Bike Love

Bicycling Magazine recently ranked Chicago as the 10th most bike friendly city in America (Minneapolis, Portland, Boulder and Seattle are top of the heap). The city does have a lot of two-wheeled love, whether its cyclists wielding DIY mallets for bike polo or bundling on another jacket for snow biking. The Chicago Cycling Club sponsors three to four free rides per week, and Chicago Critical Mass takes over downtown the last Friday of every month. Bike the Drive is coming up May 30, when Lake Shore Drive chucks cars in favor of pedal power. Perhaps the best bike idea yet is from the folks at Fork and the Road: tours where you ride from small ethnic restaurant to restaurant, leaving a trail of pierogies, tacos and falafel in your wake.

Rockin' the World Travel Blogosphere

World travel publisher Lonely Planet syndicates this blog and many others from around the globe as part of its Blogsherpa program. Want to know the latest happenings in Kazakhstan? Hidden villages in Bulgaria? Dance parties in Tahiti? How a family volunteers and backpacks its way around the world? We've amalgamated all the blogs here, in one big, bold continent-spanning package. Drop by and expand your horizons.

Dino-o-mite

Guess who's celebrating her 10th birthday? Actually, it's number 67 million and 10, but let's not trifle with technicalities. It's Sue, the Field Museum's beloved T-rex and the largest ever found. She went on display in May 2000.

The 7-ton beauty will blow out her candles May 22 at a big fundraising bash. Then the museum will premiere its new 3-D movie about T-rexes, as well as RoboSue, a new interactive exhibit. To see the whole dino-show, buy an All-Access Pass (adult/child $28/19). Regular admission - which provides viewing of Sue's mighty skeleton, but no movies or special exhibits - costs adult/child $15/10. It's free the 2nd Monday of each month.

Rock on, Sue. You prove being fat and old can still be glamorous.

Boogaloo Unlocked

Remember that 1984 breakdancing film classic Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo? Neither do the kids at Amundsen High School. But that hasn't stopped them from forming their own breakdancing club, the Rebels, who will perform their first gig at Experimental Sound Studio at 3pm Saturday. They're part of a multimedia exhibit by Amundsen students titled Unlocked: Sights and Sounds of a High Schooler's Day that fuses art, sound recordings and more. The exhibit runs through May 16 at ESS in Edgewater.

My teacher-man, Eric Markowitz, is leading the effort, though no, he won't be breakdancing (couldn't get the head-spin down).

Electric Boogaloo tip: look closely for a young Ice-T doing his thang in the background.

365-Day Pub Crawl

We told you he was coming, and we weren't kidding. Marty Wombacher, the New Yorker questing to drink in a different bar every day for one year, has arrived in Chicago.

First stop: Simon's in Andersonville. Who doesn't enjoy a bar marked by a martini-drinking neon fish? See it, as well as all that transpired throughout the evening, at Marty's blog, A Guy Walks into 365 Bars.

Tonight's drinkery: Club Foot in Ukie Village. If you're in the 'hood stop by around 8pm and join the party.

And that picture? That's Marty taking a photo of me taking a photo of him taking a photo. Yes, the bar crawl does very confusing as the night wears on. Just ask Marty about his late-night notes...

Greedy Yellow Fingers

It's that time of year in Chicago, when  tourists descend. The sure place to find them all? Nope, not the Art Institute or Millennium Park. It's Garrett Popcorn (625 N Michigan Ave).

People have passed out, peed in their pants and punched each other while waiting in line here. That's the power of their caramel corn. And cheese corn. Really – that's all they sell. Millions of dollars worth every year. For caramel corn. And cheese corn. And the two mixed. OK, and maybe some plain and buttered flavors too. There’s always a line down the block. You know why? Because it's freakin' addictive. One estimate says Chicagoans down a collective half-million pounds per year. You can tell who's been indulging by the orange-yellow stain on their fingers.

Crown Fountain's Faces

The city has flipped the switch and turned on the water at Crown Fountain, as it does every year around this time. Gotta hand it to the Crown family, who funded Jaume Plensa's Millennium Park waterwork. They didn't even giggle when he mentioned gothic architecture, sports stadiums and dental equipment in the same breath.

The fountain's two screens are sporty Jumbotrons, and they flash a thousand different faces. The people shown are all native Chicagoans, and they agreed to strap into Plensa's special dental chair, where he immobilized their heads for filming. Each mug puckers up and spurts water, just like the gargoyles atop Notre Dame Cathedral. A fresh set of non-puckering faces appears in winter, when the fountain is dry.