Section of Fox River Trail (Not) Closed.

Posted on May 7, 2021 by Rob

Fox River Trail Construction south of I90

OK, well, of course, there are a lot of sections of the Fox River Trail (FRT) that are Not Closed but the reason that I said (Not) Closed (with the parens) is because there are construction signs that say that it is but you can still get through (at least when I rode it today.

This part of the trail is south of the Interstate 90 bridge to the Elgin Water Plant (and park). They just finished paving this section today. This section could be closed again on and off or it might be done already but I got through today with no problems.

Actually, this part of the trail had been in really bad shape for years now and the new pavement is GREAT! A big improvement.

Well, if you have ridden this part of the trail recently and ride it now (if/when it is open) I think you will really appreciate this upgrade.

Later,

Rob

The Electric Bike Revolution

Posted on December 6, 2020 by Rob

Vive la révolution! OK, maybe a little dramatic but Electric Bikes (or E-Bikes) are getting really popular these days, along with other rechargeable battery vehicles and sports equipment, and I think that this will change things quite a bit in the world of bike riding and transportation.

I had been noticing a lot of E-Bikes out on the trails and roads this summer and they really got my interest so I did some research and have started paying more attention to them.

Electric Bikes are more heavy duty (and heavy) than regular bikes and you can usually spot them by the battery on one of the lower bike frame bars.

They often have much fatter tires too which originally made me think that all these fat tire bikes bikes that I was seeing zipping down the trails were mountain bikes and I was wondering how so many people could be going so fast on mountain bikes with huge tires. Then I realized that, although there are some mountain bikes with huge tires these days, many of these bikes were actually E-Bikes.

So although I have just started my research into this I have posted a summary of the Electric Bike Basics on this web site here. I even started a new category on this site for E-Bikes since I believe that they will continue to grow in popularity.

What do I think of E-Bikes? Well, at this point I have some mixed feelings but overall I think they are pretty good, look like a lot of fun and I believe that they will get more people into biking than ever before.

I also believe that they can become another good option for alternative transportation. For example, depending on where you live, you may be able to hop on an E-Bike for a quick trip to the store or other local trips rather than driving your car everywhere. Plus you will still get some exercise in the process! So these things are great on many ways.

So why mixed feelings? Well, my concern is mostly with the safety side of things. Don’t get me wrong I believe that E-Bikes are actually very safe in general. The fact that they have a limit on how fast they are allowed to go (20mph-28mph) helps a lot but 20-28mph is really pretty fast on a bicycle.

I think that the safety issues would mostly have to do with the speed and reckless or inexperienced riders. Of course, I believe that most of us bike riders are pretty responsible but there are always exceptions and when it becomes easy to go that fast those exceptions can cause problems. I guess time will tell how this is going to play out. I just hope that a few reckless or irresponsible riders don’t cause a lot of over-regulation and restrictive laws for the rest of us.

So there you have some good and potential bad sides to E-bikes. I think it is going to be really interesting in the coming years how the revolution will turn out. 🙂

I know that I will be continuing my own research into this so stay tuned…

Prairie Trail Bridge into Algonquin Open!

Posted on November 6, 2020 by Rob

Yea, it’s been closed all summer and most of the 2020 riding season but the bike trail bridge into Algonquin is finally open!

Coming up to the new bridge into Algonquin from the south

Those bikers out there that ride the McHenry Co. Prairie Trail (PT) and Fox River Trail (FRT) either north or south of Algonquin know how crappy it has been taking the detours around the bridge northwest of the Fox River Bridge this riding season.

Over the summer there were times when the detour was not all that bad and other times (especially just before it opened) that it was really hard getting through all of the heavy construction going on on the roads below the bridge.

Well I was pleasantly surprised last week when I got to the bridge and the construction signs were gone and the bridge was open. 🙂 The bridge just goes over a local street in Algonquin and used to be the 2nd wooden bridge into Algonquin (as you head north) after the 1st wooden bridge over the Fox River.

The original wooden bridge over the river is still the same bridge but the next bridge is now a concrete bridge with wooden guard rails.

Closer up view of the new bridge with the ramp to the street below

As you can see, I took a couple of photos of the bridge when I first saw it (I was so excited!) but I also even did a Google Photo Sphere photo of the bridge when I was there. So for a multi-dimensional and interactive view of the new bridge see: Photo Sphere of New Bridge into Algonquin (here). Note, on a cell phone you may need the Google Maps app to view this.

Since it was a beautiful fall day when I did my “new bridge ride” I also took a batch of photos of the southern end of the PT and the northern end of the FRT.

I have been wanting some updated photos of these parts of the PT and FRT for a long time now so I also took some new trail photos. The trail photos currently in my bike trail photo pages for these are from 2003! I will post the new trail photos later when I get a chance and also post a blog post here to point to them.

Until then, enjoy the new bridge! 🙂

Fox River Trail Detours South of Elgin and Tunnel Updates

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Rob

OK, I have explored the Fox River Trail (FRT) detours south of Elgin, the construction at the old stone railway bridge there and the Illinois Prairie Path (IPP) intersection that I was wondering about (obsessed with) since my last ride on the trail when I accidently ended up on the IPP before getting on to the Stearns Road Trail SRT) and back to the FRT in South Elgin.

First, the FRT and IPP intersection is right where it has always been, just south of Elgin before the old stone railway bridge and tunnel. There is a lot of construction here, with large construction signs which is why I did not notice the intersection and just got on to the IPP.

It turns out that the IPP is in much better condition and, in a lot of ways, a better way to get into South Elgin anyway. A lot of the FRT is closed between Elgin and South Elgin, in pretty poor condition and it appears to have not been maintained for quite a while – but you can ride the FRT (with a few side road detours) into South Elgin if you choose to go that way.

I have written up all the details and included photos of the detour and construction and a photo of how the new railway tunnel will look in a separate page on this website. See The Fox River Trail Detours page (here) for more information and photos about what I have posted here.

Also here is a link to the GPS Map of my ride that I took to explore these trails on the Garmin website.

And one last little technical update on this website. I finally got around to doing a pretty significant make-over of the Fox River Trail pages on this website. I started this website back in 2003 and have been doing updates since then. For the Fox River Trail, I originally created 2 pages, The Fox River Trail North page and the Fox River South page.

Over the years I realized that this made it hard to find information on the FRT and was confusing and difficult to maintain so I have consolidated these 2 pages into one single Fox River Trail page here. There are still some references to the old North/South pages but this is the new single location for photos and information on the FRT.

Yea, a lot of the photos of this trail (and others) go back to 2003 too! Although I try to get new updated and better quality photos when I can, I have left the old ones there (even when there are new ones) for the historical (and nostalgic) purposes.

Paul Douglas Trail Flood Zone is Open

Posted on July 14, 2020 by Rob

This is just going to be a quick post to mention that the Flood Zone on the Paul Douglas Trail is no longer flooded and you can ride the entire western side of the trail without having to jog out to the road (Huntington Freeman Rd) to get around it.

I had not ridden the trail a lot recently but I know that it has been flooded since spring and was open on my ride on July 12th. I have seen the people that maintain the trail pump the water out in the past but I do not know if they did that or if it just got dry enough to dry up on its own.

As you can see from the latest photo here (from July 12th, 2020), the trail is kind of a mess here but you can ride this part easily now.

Four Trails from Crystal Lake to South Elgin

Posted on June 25, 2020 by Rob

McHenry County Prairie Trail with stream of rushing water

I had actually only planned on taking 2 trails on my ride from Crystal Lake to South Elgin but ended up taking 4 different trails by accident. The 2 trails that I had planned to take are the McHenry County Prairie Trail (MCPT) and the Fox River Trail (FRT).

What happened is that I ended up on the Illinois Prairie Path (Elgin Branch) (IPP) south of the town of Elgin then took that trail to the new Stearns Road Trail (SRT) to get back on the FRT again in South Elgin.

I had this problem one other time many years ago when I missed the sign where the Fox River Trail runs into the Illinois Prairie Path and the IPP forks off to the left (as you head south).

I actually do not think I missed the sign this time because I think that there is now a break in the FRT south of the town of Elgin and the trail just turns into the IPP. There has often been trail construction and detours here over the years and I researched this on Google Maps and using Street View and I believe that you now need to take a few side roads in order to stay on the FRT all the way into the town of South Elgin.

I got a little obsessed with this break in the trail and if I missed a sign or not so on my next FRT ride I plan on going there first and exploring exactly what is going on there now. Just FYI, here is a link to the Break in the FRT on Google Maps. I believe that you can just hop on Raymond St. to Riverview Dr. to River Rd to get on the FRT again. These are all fairly secluded bike friendly roads and it’s a short distance.

OK, so much for the details on the Intersection of the FRT and the IPP and the break in the trail… getting back to my ride from Crystal Lake to South Elgin, I had a great ride! I actually started in Algonquin then went north to Crystal Lake (to Lake in the Hills Airport) then continued my adventure south to South Elgin.

The sun setting over the Fox River as seen from the bike trail

It was a beautiful day and I ended up riding 42 miles both ways. I have uploaded my ride details and map to the Garmin website (as usual) and you can see that GPS Map of this Ride on the Garmin site here. The interactive GPS map allows you to visualize this trip so much easier than words can describe.

I rode the same parts of the MCPP and the FRT a few days ago and posted the information in that in the previous blog post here, which included the information on the detour through Algonquin. This section trails is open and in good shape (other than the short detour through Algonquin). The parts of the other trails that I was on were also in good condition.

I haven’t taken a lot of bike trail photos recently so I decided to get a few new one of these trails on this ride. I still need not take a large amount of photos but I did take some as you can see in this blog post and I have also posted them on a Bike Trail Photo Page here on this website.

I actually did not get photos from the IPP or the new SRT though. Now that I have found the new Stearns Road Trail, I will have to ride, explore, photograph and write about that trail soon too. As I have said before “So many Trails… So Little TIme…”

You can find a lot more Fox River Trail photos (old and new) and information on the Fox River Trail pages on this website.

Although this page is labeled “Southern Section” I am planning a complete makeover of the Fox River Trail pages on this site soon so the Northern and Southern sections will be together.

Fox River Trail and Prairie Trail Ride Reports

Posted on June 20, 2020 by Rob

I finally made it out to the Fox River Trail (FRT), north of Elgin and the McHenry County Prairie Trail (MCPT) heading north to the Lake in the Hills Airport. This is my first ride on these trails this year and I almost forgot how nice the trails are. I managed to ride about 28 miles on the 2 trails on Thursday.

Prairie Trail construction in Algonquin

There is one important thing to know about which is that there is a Detour going through Algonquin (heading south from Express 31 and the Towne Park). I spaced out and missed the big orange detour signs and thought that I was going to have to pack up my bike and drive around the construction.

If you do pay attention to the detour signs though (unlike myself 🙂 ) the detour through Algonquin is well marked, on easy, bike friendly streets and is not very long so I would not let that stop you from doing this part of these trails.

The photo that I have included here shows where the trail is torn up just south of Towne Park. Not a very scenic bike trail photo (like I prefer to include in these posts) but it is newsworthy I think.

So aside from that little blip in the trail in Algonquin, the rest of the trail, between Elgin in the south to Lake in the Hills Airport (near Crystal Lake) in the north was in great shape and is a really nice ride.

I also wanted to include my GPS maps of the rides to make it a little easier to see exactly where I am talking about (visually on a map). This was just 1 ride but because of my little confusion at the detour I reset the trip meter so there are 2 GPS maps.

Here is the First GPS Map from Algonquin to the Lake in the Hills Airport and back and here is the Second GPS Map from Algonquin to Elgin and back.

Even though it was a mistake on my part to reset my GPS in Algonquin, I actually found that I liked having the 2 parts of the trail ride in separate maps. It gives you the miles and stuff for each section and I think it makes it easier to view in some ways. I may do that more often (but on purpose! 🙂 )

Note that although I usually refer to the McHenry County Prairie Trail simply as the Prairie Trail, that can get confusing since there are numerous “Prairie Trails” in Illinois (probably in other states too).

I just call it the Prairie Trail on the trails page sidebar links on this site so if you are looking for detailed information and first hand ride reports on numerous trails in this area be sure to check out The Trails Pages on this website. 🙂

Home or High Water – Tips for Riding the Flood Out

Posted on May 19, 2020 by Rob

The flooded part of Huntington/Freeman Road

There is a lot of flooding in northern Illinois right now so you can either stay at home and not ride (not a good option for me), find dry places to ride (great if you can) or know how to make it through flooded areas on the local trails (and roads) – Which is what this post is about.

The Paul Douglas Trail (PDT) is a trail that is very close to where I live so I ride that one quite a bit. It is a somewhat hilly trail so there is standing water on many parts of the trail and there is one location, along Huntington/Freeman Road that floods every year. Sometimes it is not deep and you can make it through but often it is too deep and too far to ride through.

Fortunately you can take a short easy detour around the flooded trail section on the road itself. Unfortunately, with the flooding that we have had recently, this road is even flooded and closed in that same location. 🙁

Can it Be Crossed???

Well, I still wanted to ride the part of the trail on the trail on the other side of the flood so I checked out the flood on the road (that the people in front of me thought was too deep and long to cross) to see if it looked possible to cross.

Well, it was probably about 100 feet long and 3 to 5 inches deep but I could see the double yellow line pretty well through the whole thing and it was on the paved road with no obstacles so I decided to go for it! Using a little trick that I learned quite a while ago I made it through just fine and with fairly dry feet even. I really don’t like getting my shoes and feet soaked riding through floods which I have had happen in the past so here are a couple of tips to help get you through floods and deep puddles without getting soaked.

Tips for Staying Dry Riding through Flooded Areas (and puddles) on Bike Trails (or roads).

Of course if goes without saying (but I’ll say it anyway), not all floods are passable (without getting really wet or going wading or swimming in the process). This is where the first tip applies – Use Common Sense! 🙂

If you access the situation and know that the water is not too deep (lets say 5 or 6 inches or less) and there are no major obstacles (like debris in or under the water) then you can probably make it through without getting wet.

OK, after all of that, here is the Main Tip that I wanted to pass along: Use the right gear (not too low or too high), go fast enough to get through without stopping but not too fast and keep your pedals mostly horizontal, about half way up/down with one foot in front of the other. Then pedal back and forth but DO NOT go all the way around (this keeps your feet out of the water at the bottom of the cycle).

Keeping feet dry pedaling through flooded trail

Keeping feet dry another day when I could make it through on the trail

It’s best to have the foot on your dominate or stronger leg in front because that is the one that will be dong all the work. You can’t go fast this way and it is not good if you need a lot of power but it will usually be just fine to make it through the flood if you did not underestimate how passable it is.

There you have my main tip but “wait there’s more“! OK, this one is pretty simple (and maybe obvious) but one of the best ways that I have found to keep my legs dry while riding through deep puddles is to bend your legs and put your feet up behind you as you ride through. This works for my road bike but may not work on all bikes. The key here is to put them behind you (not in front of you).

Trail Turtle!

I also have a good sized rack/pack on the back of my bike which is also really nice at keeping the mud and water off my back (no more mud streak on the back of my shirt!). Of course, fenders work fine for this too but that is not my style.

And finally, I just had to add the following photo – Be sure to Share the Trail with Our Reptile Friends!

Dressing, Preparing for Bike Rides Based on the Weather

Posted on April 4, 2020 by Rob

It’s finally here. Bike Riding Season!!! Well for those of us that are not able to (or do not choose to) ride all year long. Since the season, is just beginning, for many of us, I waned to include some helpful hints on Dressing for Bike Rides in Various Weather Conditions.

For me, when bike riding season begins in the spring (and to some degree when it is ending in the fall), I often have a hard time deciding what to wear based on the weather conditions. Many years ago I wrote an article for this website on “How to Dress for Bike Rides in Any Weather” and I have found the hints on that page to be very helpful in deciding how to dress for bike rides (especially in the spring and fall).

Although the hints on the page above provide a decent overall guide on how to dress and be comfortable on bike rides, the categories are a little vague since it is in 10 degree increments (like temperatures between 50-59, 60-69, etc.) and there are a lot of temperatures in between and various wind combinations that really dictate what to wear.

What I do now, which is the main hint that I want to pass along, is to keep track of the temperatures, wind conditions and overall weather (like sunny, cloudy, etc.) along with a description of what I wore and how comfortable it was in a file on my computer – For those of you that prefer pen and paper (which I usually refer to as papyrus) or for those of you that use your cell phones for everything, those options should work just as well.

Then, after I have a log of the information above and when I am planning my next ride and am not sure what to wear, I just check my log and find the nearest weather conditions and use that as a guide. I have found this to be really helpful.

Next Related Topic: One more closely related topic that I have written about a few times and have found helpful myself and that other visitors to this website have told me they have found helpful, is just to be sure to check the weather radar for possible rain or showers just before going on a long ride or even while you are on your ride (if you have a cell phone with a radar app for example).

For more on this you can search for the keyword “radar” in the search box (shown above) for this blog.

So Enjoy your Rides – Comfortably!

Paul Douglas Trail Bridge over Central Road is Open

Posted on November 2, 2019 by Rob

New Bridge over Central Road

Finally! The entire Paul Douglas Trail is open again and the bridge that crosses over Central Road is open. The trail has been closed at the Roselle Road and Central Road intersection all year (until now) and I believe all of last year (2018) for the new Tollway entrance off of Central Road (to go west on I90) and for the new Bike Trail Bridge that crosses Central Road at Roselle Road.

This really opens up a lot of possibilities to extend rides either from of to the Paul Douglas Trail. For example, I know that you can go down Hillcrest Blvd (just after you cross over Central and the Tollway out to the Poplar Creek Trail and you can also even get to the Busse Woods Trail from here (although that one is a little farther and not as easy). Then of course there are quite a few other trails and bike routes near here.

I took the photo above and a few others in an overcast day (after a little rain) and right after the bridge and trail were open again so the photo is not that scenic and there isn’t even any grass there yet but I wanted to get this posted since it is a pretty cool thing for anyone who rides this trail very often (as I do) or plans to ride this trail and maybe even explore other trails that can be reached from here.

I posted a few more pictures of the bridge (just 3) on a photo page that I attached to the Paul Douglas Trail pages on this site. For the additional bridge/trail pictures or just more information on the Paul Douglas Trail or other trails documented on this site see: The New Bridge Over Central Road trail page here.

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