Category Archives: Bike Trail Videos

Door County Bike Trails

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I had an opportunity to ride some of the main bike trails in Door County, Wisconsin last month (the first week of June) and I have just completed the Bike Trail Page  updates on this site with New Photos and 2 New Videos.

Door County Sunset Trail

Door County Sunset Trail

The 2 trails that I rode were the Ahnapee Trail and the Peninsula State Park (PSP) Sunset Trail. There were already trail pages and photos for these 2 trails on this site but they were from 2003 so I gave them an update with some really good photos and the videos too.

I really liked both of these trails. The Ahnapee trail is much longer than the Sunset Trail but you get a good workout with the hills on the Sunset Trail even though that one is a little less than 10 miles. The Sunset Trail also has some nice views of the various bays from Lake Michigan.

Although I really enjoyed the rides on these trails, I also brought my Nikon DSLR camera and iPhone for photos and videos and I rode with Dale Kiffel who also had his camera and takes excellent photos (like the Sunset Trail one in this post).

In addition to the still photos and videos I also took some panoramic photos with my phone and even did a few 3D spherical photos for Google Maps Street View (with the Street View app on my phone) so I was really workin the trail (in addition to having fun)! 🙂

You can see the updates, all the new photos, the Street View photos and the 2 videos from the updated pages below:

Ahnapee Trail Photos, Videos and Updates

PSP Sunset Trail Photos, Videos and Updates

I have also included quite a few nice Door County Sunset Photos with the PSP Sunset Trail pages. They were not actually taken from the trail, but were from the same area after our rides and fit the Sunset Trail theme pretty well too.

I hope you enjoy the articles, photos and videos…

3 New Trails this Fall, Hennepin, Wauponsee, Mammoth

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Mammoth Cave Trail

Mammoth Cave Trail in Kentucky

I have just completed 3 trail articles, with ride reports, photos and videos for the new trails that we have ridden this fall.

The trail names in the blog title are the shortened versions. The full names of the new trail articles on this site, with the links are:

Below is just a very brief summary of each trail. See the individual trail articles (the links above) for more information on each trail.

I rode the Mammoth Cave Trail (MCT) in Kentucky in October while I was on a trip down south. This is actually the first non-Illinois, non-Wisconsin trail that I posted on this site but I hope to venture out and include more out of state trails soon.

The MCT is an 8 mile biking and hiking trail in the Mammoth Cave National Park. It is not a trail within a cave as the name might indicate. The trail is crushed stone (and gravel in some places) and is VERY hilly. It’s a really nice trail but probably a little better to ride with a mountain bike (than with a road bike like I used).

Hennepin Canal Trail

Hennepin Canal Trail – Photo compliments of Dale Kiffel

We rode the Hennepin Canal Trail (HCT) in late September of this year. There is a north/south section of this trail and an east/west section. The entire trail (and canal) is about 104 miles!

We rode about 30 miles on this trail heading south out of Rock Falls, Illinois. The trail surface (for this part of the trail) is a combination of paved, crushed stone, gravel and dirt and is in pretty bad shape in many places. This was a difficult trail for a long ride. Once again this trail would probably be better with a mountain bike.

Wauponsee Glacial Trail

Wauponsee Glacial Trail

We rode the Wauponsee Glacial Trail (WGT) that runs from Joliet, Illinois to the Kankakee River at Custer Park, back in early September.

The WGT is a fairly straight and flat trail that runs through the prairies and fields of northern Illinois.

It is not the most scenic trail that I have been on but it was definitely a pleasant trail to ride. The trail was not crowded and the surface was in very good condition. It seemed like the north central part of the trail, where we started, was a little more open as it ran through the prairies and fields while the southern part, near the Kankakee River was a little more wooded.

I have created short videos for the Hennepin Canal Trail and the Wauponsee Glacial Trail on YouTube. I think these came out well and can be found at the bottom of the pages for these 2 bike trail articles (the links above).

To get to all 49 trails documented on this website see the Bike Trails Page on this site.

 

Google Trail View – Virtual Trail Rides

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I was doing some research on the northern end of the Des Plaines River Trail (DPRT) since I had some new trail photos to post of this part of the trail. I often use Google Maps and Google Street View to find new trails and to check out the locations and surroundings of new trails or trails that I have ridden.

Wide view of Des Plaines River Trail

Panoramic View of DPRT North

As I was checking out the part of the DPRT that I rode, I clicked on the brown line for the trail (you need to select the “Bicycling” option in Google Maps to see the trails). When I did this a small photo of the trail popped up at the bottom of the screen – I clicked on the photo and got a Google Street View of the DPRT bike trail! It is probably more accurate to call this a Trail View but Google uses the term Street View for all of its zoomed-in 3D images within Google Maps.

So the Trail View of the Des Plaines River Trail works just like any other Street View in Google Maps. You can click on the arrow image imposed on the photo to move further down the trail or click and drag any part of the photo to turn around and/or see any other part of that 3D, spherical photo.

Just to be clear, the Google Street View option is not just a 360 degree photo and it is not a video. It is a series of photos that allows you to see all around the point where the photo(s) were taken – front, back, sides, and up and down. Then you can move forward, backwards, etc. (with the arrows) to the next spherical photo. How cool is that!

So back to the Des Plaines River Trail, I discovered that the entire northern part of this trail (the Lake County section) has Street View available. So in addition to a real world ride you can also take a virtual ride of this part of the trail.

Here’s a link to the Trail View option on the DPRT going through Half Day Forest Preserve.

I also discovered that one part of the Oak Leaf Trail (OLT), in Wisconsin south of Milwaukee also has the Street/View Trail/View option. Here’s a link to the Trail View part of the OLT south of Milwaukee.

I’m sure that are other “Trail View” trails out there but these are the only 2 that I have found so far.

The Photos and Trail Pages on This Site

As for the photos that I had of the northern end of the DPRT – like the panoramic view above, I decided not to post them since you can see so much more with the Trail View option on this part of the trail.

Way back when I first started this website (14 years ago), one of my goals was to document, photograph and video record the trails that I had ridden in order to pass this information on to the visitors of this site. Well Google Street View (Trail View) blows away some of the need for that.

Since Google Street View (Trail View) is not available on all that many trails (yet) I will still be photographing, documenting and video recording as many new trails as I can. I also think that there is still a need for good photos, artistic photos, videos and first hand ride reports of the trails.

So with all that said, feel free to check out the large number Ride Reports, Photos and Videos of Chicagoland and Wisconsin Trails on this site.

Catching Up on Trail Reports and Photos

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Although I have mentioned some of our rides from last year below, I am still catching up on posting the ride reports and photos to the main about-bicycles.com website.

The Kankakee River Trail

The Kankakee River as seen from the trail overlook

Last week I updated our ride on the Kankakee River Trail that we did in June of 2016, you can get more details and see the photos at The Kankakee River Trail ride HERE.

Then just today I updated the ride that we took on the Seven Waters Trail out of Burlington, Wisconsin.

You can get the details and see the photos of the Seven Waters Trail Ride HERE.

Seven Waters Trail

The Seven Waters Trail

When I was updating the Seven Waters Trail pages I was looking up some information on Burlington, Wisconsin where we started our ride and there were a lot of news stories about the flooding in Burlington.

So if you are considering riding this trail this year, be sure to check the latest flooding updates. This would apply to the Kankakee River Trail ~ and for that matter, any of the river trails this year.

I have also added a Video of the Seven Waters Trail on YouTube. See the bottom of page linked to with  the Seven Waters Trail link above for the video of this trail.

YouTubed and Mobile Again

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Just a quick update to let you know about some recent improvements to this website.

The first update has to do with the Bike Trail Videos that I have posted on this website. Back in the summer of 2009 I video taped (yes, taped on 8mm tape back then) 9 bike trails, northwest of Chicago, and edited and compiled videos of the trails with descriptive titles and an original music background.

I believe that these bike trail videos are longer (usually around 12 minutes) and more complete than a lot of the other bike trail video snippets that I have seen online since I took the videos while riding the trails and I tried to get highlights of most parts of each trail that the video is about.

Unfortunately, the videos are from 4 years ago and the camcorder that I used for them was even fairly old at the time (not HD) so, although the content is very complete, the videos use an older, now fairly obsolete technology. Also, since I took most of the videos while riding they are pretty shaky too (although I did get a little better at that over time). I hope to upgrade to a helmet cam soon but these videos were done the old school way.

The good news is that I have just moved all of these videos to my new YouTube Channel, AboutBicyclesFitness, and the YouTube versions have been stabilized (to reduce the shake factor) and can easily be played on multiple devices.

I also thought that the original video soundtracks were pretty boring (the sound of the tires on crushed stone, bike noises and some birds in the background) so I added an Original Music Soundtrack to each video. I didn’t want to run into any copyright problems so I used some music that I had written and recorded myself many years ago when I was going through my songwriter phase.

The original recordings also had words and vocals but I removed that track since I just wanted background music (and my vocals and lyrics were not that good anyway 🙁 ). The songs were also recorded with older technology so they are not as good as you could get these days. Anyway, you can just mute the audio if you don’t care for the music.

I have left the bike trail videos, in their original Flash format, on this site (see our Bike Trail Videos page for the Flash versions) but have refered our visitors to the YouTube version for more versitile and better quality versions. It made more sense to keep these videos exclusively on this site so many years ago, but it makes more sense to have them on YouTube now since YouTube is the major site for videos and they have all the latest and greatest technology.

Mobile Again!

about-bicycles new responsive design format

about-bicycles new Responsive Design, Mobile Format

The next update has to do with the Mobile Friendly Version of this website. Back in August of last year, I converted this website to a liquid, mobile friendly responsive design format.

Basically, this means that when you view this website on a mobile device (such as a smart phone or tablet computer) the webpages on this site will fit that device properly and will be reduced to one column, as needed, to avoid having to pinch the screen wider and/or having to scroll from side to side to see the entire page.

If you view a page on this site (including the blog) on a regular, full sized (pc) screen then reduce the width of the browser window, you will see the text begins to wrap to fit the screen and when you hit the smart phone size you will see it convert to one column.

I believe the responsive design format to be the best technology at this time and, although many of the biggest sites on the internet still do not use this format, it is a widely accepted newer technology and many sites are moving in that direction (Wikepedia for example).

Getting back to the Mobile Version of this website, I had some traffic problems with Google right after installing the mobile version last year and backed out that update to rule out that it was not the cause of the traffic issues. The traffic problems actually had to do with the Google Panda and Penguin updates (I am still working on recovering from this update, like many other website owners and I still think that Googles search results have been degraded to some degree with these updates (see A Step Back for Google for more on this)).

So after I verified that the new mobile version of this site was not the cause of the traffic issues, I have reinstalled the new and improved mobile version of this website. For more information on the mobile, responsive design format used on this website see our About-Bicycles Has Been Mobilized post).

OK, so much for a quick update. Sorry about that. I hope I didn’t lose everyone with all the tech talk (geek speak?).

About-Bicycles Page and Blog Posts on Facebook

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About-Bicycles.com is Goin Social!

Yep, I finally launched the About-Bicycles.com business page on Facebook so for the many of you that have subscribed to this blog you now have another way to get our updates and read these blog posts.

The About-Bicycles Facebook Page.

The About-Bicycles Facebook Page.

Here’s a link to the new About-Bicycles Facebook page. This page is new so we really don’t have much content out there just yet, but there will be soon.

Also, if I did the setup correctly, these blog posts should automatically be posted to the About-Bicycles Facebook page so if you choose to Follow About-Bicycles on Facebook, you can get our blog posts right there in Facebook instead of visiting us here on our website ~ of course, you are always welcome to come out here as often as you like too :-).

I have also setup this blog to be tweeted via our Twitter account About_Bicycles.

So come on out to the  About-Bicycles Facebook page and “Like” us and Follow Us! Let’s get social!

Des Plaines River Trail Video is Up.

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I just completed editing and uploading the Des Plaines River Trail video!

I took this video last week when I rode the trail from Half Day (Route 22) to the northern end of the trail (mile 0) at Van Patten Woods just before the Wisconsin border. My trip was 58 miles (with a few extra short trips).

The DPR Trail was clear the whole way and there were no detours or flooding, which does happen on this trail occasionally. All of the underpasses were open.

I really like this trail but unfortunately I ended up with 45 minutes of original video! I edited the video down to 18.5 minutes but it is still my longest bike trail video and I like to try and keep them shorter than that. I considered breaking this up into 2 videos but decided to keep it as one for now.

I still haven’t had a chance to contact the indie musicians for new music so I am still recycling my original instrumental music for this video (for now anyway).

I think that this video came out pretty good but, as I mentioned, it is pretty long. There are a lot of major scenes on this 27 mile trip and I just didn’t want to chop it down too much.

I think that a lot of people do not ride this trail because it is crushed stone and not paved. I have ridden this trail many times with the skinny tires of my road bike and do not find that to be much of a problem but there are places where you need to slow down, of course.

OK, enough yakin. Here’s a link to the new Des Plaines River Trail Video!

You’ll need some time to watch this one (if you plan to watch the whole thing) and it may take a few seconds to load, but I hope you like it.

Chicago Lakefront Path Video is Complete

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As I mentioned in the article below, I took video of the Chicago Lakefront Path when I rode the trail earlier this week and I just completed editing and uploading the video!

I think the video came out pretty well but for some reason I did not have nearly as much video of this trail as I usually do and the final edited version is only 7 1/2 minutes. Well, that’s OK since most people don’t watch the other bike trail videos all the way through anyway.

I think that this one gets to the good stuff right away… and there is a lot of good stuff on this trail. I think that the scenes from the Shedd Aquarium area may be the best part although there are plenty of other good lakefront and Chicago scenes too.

Since I did the photos going south on the trail, I did the video on the way back so it is primarily south to north (with a few scenes that look back the other way). In retrospect, I wish that I had taken a little more time and video taped a little more but I did want to enjoy the ride some too 🙂

I think that I’ve mentioned that I am planning to try to get permission to use some indie musicians recordings for these bike trail videos in the future but I have not had the time to search and select the material yet so I am still stuck with the same old music (my own) that I’ve been doing on all of the videos so far. Hang in there though, I am hoping to do an upgrade on the music asap.

Well, enough yakin about the video, here is it. I hope you all like it.

The Chicago Lakefront Path Video!

McHenry County Prairie Trail Video is Complete

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Sorry for the delay in updates. I was in Colorado earlier this month (don’t get me started on the “mountain bike riders” out there!) and have just gotten caught up on the videos that I have taken so far this summer.

If you have read some of the previous posts then you know that I rode and video taped the Fox River and McHenry County Prairie Trails from Dundee to Genoa City Wisconsin in July. I completed the 2 Fox River Trail videos (Northern and Southern regions) earlier this month and have just now finished the Prairie Trail video.

I’m not sure of the exact mileage. I rode 32 miles from Dundee to Genoa City but I don’t know how many miles it is from Dundee to the start of the Prairie Trail. The Prairie Trail section is probably a little under 30 miles one way.

Well with the 2 FRT videos and now this (Prairie Trail) video complete, you can take a virtual bike ride from Oswego, Illinois to Genoa City Wisconsin!

OK, now that you have the background info, here’s the link to the video!

The McHenry County Prairie Trail Video

Fox River Trail Videos are Done.

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I just completed the Fox River Trail videos yesterday and have uploaded them to the About-Bicycles website and video pages.

Anyone who has been on this trail knows how long the trail is, which is why I have split the Fox River Trail (FRT) video into 2 sections. The entire video goes from south to north and the southern region video has from Oswego to just before the long bridges in South Elgin (approx 20 miles) and the northern region video has from South Elgin to Algonquin (approx 17 miles).

I have also camcorded from Algonquin to Genoa City Wisconsin on the McHenry County Prairie Trail but I have not edited and uploaded this video yet. Once I finish this one I will have video from Oswego to Wisconsin (I would estimate this to be about 70 miles 1 way)!

These videos are from 2 separate bike trips in close to the same time frame (both in July, 2009). I rode the northern section first (from Dundee to Genoa City Wisconsin and back (64 miles)) and the southern section (from Dundee to Oswego and back (70 miles))a week or so later. I recorded the southern section on the way back so all of the videos are from south to north. I took a few short side trips on the southern section trip so the 70 miles is a little higher than what it would be otherwise.

There is a break in the trail in Aurora and I went through downtown Aurora on Broadway (route 25) on the sidewalks. There may be other ways around this (like the Virgil Gilman trail) but I am not that familiar with this area so I just took the shortest distance through the gap.

There was some construction and detours on the trail, which I’ve reported in the “Trail Conditions” section of this blog but I have mostly cut out a lot of that info for the videos because that is constantly changing and I wanted the video to be what the trail is like without the detours (wherever it was possible to do that).

To be honest, the videos do not come out as nice as I would like, but since I have not found a good collection of bike trail videos (for the Chicagoland area) I wanted to get the videos completed and up on the site so people would have the option to see the trails , in a video, to check them out before riding them (or maybe even to reminisce on past trips).

I like to try and keep the action going and record while riding in most cases, but the video does get shakey especially when you are on rough parts of the trails. Perhaps a helmet cam or a camcorder with image stabilization would help, but I can not afford the upgrade at the moment and I didn’t want that to stop me from creating the videos.

I also have to keep using the same instrumental music (original songs of my own) that I have because I want to keep the videos completely legal and this gives me the option to have a music background without paying royalties or a one time usage fee. So the music may not be the greatest (I didn’t have the best recording equipment when I recorded it and it was not meant to be instrumental only), but it is quite unique!  

OK, now that you have ALL of the background scoop on the videos, here are the links to the videos!

The Fox River Trail – Southern Region

The Fox River Trail – Northern Region

I hope you like the videos!