Category Archives: Cycling

Dressing for Bike Rides in Any Weather

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With the constantly changing spring weather, I am always trying to figure out what will be the most comfortable way to dress for each bike ride. Do I need a light jacket or is a t-shirt and shirt OK? Shorts or Pants? etc. So I wrote down some notes on what I find to be comfortable and practical based on the outside temperature (and wind speed).

This is only a guide, of course, but it has been very helpful for me so I just wrote it up a little better and posted it under cycling articles. The title (and link) is How to Dress for Bike Rides in Any Weather.

It was a little difficult to translate my casual notes on the subject into a (hopefully) helpful article with suggestions on how to dress for bike rides in different weather conditions but I did the best that I could. I hope that I did not lose too much in the translation.

As I was writing the article, it seemed important to cover the topic of rain, of course,  so I added some additional comments and suggestions on protecting your bike (and other) electronics (bike computers, GPS units, cell phones, cameras, ipods, etc) from the rain.

Basically you just need to have a good bike bag and bring some baggies or plastic bags with you, for your equipment, in case of rain.

Well, I hope you enjoy the new weather preparation article.

Expert Author (cycling) at Ezine Articles.

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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!

Bike Trail Videos and Equipment

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I have been considering enhancing my bike trail pages with some camcorder videos and have been looking into what is already out on the internet and what kind of equipment people have been using.

What I’ve found is there are some really good videos out there but they usually involve really cool mountain bike trails and often BMX or freestyle riders doing some good bikerobatics  (I just made that term up).  Anyway, there is nothing wrong with that and they can be very entertaining.

The only thing is that I only found a few videos of trails in the Chicago area and they were on different sites with differing quality and styles. So I still hope to find some time to do some video enhancements of the trail pages on this site soon.

Bike Helmet Cam

Bike Helmet Cam

In the process I was considering my equipment and what other people out there use. What I found is that a lot of riders use “Helmet Cams”.  There are also handlebar camcorder clips and a lot of home made camcorder and camera clips and gadgets out there.

The handlebar camera/camcorder clips that you buy have a typical handlebar attachment on one end and the standard camera tripod screw attachment on the other.  I have not tried attaching a camcorder to a handlebar clip but I would think that you would get a lot of vibration in the video that way and the vibration and bumps from the road/trail might be pretty hard on the camcorder.

I don’t currently have a page on the website dedicated to cycling photo and video equipment but I have found the Amazon and REI have good selections of equipment to choose from. You can get some easy links to these websites and other cycling websites on my Bike Accessory page.

So it looks like you can go all the way and get a helmet cam made specifically for the cycling videos (if you plan to do a lot of cycling videos), purchase a handlebar camcoder/camera clip for your bike or even put together something on your own (probably a little risky for the camera and your own saftey).

I’m not sure how I’m going to proceed with this. I do still have a pretty old video of the Sparta Bike Trail that I used to generate the photos on that page (handheld and often as I was riding) so maybe I’ll experiment with that one and see how it comes out.

I am really dying to get out to some new trails and get some new trail photos too but I have found that the photos look better after things get a little greener and the trees have more leaves on them. That should be real soon now!

New Bike Lock Info

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I just did some additional research on bike locks and really learned a lot in the process. Personally I have always just used a couple of different cable style locks. One with a key and one with a combination.

These locks are really convienent but I just found out that they are probably the least secure and that the U-Lock styles are much more secure and can still be pretty convienent also.

I’ve already written quite a bit about this on the Bicycle Locks Page (here)  so I’m not going to repeat all of that here but if you’re in the market for bike locks you might want to at least check the basic bike security info that I wrote up from my research.

I don’t think that I included the brand names on the bike lock page (I’ll have to update that when I get a chance) but I discovered that a couple of the good brands out there are Kryptonite, OnGuard, Thule and Masterlock.

It really is important to use a lot of common sense when it comes to bike security and you should lock your bike (to something) and remove the removable items even if you leave your bike unattended for a short amount of time.

The Story Behind The Top 5 Bike Trails (Chicago Area)

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Not long ago I completed an article on the About-Bicycles site called The Top 5 Bike Trails North and Northwest of Chicago . I’ve ridden most of the major trails in this area and also did some additional research online to compare my opinions with others but it was still quite difficult to narrow this down to 5 bike trails.

I wanted to do a “best of” type of bike trail article and decided to limit the listing to 5 trails in order to keep it in a nice easily readable format. I’m glad that I completed the article but I might change the top 5 at some point and thought that I would explain some of the preferences and criteria that I used for the selections.

The Fox River Trail

The Fox River Trail

The Fox River Trail (above) was a pretty obvious choice. As with any long trail some sections are much better than others but overall this is a really nice trail! Also, for those who prefer paved trails this one is paved.My next personal favorite was the Des Planies River Trail. I really prefer long trails that I can ride all day on, if I choose and trails that are not too crowded and that do not have a lot of difficult road crossings or areas. Although this trail is crushed stone (which will turn some people off) it is a great trail.Next, I choose the Green Bay Bike Trail, The Great Western Bike Trail and the Busse Woods Bike Trail. I believe that each of these trails have something to offer to people with different preferences.

Most Popular Bike Brands Research and Updates.

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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.

Bike Type Updates

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I just did some additional research on different bike types and what seems to be the most common names. My new page can be found here: Most Common Bike Types. As usual it can be a little difficult taking a large amount of information and then reducing it to just a clear and concise summary. Well, I’ve done the best that I could. Check out the new article and see if you agree or not…

Welcome to the About-Bicycles Bike Blog.

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I’m just setting up the new bike blog right now. I’ll be moving a few of the most recent posts from the original (html version) bike blog over here next just to get a start.

I’ve actually written blogs for years but have never setup the actual blog software and page on the about-bicycles.com site.

Previously I’ve had a lot of blog posts on bike trails and rides and on updates to this site. At this point I plan to continue with these types of posts and, now that the software allows for comments from others, I’ll see how the updates evolve!

If you’ve already found this blog (April, 2009) you are one of the first visitors! I have not yet submitted the blog info to any of the blog sites yet and have just now added the links from the main bike pages.

later, Rob.