The outdoors are calling. People are more than ready to shed their coats, slip on the sandals, and get out there. Fortunately, Greater Cincinnati is filled with recreation opportunities, so many that it’s a veritable “park place”…one that doesn’t take a roll of the dice to find a gem.

Whether you live in near our body shop in Norwood or in any of Cincinnati’s 50+ neighborhoods like Evanston, Madisonville, or Price Hill, there are likely a few treasures within our area’s vast array of parks you haven’t yet checked out. Now is the time.

The views and world-famous gardens at Ault Park are sites to behold. From Alms Park, the views are equally amazing, and watch the planes take off and land at Lunken Airport, which happens to have a 5-mile bike path running around it.

The breadth of Eden Park’s landscaped hills and overlooks, Mirror Lake, and the Krohn Conservatory offers beautiful spots for picnics, walks, or fitness training.

Then there’s the Withrow Nature Preserve, with gorgeous river views and 270 acres of forest and wildflowers.

For boating, fishing, hiking trails, an 18-hole golf course and more, there’s Shawnee Lookout a short ride north of the city.

Even in Norwood, you might spot a deer family while meandering the hiking trails in the little-known urban oasis that is the Lindner Park McCullough Estate Nature Preserve. This little sanctuary also contains a historical house and other structures (check out the concrete pool!) and beautiful gardens tended by local residents. 

Perhaps you have a dog or enjoy river recreation, but have never heard of Armleder Park, which has a dog park with separate areas for large and small breeds, and a canoe landing on the Little Miami River, along with soccer and other playfields.

If you have any questions about unwrecking your car, truck, or SUV, need a free collision repair estimate, or wonder which parks in town we prefer, give Nate or Jason a call at 513-631-2406, or email us at cccollision@gmail.com.

Urban explorers, to your bikes! May is officially designated as Bike Month in Cincinnati, and there are family-friendly and you-friendly events and activities for all ages and abilities.

The slower pace of biking provides opportunities for not only relaxation but also noticing more sights, sounds, and even smells of the life that’s being lived around you. You just don’t get that while zooming around town in your car or SUV. This being Bike Month, it’s a great time to get out of that car and onto two wheels.

Rides are scheduled all around town. There are short ones, long ones, and events like bike parades, the opening of Cincinnati’s very own Bike Polo Court, and rides to honor bicyclists or check out local food sources. The following and many others are listed on the city of Cincinnati’s official website.

Pompeii and Pizza at the Cincinnati Museum Center on May 12     Meet at the Museum Center for a special tour of the Pompeii exhibit followed by a pizza ride to Venice on Vine. Experience room-sized frescos, marble and bronze sculptures, jewelry, gold coins, and hundreds of priceless ancient artifacts. Receive $3 off admission to the exhibit.

Ride of Silence from multiple locations on May 16     This ride is quiet and slow-paced. It’s a worldwide event that honors bicyclists injured and killed on public roadways. The ride departs from multiple locations at 6:30 p.m. joining together at approximately 7:15 p.m. downtown.Visit http://www.cincinnaticycleclub.org/.

Know your Farmer, Know your Food Ride, Findley Market, May 19     Travel to a variety of food production locations in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, ending at the Covington Farmers Market in Roebling Point. A healthy, local meal will be provided free of charge to riders.

For a complete list of Bike Month events, check out the city of Cincinnati’s official website. 

If you can’t make it to any events this month, you still have the rest of spring and summer to connect on two wheels with the area’s bike-friendly community. The city of Cincinnati’s website has maps of biking trails and suggested routes throughout the city and county. At Bikely.com, you’ll find a list of local bike trails, including distance and degrees of difficulty. For those closer to Loveland or Milford, there’s the Little Miami Scenic Trail.

Whether you’re biking in Norwood, Hyde Park, Pleasant Ridge, or OTR, we’re close and ready to help you. We’re even closer through the web with a free repair estimate or to answer a question about your auto body repair needs. Connect by e-mailing cccollision@gmail.com or call 513-631-2406.

We love local…shopping, relating, and giving locally are all part of Center City Collision’s ongoing commitment to being an active part of our community. Going to our local farmer’s markets are a way to do all of that at once.

Eating food that’s locally grown and distributed is a big deal, and makes a big difference in several areas. Your own taste buds will benefit from greater flavor and freshness, your relationships grow from making deeper connections to the community, and the local economy grows through the cycle of commerce and consumption that you’re promoting by eating local.

The local food scene has changed much over the past several years, from new growers to new farmer’s markets to more restaurants committed to putting locally grown foods on their menus and in their customer’s bellies. One of the best resources for where to find ways to shop fresh and sustain your local ecomony is the Central Ohio River Valley’s annual Food Guide. 

They define local as food grown within 50 miles of downtown Cincinnati and 100 miles for growers who regularly sell locally. That’s not far at all, and you won’t have to go nearly as far to find your local farmers markets, where you can sample great food and at the same time sustain those who bring the fresh food to you.

More markets are opening as the heat rises. This is just a partial list, but you can shop fresh in College Hill, Wyoming, Cheviot, or Anderson on multiple days of the week.

Wyoming Farmers’ Market     Wyoming Avenue Farmers Market, Village Green, corner of Wyoming Avenue and Oak. Organic and locally produced fruit, vegetables, eggs and meat. Tuesdays, 3 p.m. – 7 p.m.

Farm Market of College Hill     College Hill Presbyterian Church, 5742 Hamilton Ave., Cincinnati. Local produce and many homemade foods. Thursdays, 3 p.m. – 6:30 p.m.

Lettuce Eat Well Farmers Market     Located in Cheviot’s Harvest Home Park, this market was named by Cincinnati Magazine as one of the Top 5 Summer Markets of 2011. Besides produce and craft items, there’s a kids area and activities for all. Fridays, 3 p.m.-7 p.m.

Anderson Township Farmers Market     AndersonCenter Station, 7832 Five Mile Road,Cincinnati. A treasure trove of local fruit and vegetables, fair trade coffee, baked goods organic meats, and more. Saturdays, 9 a.m. – 1 p.m.

Whether you’re doing your local food shopping from Mt. Lookout, Western Hills, or Finneytown, we’re close by and ready to serve you with free estimates, answers to questions about auto body repair, or anything we can do for you or your car. Give Nate or Jason a call at 513-631-2406 or email us at cccollision@gmail.com.

At the body shop, we always get questions about unwrecking your car or truck. Today we answer one of the most frequent, “How long will my repair take?”

It all starts with the estimate, which usually means it begins with your insurance company. Their assessment along with your approval starts the clock ticking, and that’s when we can give you a reasonable return time. But that clock can be finicky. While we care about you and know your time is valuable, the time it takes to return your newly repaired car can speed up or slow down depending on several unknowns.

The first unknown is, how long will your insurance take to get their estimate completed? Suppose your freshly-wrecked vehicle is brought to the shop on a Monday. We’ve seen that some insurance companies may not even see it before Thursday. Until we get that firm estimate, we can’t provide you with a targeted ‘out-date’ when your restored gem will be back on the road and your life will be back on track.

Getting the necessary parts can slow the clock. Our partners do great work, but inevitably, some manufacturers take longer than others. For example, we know from experience that replacement parts for Mazdas may often take a few days to arrive. 

The one surprise that’s not fun for anyone is the one that can cost the most time. That’s the dreaded hidden damages, which can be as sneaky and surprising as the accident that brings you to us for help. We know what to look for and we look beyond the obvious to provide an accurate assessment of all of the damage. Fortunately, if we find some sneaky hidden damage, we’re on it quickly and will immediately address it with you and your insurance company.

Whether you’re in Norwood, Blue Ash, or Terrace Park, we’re easy to get to and ready with expert service! If you have any questions about your auto body repair, fixing a door ding, or that dent from a kid’s foul ball, give Nate or Jason a call at 513-631-2406, email us at cccollision@gmail.com, or visit us on Facebook.

April always brings us a fresh crop of spring showers…and since 1970, it also brings us the celebration known as Earth Day.

In Cincinnati, the 42^nd annual celebration takes place on Saturday, April 21 at Sawyer Point Park. Featuring an array of music, parades, storytellers, environmental awards, and even a costume contest, this year’s event is the biggest yet.

The Cincinnati Earth Day event is also listed on the Earth Day Network’s website “A Billion Acts of Green.” The site encourages people to commit individual “Acts of Green” such as biking to work, contacting your congressional representative, getting a home energy audit, and planting gardens. Some have pledged to quit leaving their reusable bags in the car, eat more local food (this one’s really popular), or pick up roadside trash while bike riding.

There’s also a Footprint Calculator, a tool that measures resource usage by a given activity as compared to availability. The site says “the Ecological Footprint is used widely as a management and communication tool by governments, businesses, educational institutions, and non-governmental organizations.” Now you can use it too, and discover the extent of impact your actions are having on the planet.

It’s awesome that Earth Day highlights our need to take care of the planet, but it is everyone’s day-to-day efforts that make a lasting difference. At the body shop, we do that in our collision repair process by using eco-friendly water based paint (the first shop in Cincy to do so), and recycling whenever possible.

We also encourage everyone to do something positive to help the environment, and in that spirit, here’s a local list of links that can help you do just that.

Hamilton County Recycling

Cincinnati Locavore, a resource to where you can buy and eat local food year round.

GreenSource Cincinnati, a resource for green building practices. 

Of course, this is by no means a comprehensive list. There are countless ways to help the Earth, recycle waste, and save energy. For example, I’m going to start saving some personal energy by ending this post right now.

Whether you’re in Hyde Park, Avondale, Reading, or Anderson Township, we’re nearby and ready to unwreck your car in environmentally-friendly ways. For a free repair estimate or a question about our lifetime guarantees, connect with Jason or Nate at 513-631-2406 or cccollision@gmail.com.

Our neighborhoods aren’t what they once were. Used to be, your neighborhood had some defined boundaries. As a kid, it may have stretched as far as you could ride your bike or skateboard. Now it’s worldwide, thanks to the web.

It wasn’t long ago that if you found something cool or interesting or fun and wanted to share that new knowledge with people in your neighborhood, you’d pick up the landline phone and give them a call. Or maybe you’d walk next door or down the street. Now, in our worldwide neighborhood, if we StumbleUpon something and we Digg it, we can instantly tell people we’ve read it or that we have a Pinterest in it.

We used to look up phone numbers in a large, unwieldy mass of a book. Now we quickly search the online WhitePages or a site like Zabasearch. Or maybe we have an app for that.

The worldwide neighborhood can be described as virtual instead of real, but there’s no doubt it’s a community. These connections we make in our everyday lives, whether face to face or online, provide us with new friends, fresh ideas, and unique opportunities.

That’s what happens in community. People tell other people about what’s going on in their lives. You might mention to your friends where you found cheap gas yesterday, or that you discovered a new bargain, or how happy you were with the work done on your car at a local auto body repair shop. 

Consider making Center City Collision a part of your community on Facebook. We promise we won’t fill up your newsfeed. And we might even have a contest going on.

As your community auto service shop, we’re here to help. For quality auto body work, a repair estimate, or just have a question about what it will take to fix a ding in your door, connect with Jason or Nate by calling 513-631-2406 or e-mailing us at cccollision@gmail.com.

Want a good bargain? If you’re here in Greater Cincinnati, you’ll find them. Forbes Magazine thinks so, too—the city was just named on their recent list of Best U.S. Cities for Bargain Shopping.

Ranked at #8, Cincinnati is ahead of cities such as Nashville with its 90+ factory outlets and New Orleans, which boasts 8 Walmarts and sales taxes of 4%. Forbes’ first ever list of this kind was based on several factors, including the Consumer Price Index and geographical and retail data such as sales tax and total retail locations. And yes, the presence of Walmart.

Research by Symphony IRI’s Market Pulse shows that shopping frugally may have become patterns for many of us during the economic downturn. Deals and coupons drive our shopping more and more, and 26% of shoppers are buying more discounted merchandise today versus one year ago.

Cincinnati Premium Outlets opened in 2010, bringing 100 new discount stores to the area, and boosted our ranking greatly. Two other factory outlets malls were already in easy driving distance, the Dry Ridge Outlet Center in northern Kentucky and just to the northeast, the Tanger Outlets in Jeffersonville, Ohio. 

Other bargains can be found locally in many independent retailers, and word of a deal can spread fast on social media like Facebook with the growth of such ‘coupon purchase sites’ such as DealChicken and Groupon. Great deals here, and they typically offer their large discounts on experiences and services more often than products. Which means, if you need an eyebrow-waxing before a fine dinner after you go rock climbing, these sites are definitely for you.

Whether you’re in Mt. Lookout, Walnut Hills, Hyde Park, or Finneytown, we’re close by and ready to serve you with free estimates, answers to questions about auto body repair, or anything we can do for you or your car. Give Nate or Jason a call at 513-631-2406 or email us at cccollision@gmail.com.

Each day creates another day of history. Of course, most of that history will only live on in our memories. Fortunately, there are plenty of places in Greater Cincinnati where history is remembered, and brought to life—our local museums.

While most know about the Cincinnati Museum Center, the Cincinnati History Museum, the Taft Museum, and maybe even the American Sign Museum, today the Auto Body Guru highlights two repositories of local history that aren’t as widely known, though perhaps should be, as they feature our everyday heroes—our firefighters and police. 

Since 1980, The Fire Museum of Greater Cincinnati has been bringing to life the history and contributions of firefighters. Once home to Engine Company #45, their building is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Did you know that in 1853 Cincinnati established the first full-time, paid professional fire department, which used horse-drawn, steam-powered streams of water? The museum not only celebrates history such as this, but also provides fire-safety education. They offer limited exhibits like Remembering the 1937 Flood, which includes original photos and documentation to commemorate the 75^th anniversary of the historic event.

Their annual fundraiser FireFest, held on September 8, hosts a Chili Cook-off and draws kitchen wizards from all over Ohio. Another popular part of FireFest is a Memorial 9/11 Motorcycle Ride through the streets of Cincinnati, which brings more than 300 bikers together to ride and honor those who lost their lives on that tragic day.

The Greater Cincinnati Police Museum is a treasure trove of artifacts and information about the history of law enforcement in the tri-state region. The history of more than a hundred local, state, county, township, and federal agencies from Southwest Ohio, Northern Kentucky, and Southeast Indiana are included in the wealth of information here. 

At this museum, which garnered the 2010 Hamilton County Recorder’s Griffin Yeatmann Award for historic achievement, you can learn about the lives of officers and their contributions over the years, including uniform development, weapons used then and now, and the unique service of canine partners. Their Wall of Honor exhibits stories and photos of those who gave their lives in the line of duty. Like the Fire Museum, they sponsor an annual Motorcycle Ride, which takes place this year in June.

Need to make your car or truck’s door dings, scrapes, or unexplained dents history? Whether you’re in Park Hills, Villa Hills, Hyde Park, or Terrace Park, we’re here to make that happen, and do it so well you’ll think it’s one for the record books. Call us at 513-631-2406, email us at cccollision@gmail.com, or click here for a free online estimate.