{"id":788221,"date":"2026-05-11T06:56:55","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/788221\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T06:56:55","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T06:56:55","slug":"may-day-may-day-scenes-from-two-different-chicago-bike-rides-celebrating-the-labor-holiday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/788221\/","title":{"rendered":"May Day, May Day! Scenes from two different Chicago bike rides celebrating the labor holiday"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>This post is sponsored by\u00a0Ride Illinois.<\/a><\/p>\n

This post isn\u2019t completely within Streetsblog Chicago\u2019s wheelhouse, but I thought many of our readers would enjoy it, so I wrote it up over weekend for fun.<\/p>\n

Last May Day, I took part in a bike tour of labor landmarks led by local bike advocacy legend Randy Neufeld<\/a>, cofounder of the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, which later became the Active Transportation Alliance in 2008. Joining us on our trip through the South Side were Leonard Rau,<\/a> a brand strategist who helped out with the name change, and Avi Stopper,<\/a> a Denver resident who leads a project based in that city called Bike Streets.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"The South Side May Day ride. Map provided by Avi Stopper.<\/p>\n

As it happened, a couple hours later that day, early Chicago Critical Mass organizers<\/a> Gin Kilgore and Michael Burton led another bicycle journey on the Northwest and West sides that intersected with Neufeld\u2019s itinerary at one point. I\u2019ll provide a gallery of images from both rides shortly.<\/p>\n

But first, here\u2019s a quick interview I did with Avi Stopper about Bike Streets. It\u2019s a similar project to the Mellow Chicago Bike Map<\/a> I created for the Chicago Reader, most recently in 2020, which was converted into an app.<\/a><\/p>\n

John Greenfield:<\/strong> Tell me about Bike Streets.<\/a><\/p>\n

Avi Stopper:<\/strong> It all started with what we call the Low-Stress Denver Bike Map<\/a>. With advocacy groups around the country, we make low stress bike maps so that people can more easily navigate their communities. And we also do a lot of advocacy work to try to figure out how cities can codify those low stress community networks and turn those into formal, complete networks. So we\u2019re really interested in this question about how cities can rapidly, like in two, three, four years, create the first version of a complete bike network. All right.<\/p>\n

\"\"Screenshot of The Low-Stress Denver Bike Map<\/a>.<\/p>\n

JG:<\/strong> What brings you to town?<\/p>\n

AS:<\/strong> A University of Chicago reunion. I lived here for ten years. It\u2019s a great opportunity to ride with you guys, and I\u2019m eager to see Randy in his own environment. I\u2019ve taken him on a tour of Denver.<\/p>\n

JG:<\/strong> All right, so this is kind of payback.<\/p>\n

AS:<\/strong> Yeah!<\/p>\n

Without further ado, here are images from Neufeld\u2019s South Side tour and Kilgore and Burton\u2019s West Side tour. I took all photos of the former. Burton shot all the images of the latter, unless noted otherwise.<\/p>\n

Randy Neufeld\u2019s<\/strong> South Side May Day ride<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"We met up at the Haymarket Memorial,<\/a> where there was a labor union rally taking place.<\/p>\n

\"\"The hilltop at Palmisano Park<\/a>, aka Stearn\u2019s Quarry Park. I wrote about the park\u2019s labor history for Time Out Chicago.<\/a> The wooden structure on the back of Neufeld\u2019s bike was used for towing a loaner cycle for Stopper.<\/p>\n

\"\"A heron at the fishing pond at Palmisano Park.<\/p>\n

\"\"The 11th Ward Democratic Party office, the headquarters for the Daley dynasty<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"The circular road around Sherman Park<\/a>, which Neufeld said was used for criterium races during Chicago\u2019s turn-of-the-century cycling heyday. <\/p>\n

\"\"Protected bike lanes on Loomis Boulevard between 71st and 75th streets.<\/p>\n

\"\"The Major Taylor Trail.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"A stone path west of the MTT south of 87th Street.<\/p>\n

\"\"A wooden bridge installed by the Chicago Cycling Club.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"A mural along the Major Taylor Trail honoring its namesake, Black bike racing legend Marshall \u201cMajor\u201d Taylor.<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"Another remembrance of Taylor on the bridge over the Calumet River, Chicago\u2019s southern border.<\/p>\n

\"\"Hotel Florence in Pullman, where the Pullman Strike<\/a> took place in 1894.<\/p>\n

\"\"Romanesque apartments bordering Pullman\u2019s Market Hall.<\/p>\n

\"\"In Pullman, I parted ways with my companions to catch the Metra Electric District line downtown to do some writing. They continued a few miles northeast to Calumet Fisheries<\/a> for a late lunch before heading west to the CTA\u2019s 95th\/Dan Ryan Station. The Pullman factory is in the background of this shot of the MED\u2019s 111th Street Station platform.<\/p>\n

Gin Kilgore\u2019s and<\/strong> Michael Burton\u2019s Northwest and West Side May Day journey<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Kilgore\u2019s and Burton\u2019s (left) ride met at the Lucy Gonzales Parsons<\/a> Apartments affordable transit-oriented development,<\/a> next to the Logan Square Blue Line Station. Photo: Gin Kilgore<\/p>\n

\"\"A May Day rally at Logan Square\u2019s Illinois Centennial Monument,<\/a> aka the \u201cMagic Eagle.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"New protected bike lanes on Humboldt Boulevard in the eponymous park.<\/p>\n

\"\"Forest Home Cemetery<\/a> in west-suburban Forest Park.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Haymarket Martyrs Memorial<\/a> at the cemetery, with the inscription, \u201cThe day will come when our silence will be more powerful than the voices you are throttling today.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"donate<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

On November 12, SBC launched our 2026 fund drive to raise $50K through ad sales and donations. That will complete this year\u2019s budget, at a time when\u00a0it\u2019s tough to find grant money<\/a>. Big thanks to all the readers who have\u00a0chipped in so far<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to help keep this site rolling to the end of 2026! Currently, we\u2019re at $32,701 with $17,299 to go, ideally by the end of\u00a0May.<\/p>\n

If you value our livable streets reporting and advocacy,\u00a0please consider making a tax-deductible gift here<\/a><\/strong>. If you can afford a contribution of $100 or more, think of that as a subscription. That will help keep the site paywall-free for people on tighter budgets, as well as\u00a0decision-makers.<\/a>\u00a0Thanks\u00a0for your support!<\/p>\n

\u2013 John Greenfield, editor<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This post is sponsored by\u00a0Ride Illinois. This post isn\u2019t completely within Streetsblog Chicago\u2019s wheelhouse, but I thought many…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":788222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5124],"tags":[322106,960,322107,5386,1818,322108,322109,305886,322110,322111,322112,14083],"class_list":{"0":"post-788221","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-chicago","8":"tag-avi-stopper","9":"tag-chicago","10":"tag-gin-kilgore","11":"tag-il","12":"tag-illinois","13":"tag-labor-history","14":"tag-leonard-rau","15":"tag-may-day","16":"tag-michael-burton","17":"tag-promnoted","18":"tag-randy-neufeld","19":"tag-travelogues"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116554646892944379","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=788221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/788221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/788222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=788221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=788221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=788221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}