trail clean-up event. We had a crew of about 15 ride from Bridgeport, do some service, catch a beverage at Wild Blossom Meadery in Beverly and ride back north. Keep an eye out for some cool WTWTG rides coming soon in June and July. 

 Adult Day Ride: We had our first Adult Day Ride of the year with the return of the North Branch + BBQ + Beer ride to the Skokie Lagoons. A crew of over 15 folks rode a good chunk of the North Branch Trail and learned about the ecology and history along the way and wrapped up with some good beer and food before riding back to the city. These day rides are great ways to get some miles in, catch a feeling for the OOFD vibe, and build some confidence to get out on one of our overnight trips!
​
 Tabling: Dovetail Brewery had their first Bike Social event and we were invited to set up a table there. There were so many great bike orgs in attendance, helping folks get ready and get hyped to bike this year. And Dovetail was serving all kinds of delicious Radler beers (did you know radler means "bicyclist" in German?). ​

Volunteer Spotlight: Aly Meza

Hard to believe but Aly is a new guide this year. And she is coming in as a force of great vibes and making things happen. Just a couple weekends ago, she led the Earth Day WTWTG Ride to the Major Taylor Trail, and the next day, was back guiding a crew up to the Skokie Lagoons and Une Annee Brewery for the first Adult Day Ride of the season. Then last weekend, she helped hold down the OOFD table at Dovetail Brewery’s Bike Social event and get folks hyped to ride with OOFD this year. We are lucky to have Aly joining the OOFD crew this year as she’s such a welcoming, adventurous volunteer. You’ll see her out there guiding that huge crew of bike adventurers to the dunes in early June. 

In her own words, Aly [she/her] caught the cycling bug early on when her dad taught her how to ride a bike on the North Branch Trail. There were likely tears and some knee scraps but it was love at first sight. She started riding with Out Our Front Door during the Summer of 2023, got hooked immediately, and now it's her whole personality. When she isn’t on her bike, you can find Aly at the beach, volunteering at Labagh Woods, or baking a ‘snacking cake’ in her kitchen. 
She lives on the Northwest side with an insane pocket pittie named Mostaccioli.

Okay! Here we go! Soaring into what promises to be an amazing year of local adventures, exploring and getting to know and appreciate our local habitats and meeting new friends. Can't wait for the rides in the warm sun along the trail or to battle through chilly rain only to rally together around a fire at camp with that sense of accomplishment. With that sense of community that grows out of the feeling of, "dang, we just did that, and we did it together."

"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road,
Healthy, free, the world before me,
The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.

Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune,
Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing,
Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms,
Strong and content I travel the open road."

In a crunch to get this out before the end of the month, and I know I can always pull out some Walt Whitman and his "Song of the Open Road" poem and feel good about it. Thanks as always for reading. 

Much love,

Glenn and the whole OOFD Crew