I just rode the Palatine Bike Trail and Deer Grove Bike Trail 2 days ago (on 7/6/9).
Both trails are in good condition and there is no construction, floods, or detours.
I also video taped and recorded both trails. I hope to have the videos of these trails up tomorrow (right after the Green Bay and Robert McClory bike trail videos that I am “rendering” while writing this update.
I just rode the Green Bay Trail (and the Robert McClory Trail) from Wilmette to just North of Lake Bluff today (7/7/9).
The trail is in good condition and there is no construction, floods, detours, etc.
One more note, I also brought the video camera and will have a new bike trail video on these trails very soon – Stay tuned!
SEE COMMENTS TO THIS POST FOR THE LATEST UPDATES
Well, I just talked to a friend about the latest condition of the Des Plaines River Trail (DPRT) and it is not in very good condition at the moment. a lot of the crushed stone has been washed away and there are muddy sections and places that have been patched with loose gravel or sand.
As of yesterday (7/5/9) I’ve been told that this is the worst condition that the trail has been in for quite a few years.
Here’s a direct quote on the trail conditions from my email on 7/5/9:
“Did 34 mi on the dprt. The path was Ok most of the time. There were a few bad areas, like the 1st major bridge where you’re going downhill into an area that was patched with the larger stone gravel which could possibly be dangerous. Then near the underpass in Libertyville as you start to go downhill, there is a 6″ drop off from the trail into this new stuff which is mostly sand. If I wasn’t going downhill I wouldn’t have made it. I had to walk it on the way back. Lots of lines of erosion which had been filled with the large crappy gravel which you can’t ride on, or sand which you can’t ride on either”.
I just got an update on the Des Plaines River Trail conditions and decided to create a new blog category for bike trail conditions for the trails that my friends, the website visitors and I have been on recently so you can select the new bike trail conditions category and find the latest conditions (that have been posted here) on each of the trails that we have ridden recently.
The blog category will be Bike Trail Conditions and I’ll be creating one for each trail that we have been on by season. I’ll probably include the dates of the rides but the blog entry dates should give you a good idea about the dates of the updates too.
I will then add comments to the conditions of each bike trail as I receive updates or ride the trails myself.
Well, I’ll be starting the bike trail condition blog category updates next. I hope this is helpful to you all.
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I just rode the Poplar Creek Bike Trail last week and took plenty of photos to document the trail.
Well, it’s taken a little while to put together the trail pages and format the photos but I just completed them!
You can find the new Poplar Creek Bike Trail Pages HERE.
That’s one more for the ever growing list of trails on this site. More to come soon!
Ever since one of the about-bicycles.com readers recommended this bike trail to me, I have been wanting to get out there and check it out. Well, today I finally did it!
I live in Palatine, Il. and this trail is very close to me but I never found a way to it by bicycle because of crossing Interstate 90. Well, I just drove my bike over to the Poplar Creek Bike Trail today and I was glad to find such a nice trail that is so close and easy to get to.
It was a beautiful day today (in the 70s (but a little windy)) so I also brought my camera and got plenty of good photos of this trail. I’ll be adding a new trail page to my list for the Poplar Creek Trail, but I didn’t get a chance to do the formatting and uploads today (I updated the Algonquin Road Trail with the latest extensions first – This is the one with the new video).
The trail is almost 10 miles and most it it is really nice. You do have to cross quite a few fairly busy roads but I think it is worth it for a nice scenic ride.
Well, I don’t have time tonight but I’ll be adding the Poplar Creek Bike Trail pages some time this week.
Well, I finally got my first bike trail video and the format completed and posted on the website. I took the video back in May but I got delayed a few times and since this is the first bike trail video that I have posted, I wanted to put together a format that I could resuse for many more bike trail videos.
I like the format and I composed and performed the music in the background although to be honest I was not really happy with the original video itself. I may retake the video but for now you can find the video here at The Algonquin Road Bike Trail Video!
I tried to keep the overall time low and it ended up at 12 minutes. If you are really interested in this particular trail you may want to watch the whole thing, if not the video controls allow you to skip through sections or you can just check it out and move on if you wish.
I have included video titles throughout the video to explain where you are in the video or other points of interest. It’s easy to add titles with the video editor (I used Adobe Premier) and I think that this keeps the video interesting and helps to provide good information.
Well, I hope you enjoy the new video and I hope I will be able to add many more very soon.
This is just a quick update to let you know that the Des Plaines River Bike Trail (the lake county end) is ready for riding season.
I just talked to my friend who rides this trail quite often and he told me that the underpasses are all open and the trail is all passable.
Since this is a trail along the river, it has been known to flood fairly often when we have a lot of rain. As of today, the lower shadier areas have a few puddles now but the sunny open areas are even a little dry and dusty already.
It was a beautiful day yesterday so I got out to the Algonquin Road / Paul Douglas Crabtree bike trail and got photos of the new section (around Paul Douglas Forest Preserve) and got videos of most of the trail.
First of all I just did a quick update on the Algonquin Road trail page on the flooding problems. As of yesterday, there was no flooding. I didn’t see where they did any improvements so I think that it just dried up and could flood again the next time that we get wet conditions.
I also just discovered that they added another 1.2 mile extension to the other end of the trail! At the western end of the bike trail (where it used to end at Penny Road) it now goes through the forest preserve north to Dundee Road and ends at the Crabtree Nature Center (which, unfortunately has a “no bikes” allowed sign).
I have been wanting to get photos of the new section of trail around the Paul Douglas Forest Preserve and managed to get quite a few pictures yesterday. This part of the trail is still brand new (as of last year) so the grass hasn’t even come in completely yet. I also got photos of the new section of the trail from Penny Road to the Crabtree Nature center.
I have not had a chance to review the photos (and video) and format the web pages yet but I hope to get to that fairly soon and update the ART trail page.
As I’ve written in other blog posts, that I have been wanting to get some bike trail videos up on the website to enhance the bike trail photo sections. Since this trail is the closest bike trail to where I live, I started with this one.
I learned a couple of biking photo/video lessons yesterday. First of all, I was trying to do the photos and bike trail video at the same time. This did not work out well at all. It is already a little difficult to do bike trail photos or videos while riding (or stopping periodically) but to try to do both at the same time was just way too much!
I also had a camera and camcorder strapped to me. This does not work out all that well either. I am going to check into either getting still photos from the camcorder or videos from the digital camera or I’ll just make separate trips (when possible) for photos and videos.
At any rate, I did get both photos and a video of the bike trail. I am hoping that I got some good shots but I think that the quality of both the photos and video might not be as good as it could have been if I had just focused on photos or the video seperately.
I should be able to get the photos posted fairly soon but the website bike trail video production is new for me so that will take a little more time. I will be getting to these photo and video updates ASAP though!
But I could have been… OK, here’s the story: I bought a cheap bike for my son to use at college this year and locked it to the bike rack in front of his dorm when we dropped him off last fall. He ended up getting a skateboard and never even used the bike. He also lost the combination to the lock!
The bike was left out all year and we just went to pick him up from school yesterday. We still didn’t have the combination so I brought a hack saw, some sheet metal cutters and other tools with me in case I had a problem with the lock.
I didn’t want to waste a lot of time getting permission to cut the lock so I thought that I would just give it a try and if campus security came by, well, I’d just have to explain and beg for mercy (it’s the “easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission” theory).
So I put the tools in an inconspicuous, flowery shopping bag and went up to the bike rack (no ski mask to hide my face or anything!) I whipped out my hack saw and got ready for the heist. It took 10 to 15 seconds to saw through the cable lock! It was so easy. I had just done some research for my bike locks page and was reading about how easy it is to cut through cable locks. Well, I just proved it. I’ve read about it but it really sinks in more when you have actually done it and see how easy it is.
Bike lock easily cut with old rusty hack saw
Even though I was in front of a dorm on a crowded campus in broad daylight. Ten seconds to cut through a bike lock did not drawn any attention. In this case it was our bike anyway but that event highlighted how easy it is to steal a bike if I really were a bike thief.
This lock was pretty thin and cheap but if I can cut through it in 10 seconds then 20 seconds for a thicker cable is still not really a problem.
So, if you have a cable lock, it’s almost useless against someone who really wants the bike. A high quality U-lock is much better. See the bike locks page for the latest bike security and bike lock updates.