[2] He is also co-founder and promoter of the Dirty Dozen, an annual road bicycle race over Pittsburgh's thirteen steepest hills.

[7][8] Chew turned professional in 1985[9] and finished 12th in that year's national championship road race, the Corestates USPro in Philadelphia.

[15] On September 4, 2016, around noon, Chew was seriously injured when he had vertigo while riding and crashed into a drainage ditch on Kennard Road near Lodi, Ohio.

[17] The following month, Dr. Elliot Roth of the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago confirmed that Chew was permanently paralyzed from the chest down and would never walk again.

[18] Despite having contemplated suicide in the weeks immediately following his accident, Chew suggested during the final days of his hospital stay that he would resume his goal of riding one million lifetime miles, albeit aboard a handcycle.