About-Bicycles Bike Blog

Bike Trail along Lake Michigan in Kenosha

We had a great ride on the Kenosha Bike Trail and along Lake Michigan on the 4th of July. I took quite a few photos and am still planning on doing a complete bike trail article with all the information and photos (in the bike trails section of this site) but I just haven’t had the chance yet. So many bike trails and so little time!

Anyway, you can get to the Kenosha Trail from The Robert McClorey Trail which also connects to the Green Bay Bike Trail(on the south end). So you could actually ride from Wilmette, Il all the way up into the southern part of Wisconsin on these trails. I’ve ridden all of these but all on different days.

OK, getting back to the Kenosha Bike Ride… A friend of mine and I drove to the southern end of the Kenosha Trail (where it meets the Robert McClorey Trail) , just off of Russell Road. We parked in a subdivision that had a very convenient entrance to the trail.

The Kenosha Trail itself is crushed stone and is not really all that long (a few miles). The bike trail ends at 89th street. I guess they still call it a “trail” but you need to ride on some roads and connecting trails at that point.

The roads are not bad to ride on at there is a bike lane along 7th avenue as you head north. We continued north and east and ended up riding along the shore of Lake Michigan for quite a while.

I love riding along Lake Michigan! Once we got to the part of the trails that goes along Lake Michigan, we rode north all the way to Carthage College. As I mentioned, it was the 4th of July so there was a ton of stuff going on and the beaches and parks were packed with people. That was fun in this situation but I would also like to ride this trail sometime when it is less crowded (maybe some nice fall day).

Like I said, I’ll try to get to writing a more complete “trail page” with more of the details on the route, etc. but for now I just wanted to mention the ride and that it was really a very nice place to ride.

Rob Uncategorized

I just wanted to mention that I interviewed with a free lance writer, Arlene Miles, for a magazine article on biking with your family a few months back and the article was published in the June edition of Family Time Magazine (a local Chicago suburban  magazine).

They have a website and it shows the June edition and the table of contents but not the article so I can’t link to it and I don’t have the copyright permission to publish it here but I did want to mention it and touch on the theme a little.

The magazine article is called “Bicycling, Just You and Your Family” and the writer did an excellent job. She researched family biking and local bike trails and there was a full page of the article based on the information that I supplied.

Here we are in the heart of summer (the forth of July weekend) and I thought that it is a great time to mention family bicycling.

A lot of the information that I supplied for the magazine article had to do with local bike trails and choosing local bike trails and local rides. Bike trails can be great especially if you can find trails in your area with low traffic and very few streets to cross. That helps with your own peace of mind and I know it makes the rides more enjoyable for me when I rode with my younger kids.

After that, if you can find local trails or rides that have a fun place to stop, like a playground, park, a lake, beach, etc. then you really have some great options.

Another thing that I mentioned in the article was taking a fairly long ride with a destination. Quite a few years ago, I rode with my whole family (me, my wife and 2 kids) from Dundee, Illinois to Genoa City Wisconsin on the Fox River Trail! This was a 32 mile ride with my kids which were around 7 and 10 at the time.

It’s important to have the right frame of mind, bring supplies (some snacks and plenty of water and liquids), take breaks and to take your kids lead on the time and distance too so that everyone is involved (and happy). In our case, for the Wisconsin trip, my kids made signs (on duct tape) that said “Wisconsin or Bust” and taped them to their shirts! I guess that explains where their heads were at on that day!

I wasn’t sure if the kids could handle riding that far at first, but they both made it and we had some major quality time with the family and fun stories for years to come.

I have an article on the FRT trips somewhere in the archives of this website but I would have a hard time finding it myself (and I know the pages on this site fairly well) so maybe I’ll post a current update on that story here soon.

Anyway, my real point here and a key point in the magazine article is that bike riding can be an excellent family activity with kids of all ages. When your kids are very young, there are bike seats, bike trailers, trailer bikes, etc. and when they get older you can take them with you on their own bike for distances and locations that are appropriate for their ages.

I actually would like to write more on this subject, but as I mentioned, it’s the 4th of July weekend and it’s a beautiful day and guess where I am going?!?!?

(riding, of course!)

Rob Uncategorized

I just received a notification that REI has their Summer Sale going on right now (6/25) and through July 7th which includes cycling gear.

The cycling gear is 20% to 25% off which is pretty decent in the middle of summer when you are probably needing some of this stuff.

I just went out to the REI site and checked out what items were on sale. Unfortunately, it does not seem to include bikes although there are a few selected models on sale.

What I did find marked down quite a bit were Car Racks, Bike Bags, Cycling Clothing, Bike Lights and one of the Bike Kid Trailers(the Burley Solo ST Bike Trailer to be specific – See the “Quality Bike Trailers” link on my kids bike page for access to REI kid bike trailers).

Enjoy the sale (and the ride!)

Rob Uncategorized

If was a little overcast today and I put in a good 20 miles yesterday so I went to the local bike shops for pedal straps. Man, the bike shops were crowded today! It was still nice to get out and explore some of the latest bike stuff out there though.

Anyway, back to the pedal straps. At the end of the riding season last year one of my original pedal clips broke. I removed it and continued my ride and have been riding with just one pedal clip since then (not really a good setup).

My recumbent rider friend told me about Power Grips and that he really liked them.  I have ridden his bent and have used them for a few miles and they seemed to work pretty well. I found them at REI and Performance but the two other local bike shops that I went to did not have them.

Well, I just put them on tonight. It was not all that easy to put them on especially since I was trying to use them with my existing pedal reflectors. As it turns out, I just had to sacrifice the reflectors (at least temporarily) for the pedal straps. The company says that you can order pedal reflectors specifically for these straps but I don’t know if I want to do that yet or not. The straps were a little expensive too ($25 at Performance).

Anyway, I finally got the straps installed and they seem pretty nice. I can’t give a total endorsement until I’ve used them for a while. What I do like is that they are very easy to get out of and I have had problems getting out of my old pedal clips pretty often. I have fallen a few times just because I couldn’t get my foot out of the clip in time. I’ve never fallen while riding it’s usually when I am already stopped but still clipped in then just shift or loose my balance (more embarrassing than anything else really).

Besides for being able to get out of them a little easier, if you want them a little tighter (for more power on the upstroke) you can push your foot farther forward.

I think that these are going to work out pretty well. I’ll let you know if they don’t or if there is anything else significant to mention after I have used them for a while.

Rob Equipment, Uncategorized

Just a quick update to let you know that your about-bicycles bike blog author (me) has been promoted to “Expert Author” status at  EzineArticles.com! I was doing some PR for this website and submitted the articles that I have on the Cycling Articles Page  to ezine articles. I guess that they liked these articles or that they were popular because I just got the promotion to Expert Author.

So even though this bike blog is fairly new at least you know that the author (or blogger) can write interesting stuff.

If  you haven’t had a chance to read the articles on the Cycling Articles Page   you can check them out on this site or on EzineArticles.com now.

I really need to get back to writing more articles and additional trail pages (with photos) but unfortunately (for the blog anyway), it’s a beautiful spring day and I need to get out and ride this afternoon!

Rob Cycling, Uncategorized

I was hoping to do some nice ride stories but it’s raining today and I have been obsessed with getting the new format, logos, photos, backgrounds, etc. set up on the About-Bicycle.com site.

The weather was been pretty good last week and I now have over 300 miles logged for the season so I can’t complain about not being able to get out and ride too much.

OK, back to the new look on the website. I wanted a cycling action shot (a bike rider on the road) but I didn’t have a lot of photos like that in my own personal selection to choose from. I also checked to see what kind of stock photos were available online and I wasn;t too impressed and the royalty free photos are REALLY expensive!

So, I had my wife take a few photos of me riding and tried to get some good angles. Then I went into the “lab” (where I do my Photoshop work) and worked the magic. I wanted to use the mountain photos that I got in Wyoming last year so I picked a couple of good mountain photos and very carefully cut out the photo of me riding and imposed it on to the mountain photo.

Then I did some feathering and resizing, etc. and some additional improvements and now the new logo is as you see it on the site.

OK, I need to get back to the updates now. I hope to have some more riding and trails stories real soon.

Rob Uncategorized website updates

I just completed another article for the bike site. This one is Most popular bike brands in US and really took quite a bit of research to complete! I read a number or articles and facts and figures on popular bike types and bike sales and also read through numerous opinions in various bike forums, etc. then put together my summary. I think the summary makes a real nice reference.

Rob Cycling, Equipment, Uncategorized bike types, bikes