Fork and the Road: Chicago's Biking & Eating Adventures

Fork and the Road:
Chicago's Biking & Eating Adventures

Dimitra (Hellodali) and I are very pleased to announce to LTH our new venture, Fork and the Road. In summer and fall 2009, we'll be leading off-the-beaten-path bicycle tours to sample the city's best food. You don't have to be a visitor to the city or a serious cyclist. We ride at a leisurely pace to savor Chicago's neighborhoods as much as the food at each stop.

Our tours include 3-4 stops each, last 3-5 hours, and range from 13 – 23 miles. Each tour starts near a bike rental location so that you can rent a bike if you don't have one. Tours cost $50-60 per person and include all food to be sampled but not bicycle rentals.

Summer & Fall 2009 Tour Dates

International BBQ
- Sunday, June 21
- Saturday, July 25
- Saturday, September 5

Local Vegetarian Chicago
- Saturday, June 27
- Saturday, August 1
- Saturday, September 26

Tour of Asia
- Sunday, July 12
- Saturday, August 15
- Saturday, September 12

Tour of Latin America
- Saturday, July 18
- Saturday, August 22
- Sunday, September 20

Unsung Chicago Classics
- Sunday, July 5
- Sunday, August 9
- Sunday, August 30

We'd love to see LTHers on our tours. For more information, visit www.forkandtheroad.com. Also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Cheers,
Sharon Bautista and Dimitra Tasiouras
Co-owners, Fork and the Road, LLC

Good luck on this venture! I think your website looks great.

-Mary

The GP wrote:Good luck on this venture! I think your website looks great.

Thanks so much, Mary! The site is still very much a work in a progress, but it's getting there. We're just thrilled to hear so many people excited about our tours!

I'll echo The GP. A great looking website and a great idea! Both of you are to be congratulated and I wish you nothing but success and enjoyment from the venture. It's really a terrific idea and I suspect you may be sitting on a soon-to-be great success (as well as a valuable contribution to the community). As a non-biker, I have to confess that this may be the push I need to sign up to do a little riding this summer. Thanks for the stimulus!

Thanks GP and GB for the good wishes. I hope we see you on a ride soon!

Hi,

I read through all your FAQ and policies, it is very well thought out, to the point and easy to understand.

I wish you well.

Regards,

I'm so excited for you guys! The website looks fabulous!

Thanks - Sharon gets all the web site kudos as she took on the daunting task of creating it. We think it looks fab as well.

dansch wrote:

The crew.

Imagine my surprise when I opened my Redeye (the publication, I mean) this morning and saw these faces smiling at me from page 3--plus a nice blurb for Hellodali and happy_stomach's new venture under the heading "Meals on wheels." The sign-off: "The payoff: Seeing and tasting new parts of the city." I'll see if I can find the link to the article to add here. Great going, guys!

tarte tatin wrote:Imagine my surprise when I opened my Redeye (the publication, I mean) this morning and saw these faces smiling at me from page 3--plus a nice blurb for Hellodali and happy_stomach's new venture under the heading "Meals on wheels." The sign-off: "The payoff: Seeing and tasting new parts of the city." I'll see if I can find the link to the article to add here. Great going, guys!

Thanks! I was pretty surprised by how well the piece was placed. We're very grateful for the attention.

Not since the movie "Breaking Away" has anything really made me regret that my problematic inner ear keeps me from riding a bike -- until now. But I'm excited for you, and I've told everyone I know. Very cool idea. I hope it is fabulously successful.

Imagine my surprise when I opened my Redeye (the publication, I mean) this morning and saw these faces smiling at me from page 3--plus a nice blurb for Hellodali and happy_stomach's new venture under the heading "Meals on wheels." The sign-off: "The payoff: Seeing and tasting new parts of the city." I'll see if I can find the link to the article to add here. Great going, guys!

Pleased to have been a part of it! I wonder if anybody has been recognized by acquaintances? I made it home from Smak Tak that day with two orders of pierogi for the family, a bit farther than a usual bike-errand but using the same bungie-carrier technique as if it were only a few blocks.

What Cynthia said about not be able to ride reminds me of a long-held ambition to have a lightweight tricycle, to be able to extend my riding days beyond when--I'm hoping twenty, twenty-five years from now--I won't be safe on the bike. They're very rare here but much more common in GB; they use the same components as a road bike. You see heavy, utility trikes here but not the kind I mean, where the performance almost matches a bike's.

The problem is that you shouldn't, by all reports, leave learning to ride them until you have to. They require a different riding technique, because you must steer them instead of leaning, which is how you do almost all your turning on a bike whether you realize it or not. One technique to master it is said to be crossing your hands on the handlebars, forcing yourself to think steering. The younger you can add these skills to your repertoire, putting them away for another day, the better.

Catch Fork and the Road on ABC 7's 190 North!

This Sunday, July 26, 10:35 pm

And if you miss it, it should be up on their web site the next day:

http://www.190north.com/

Look for us also in the Tribune and Time Out Chicago on Thursday. There's a lot of Fork and the Road love going on out there next week

Congratulations on the nice write-up in the Trib last week. I was so excited to see it!

Glad you guys are getting so much attention! Congrats!