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They often have much fatter tires too which originally made me think that all these fat tire bikes bikes that I was seeing zipping down the trails were mountain bikes and I was wondering how so many people could be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…

Another Garmin Heart-Rate Strap (& some TDF stuff)

Posted on July 26, 2014 by Rob

Well I just went through another Garmin heart-rate strap this month.I love my Garmin Edge 800 gps bike computer and I also love having all my heart-rate stats integrated into my bike computer and easy to access but I have not had good luck with the Garmin heart-rate straps.

Garmin heart-rate strap on my handlebars.

I am on my 4th HR strap now. Fortunately, I was able to replace the first and second ones with the warranties from Garmin so this is really only the second one that I’ve had to buy. I have also followed the instructions and have cleaned the straps after each use and washed with soap and even in the washing machine a few times (as they suggested). Still I have had terrible luck with these things.

I have had no problems with my Garmin Edge Bike Computer or with the HR transmitter that you snap on to the strap, just with the straps themselves. Fortunately, Garmin is great with their warranties which was a factor in why I bought another Garmin strap.

When I was shopping for ANT+ heart-rate straps online the only models that kept coming up were Wahoo, Bontrager and Garmin. Wahoo might be OK but they sounded cheap to me so I was deciding between Bontrager and Garmin. Bontrager has a good name in the cycling world but their strap and transmitter sold for $65 and I could get the Garmin (strap only) for $35.

I almost got the Bontrager because I wanted to try a different brand but my budget is tight right now so I went for the cheaper strap only option from Garmin. If it goes bad before the warranty is up I’ll just get a replacement again. If it outlasts the warranty but goes bad later maybe I will try the Bontrager next time.

Before I got my gps Bike Computer I never even knew that I needed a heart-rate monitor. Now, I am so used to having my HR stats that I almost never ride without it.

BTW: I didn’t have any professional models available for the HR strap photo above so I enlisted my bike handlebars to model the HR strap and monitor.

Tour de France Updates

I thought that this would be a good time for this story since the Garmin Sharp team just won the last stage of the Tour de France yesterday. It was another wet and rainy stage yesterday and they had another pile up crash just before the finish line yesterday.

There are always some crashes in the TDF but it seems like this year has been particularly bad. Many of the top riders, including Chris Froome (one of my favorites), Alberto Contador and Andrew Talansky have all been injured and dropped out of the race.

I just looked at my last blog post here and when I posted the leaders at that time (after Stage 4) I thought that the leaders at that time would all be changing throughout the race. Surprisingly (to me anyway) Nibali is still the overall leader and wears the Yellow Jersey and Peter Sagan still wears the Green Jersey (not a big surprise there). The other top positions have all changed though.

I was hoping to see Tejay Van Garderan do well for the Good ol USA and I see that he hold the #6 position in the overall standings. Not bad. Let’s go for #1 next year though. We need another winner to help get over the Lance Armstrong disaster.

Well, today is the last real racing stage of le Tour so I’ll see how that goes (it could already be over but I do not see the broadcast until later in the day) and tomorrow will be the final stage in Paris. So after this weekend it will be au revoir to le TDF until next year. 🙁

I also just saw that Jack Bauer was in the race this year. I thought that he would just be working security 🙂 He’ll probably end up in position 24! 🙂

Tour de France, the Cobblestones of Stage 5

Posted on July 8, 2014 by Rob

Yep, summer is here and so is le Tour de France! I must admit, I got a late start watching le TDF this year and it took me a little while before I started to get totally involved in it. Well, I can say that I am totally into it again this year and I would encourage all you riders out there to tune in whenever you get a chance to see what this year’s Tour is all about.

Before I get into the details and my own take on the race so far this year, you can find the latest new, updates and winners on the 2014 TDF on the official TDF website here.

Le Tour is broadcast on the NBC Sports channel here in the US (in Chicago anyway) but keep in mind that the broadcasts are delayed after each day’s race has taken place so if you don’t want to know ahead of time who wins what, do not check out the website news until after you get a chance to see the current days’s broadcast.

So, very briefly, the 1st 3 stages were in England and the most recent stage (today) was in France. As of the end of stage 4 today, Vincenzo Nibali wears the Yellow Jersey (the rider with the lowest cumulative overall time for all stages completed), Peter Sagan wears the Green Jersey (the rider with the most points which are earned by winning various events within each stage), Cyril Lemoine wears the Polka Dot Jersey (the king of the mountain or the best climber) and Romain Bardet gets the White Jersey (the best rated young rider). Of course, this will all be out of date tomorrow!

What I really wanted to get to with this particular TDF post is that tomorrow’s stage (stage 5) is going to be very interesting with all these expensive race bikes, with their skinny tires, on the cobblestone roads of France.

I feel like I can relate to this since I have often ridden some pretty rough roads (even some cobblestone roads, I believe) with my skinny tired road bike. Of course, I am not usually riding at 30-40mph, or more, like the TDF riders!

They say that this is a very dangerous and unpredictable stage. It is probably not as scenic as the high mountain stages but it does sound like it is going to be very interesting.

I hope that you get a chance to watch at least some of this historic cycling event this year!

BTW: The photo that I included above is a close up of the TDF logo on the Proform TDF Indoor Cycle (here) that is shown in some pretty cool commercials during the TDF.

Wisconsin Bike Trails, Gazelle, Divvy Bikes and a Beautiful Day

Posted on April 21, 2014 by Rob

I got a little behind on my blog posts so I decided to cover a variety of topics that I really wanted to talk about in this post.

First off, I went up to Sparta and Cashton Wisconsin last week to visit my family and I also packed up my bike to try to hit a few bike trails while I was there. I was most interested in riding the 2 trails that connect to the Elroy-Sparta Trail to the west ~ the Lacrosse River Trail and the Great River Trail,

This turned out to be a total bust for 2 reasons. First it was cold and snowed while I was there but I also wanted to mention that, after I got there, I called Speed’s Bike Shop, which is right on the Elroy-Sparta trail to get the trail conditions and discovered that these crushed stone bike trails do not open until some time in May. The trails are still soft and moist and they try to keep them in better condition by keeping bikes off of them so early in the year. So the lesson that I learned here was that if you are planning a bike trip in Wisconsin in early spring you should call first.

The Gazelle: The next topic seemed appropriate for the cold, snowy weather on my Wisconsin trip but a little out of season based on the weather that we had yesterday (Easter Sunday). Since I have ridden and reviewed so many exercise bikes for this site and have also used and reviewed a number of treadmills on my new treadmilll website, www.treadmillereviews.com I am always interested in the various aerobic fitness equipment that I am able to check out.

It turns out that my brother got a Gazelle workout machine recently and I saw it parked in the corner and decided to check it out.

These workout machines are very economical ~ they usually only cost about $130, new, for a basic model ~ and you can get a pretty good aerobic workout on them.

I only did about a 10 minute workout and, since I had my bike computer and heart-rate transmitter, I checked out my HR and saw that I got it up to about 80% of my max HR in that 10 min workout. What I noticed the next day is that my calves were sore so it seems like this machine gives your calves a pretty good workout.

The main downside to this machine, like almost any indoor fitness equipment, is the repetitive motion and that it can get pretty boring if you do not have anything to keep you entertained. My brother had some music playing on his PC so that helped and I usually like to have a tv around to help with the boredom factor too.

Although most indoor aerobic fitness equipment has pretty repetitive motion, I think that I like the motion of exercise bikes, treadmills and elliptical trainers a little better than the motion of the Gazelle (which seems a little like cross country skiing). The advantage that the Gazelle has is that it is so economical and it does not take up much space when it is setup for use and even less space when folded up and moved out of the way.

Divvy Bike in Chicago (and our car in the background)

Divvy Bikes in Chicago: My final topic for today has to do with those light blue Divvy bikes that you can rent in Chicago. As I mentioned earlier in this post it was a Beautiful Day yesterday here in Chicagoland and my wife was in the city, rented a Divvy bike (for a 24 hour period) and took quite a few trips around the city for just $7!!!

The Divvy bike rental system is really designed to be used for commuting and quick trips around the city but if you know how to work the system (as my wife discovered) they can also be used for some economical touring and site seeing.

If you do not have an annual membership then the minimum time that you can get a pass for is 24 hours. This costs $7.00 as I mentioned above. The problem is that you must return the bike to one of the many docking stations within 1/2 hour or pay an additional fee ($2 for 60 min, $6 for 90 min). The additional fee is not even all that bad but the costs could add up if you kept the bike out of the docking stations for too long.

Chicago Lakefront Trail downtown

The 30 minute time limit for the docking stations can be a hassle but since there are so many docking stations it is possible to check in to a docking station after 30 minutes then just check the same bike back out again and move on to the next station.

My wife even took a little ride on the popular Chicago Lakefront Trail. I am not sure, however, if you would be able to cover a lot of ground on this trail using a Divvy bike.

Overall, the Divvy Bike System seems like it can be a pretty cool option to have when you are downtown and if it meets your needs at the time.

Well, that’s it for my blog topics for today. Sorry for the blog backup and long combination topic post. I’ll try to keep these posts coming more regularly ~ especially now that we are fully in outdoor riding season!

The End of an Era ~ Livestrong Nostalgia

Posted on December 31, 2013 by Rob

Here’s a little nostalgic fitness bike story for New Year’s Eve although I wish it had a better ending.

As I was checking the latest prices on the fitness bikes reviewed on this website this week I discovered that almost all of the Livestrong bikes on the Livestrong website now say that they are “Sold in Canada Only” and most of the Livestrong bikes at Amazon are out of stock or no longer available.

When I looked into this further I found out that Johnson Fitness (the maker of Livestrong Fitness products) will no longer be coming out any new Livestrong products and once the existing stock of these products online and in stores are sold out they will no longer be available.

This is, of course, all due to the Lance Armstrong disaster that happened earlier this year. Although the Livestrong Foundation and Livestrong Fitness has cut all ties to Lance Armstrong the brand has been seriously hurt by his situation and consequently Livestrong Fitness products will no longer be produced.

This is a sad situation for the brand since the Livestrong Fitness Bikes were (and still are if you can find them) very good products and Johnson Fitness also made significant contributions to the Livestrong Foundation from the sale of these products.

We have had a number of Livestrong Bikes on our “Best Buy” page over the years but I have had to remove the latest models due to the limited (and sporadic) availability. The most recent Livestrong Best Buys on this site were the Livestrong LS6.0R Recumbent and Livestrong LS5.0U Upright. At the time of this blog post these 2 bikes are available on Amazon at a reduced price but they were unavailable yesterday so their availability seems to be quite sporadic.

Johnson Fitness will, of course, still honor their warranties on all Livestrong fitness products for the full term of the warranties (Johnson Health Tech, the parent company for Livestrong fitness products, is a very reputable company and they are not going away (just the Livestrong brand)).

One of the contacts that I have at Livestrong told me that the Livestrong brand still sells well in Canada which is why they are still selling them there. I guess that the Canadians were not let down with the Lance Armstrong doping scandal as much as those of us in the USA were.

Livestrong LS28IC Lance Armstrong tribute bike.

It was so cool for us to have a 7 time Tour de France winner here in the US until we were all let down by Lance Armstrong finally telling the truth about his drug use during his yellow jersey, TDF winning days.

As a matter of fact, back when Lance was still a hero, Livestrong even produced a high-end, limited edition indoor cycle, the LS28IC Indoor Cycle that was all about Lance and his 7 TDF victories. This was a very well made, commercial quality indoor cycle with drop down handlebars that was very popular with the visitors on this website. The people that purchased this indoor cycle got a very good bike and I suppose it might even be some kind of collector’s item at this point.

Although Johnson Fitness (officially Johnson Health Tech) will not be coming out with new Livestrong fitness products they still continue to produce other commercial and in-home fitness products. The high-quality in-home brands that are still made by JHT include AFG and Horizon.

I was fortunate to be able to review and ride the latest Horizon Fitness Bikes at Johnson Fitness’s headquarters in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin on my last visit there this past summer. I was very impressed with their latest Upright Bike, the Horizon Comfort-U and their latest Recumbent bike the Horizon Comfort-R. Both of these bikes are now available online and at a 10% discount on the Horizon website if you use the discount code “about10” available only from this website.

Another nice thing about the Horizon website is that they just revised the site to use a responsive, mobile friendly design ~ like this website 🙂 ~ so those of you that use your phones and tablet computers to surf the internet will find these sites easy to read and navigate without having to resize the screen or scroll back and forth ~ I am still amazed at how many other sites are still not mobile ready.

So there you have our last blog post and news story for 2013. Here’s to hoping you all have a safe, healthy and Happy New Year!!! Cheers!

2013 Tour of Elk Grove, Photos and Ride Story

Posted on August 9, 2013 by Rob

Well, the Tour of Elk Grove (TOEG) professional, intermediate and entry level bike races have come and gone once again until next year. I was a little disappointed this year that, personally, I was only able to make it to one race ~ the Prologis Pro Men Road Race (Stage 2) which was held on Saturday, August 3rd.

Tour of Elk Grove, Sharp Turn off Ridge Road

For those of you who may not be familiar with this event, it is a 3 day cycling race event, In Elk Grove Village, Illinois, that includes professional riders from around the world competing for large cash prizes along with intermediate races, amateur races and even a Big Wheel Race for the kids (along with quite a few other activities). The race is held on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the beginning of August (this year’s race was August 2-4).

I have included more information on the event, plenty of photos ~ and a link to the official Tour Of Elk Grove website ~ on our main Tour of Elk Grove page here.

I was actually able to attend all 3 days of the event last year (2012) but, as I mentioned above, I was only able to make it to one race this year :-(. I did however bring my camera, of course, took quite a few photos and have selected and posted the 2013 Tour of Elk Grove Photos here.

I think that this is a really fun and interesting event for anyone into biking (not just racers) as well as people who may not even be into biking all that much (I guess there are people like that out there 🙂 ). There is a lot going on, plenty of interesting people and the races can be pretty entertaining and exciting.

The other thing that I like about the races is that they are a Great Photo Op. Lots of action and colorful scenes. Both years that I attended this event, I have met and talked with other photographers (it’s a very casual environment). In some cases, the other photographers have attended the TOEG for multiple years and have given me some very helpful photography hints.

Wide-Angle view of Tour of Elk Grove Racers

I probably shouldn’t even mention this, because I would still like people to check out the 2013 TOEG photos that I linked to above and I think some of them came out pretty well, but I actually screwed up a little on one thing this year. I used Aperture Priority for all of my photos this year instead of using Shutter Priority with a faster shutter speed (or even the pre-programmed sports mode) for the action shots.

I think I was more focused last year 🙂 and I used the faster shutter speeds for most of the shots. This year, I guess I just wasn’t using my brain cell. Like I say, I still did get some good shots so please check out the 2013 photos if you get a chance.

As for the Ride Story part of this post, one of the reasons that I was not able to attend all 3 days and more of the races, as I did last year, was because we are sharing our vehicles more this year and I was not able to use our van to drive my bike to the TOEG and leave it parked there all 3 days so I ended up riding to and from the TOEG on my bike.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I used Google Maps to help me check out my route ahead of time and it actually worked out very well. I knew that there were bike trails, sidewalks along the busier roads that I needed to take and ways to get over or under the interstates that I needed to cross. The place that I thought would be the most difficult (near Woodfield shopping mall) was the most difficult, as expected, but I still managed to find a pretty safe route past that location.

Once I past Woodfield, I took the bike trail that goes under route 53 (or Interstate 290) and right to the Busse Woods Bike Trail. I then took the bike trail through the southern part of Busse Woods (by all the lakes) and up to Arlington Heights Road where I crossed and was right at the Tour of Elk Grove.

My entire ride, to and from the TOEG and my ride at the TOEG, was only a little over 22 miles but it still takes more time to get there and get back then when you are able to drive there.

I am a little bit of a stats nerd and I just checked my mileage on the Garmin site. I see that my mileage at the Tour of Elk Grove (not counting getting there and back) was 3.4 miles. This brings up the next topic that I also wanted to mention.

I have found it to be very convenient to have my bike at the TOEG (rather than having to walk everywhere when I am there). I tried to get photos at a number of different locations this year and having my bike made it possible to get to and photograph the race in different places.

I also wanted to mention that the Tour of Elk Grove is televised locally on Comcast Sports Network (CSN Chicago) about a month later so it should be on at the beginning of September.

OK, that’s about it for now. I hope some of you who live in the area were able to make it out to the Tour this year. If not, maybe we’ll see you there next year.

Later, Rob.

le Tour Ends… The Tour to Begin Soon…

Posted on July 22, 2013 by Rob

As many of you already know, the final stage and award presentations for the le Tour de France was held yesterday (7/21/2013) which wraps up this year’s race. I watched most of the stages of this year’s race on TV and still love watching. I am disappointed that it is over but it would not be so special if it were on all the time.

le 2013 Tour de France ends

I was glad to see Chris Froom win the yellow jersey this year especially after his sacrifice in taking 2nd place in the overall standings of last year’s race. There were times it looked like he could have even won the 2012 TDF but instead put his support and effort into helping his teammate Bradley Wiggins to take the win. At any rate it’s been a very good 2 years for the Brits in the TDF.

Being from the “left side of the pond” I was hoping to see the Americans take some stages or maybe a jersey but that did not happen this year. TeJay Van Garderan (last year’s white jersey winner) looked like he had stage 18 won, and I was holding my breath at the end until he was over taken by the French rider Christophe Riblon and ended up taking 2nd place for the day. I guess our French hosts needed a win but it would have been nice for a win for us too. We also had a great showing from American rider, Andrew Talansky who took 10th place in the overall standings.

Of course, you can get all the detailed stats on a number of websites including the official www.letour.fr site but I just wanted to mention some of the results and things that I found to be interesting.

As for myself, I really love the high mountain stages, like the last few stages in the Alps this year. The scenery is beautiful, the riders really work hard getting to the top of each mountain and the descents are fast (dangerous) and exciting. The fans can also be entertaining especially towards the tops of the mountains where they all gather (some of them in costumes) and barely give the riders room to pass and often run alongside the riders. Of course, some of the fans can over do it too and I have seen many of the riders pushing fans aside to get through (which looks frustrating).

As I mentioned before “le Tour” began this year, Proform had come out with a new version of their popular indoor cycle ~ the Proform Centennial TDF Bike ~ and I noticed, through my website traffic stats, that this indoor cycle has been very popular this year.

As for the second part of this blog post title above ~ The Tour to Begin Soon ~ you probably noticed the big difference is “le Tour” (i.e. the French version) vs “The Tour” (i.e. the English version) and the Tour that I am referring to is The Tour of Elk Grove, for those of us who live in the Chicagoland area or for those who may be visiting us in the beginning of August.

The Tour of Elk Grove to Begin Soon

The Pro Races at the Tour of Elk Grove (TOEG) are actually major international bike races sponsored by Alexian Brothers Hospital and recognized by the UCI (Union Cycliste Internationale, based in Switzerland) but there are also amateur races and plenty of other activities to keep you entertained (if you get bored with the races… what!).

This event will start on Friday (8/2/2013) and run through Sunday (8/4/2013). You don’t want to miss this and you can check out all the details on the official TOEG website at www.tourofelkgrove.com.

This event is also televised locally on Comcast Sports Network (CSN Chicago) usually about a month after the event is held. I will try to post the dates of the broadcast ahead of time this year as I did last year.

One of the things that I noticed on the TOEG site for this years event is that Bob Roll is scheduled to announce this years races!!! This is the famous “Bobke” (as he is called) who is one of the main Tour de France TV announcers.

I attended this event on all 3 days last year and it was a lot of fun and a great photo op for those of you into photography. You can see our photos of the 2012 TOEG on our 2012 Tour of Elk Grove pages.

Summer Begins… and so does the 2013 Tour de France!

Posted on June 28, 2013 by Rob

One of the events that signals that summer is officially here, for me, is the opening of le Tour de France. So I just had to post a quick reminder here that the Tour de France bike race begins this Saturday, June 29th (tomorrow) and runs through Sunday, July 21st.

This is also the 100th year that cyclists have competed in le Tour de France. Yes, this is the centennial edition of this historical bike race. The first Tour de France was actually in 1903 but there were 10 years that the race was not held due to WW1 and WW2.

This years race will be 3,404 kilometers or 2,115 miles (for those of us on the west side of the pond). So this would seem like a nice little cycling vacation in Europe… except for the intense competition, the mountains and pace of the rides :-). Yea, it is incredible how intense this race is and I am always impressed by the condition of the riders that are in it.

I am not a racer myself but I think that anyone that enjoys cycling can easily get into this event. I enjoy the competition of the race but there is really a lot more to it than just that. I also really like the scenery of the race, as it winds through France, the beautiful mountain ranges and into the other bordering countries.

I am hoping that the good old USA can win some jerseys this year but now that Lance has been disqualified we have only ever had one American to win the Yellow Jersey (Greg LeMond, of course).

I am not going to get into all of the race history and details here since you can find that info on so many other websites. I just wanted to post a reminder that le Tour starts tomorrow (Saturday, June 29th). So check your local TV listings and check in on it occasionally. I know I’ll be watching and I think many of you new comers may find this race pretty interesting and exciting.

One final note, I just discovered that Proform has come out with a new version of the popular Proform TDF Indoor Cycle to coincide with the start of the 2013 Tour de France race. Proform introduced it’s original high tech TDF indoor cycle at the start of the 2011 Tour de France and has been improving on it since then. This years model is called the TDF Centennial and you can find out what is new with this bike on our Proform TDF Review page. I will be doing a little more research on this model and posting a separate blog post on it at a later date.

For now… check those TV listings and enjoy this year’s Tour de France!

2013 Bike Trail and Cycling Events Calendar

Posted on December 11, 2012 by Rob

I’ve just completed putting together the 2013 Bike Trail and Cycling Events Calendar and have also updated our Cycling Events Page with the 2013 dates for many major cycling events and rides in the Chicagoland area and Midwest in general.

I just discovered that many people start looking for the next year’s calendar right after Thanksgiving so I hope I’m not too late in getting this together. I know there will still be people looking for a 2013 Calendar through out December and especially just before and after New Years Day.

This calendar is available in PDF and Excel formats and is designed so that each month will fit on one standard ~ 8.5″x11″ ~ size sheet of paper.

I think that the PDF and Excel formats give you a lot of flexibility with viewing online, downloading and viewing on your computer or other devices or to print (one month at a time or all 12 months at once) if you would like a hardcopy.

Personally, I like to have a hardcopy version of the calendar that I hang on my wall. You may not get the same quality, depending on your printing capabilities, as you would with a store bought calendar but there are some nice bike trail and cycling related photos and the calendar includes US holidays and cycling events in the Midwest in the body of the calendar.

You can use this calendar for quick references, for easily printing a specific month on a standard size sheet of paper or you can print all 12 months in high quality, on fancy paper and bind together in a variety of ways. That part is completely up to you. I am just trying to provide an handy and easy to use calendar (related to cycling of course).

The photos on this years calendar were all taken this year and include photos from bike trails in the Chicagoland area and the Midwest and cycling events in our area such as the MB Financial Bike the Drive (on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago) and the Tour or Elk Grove professional bike racing event.

You can find more information and the 2013 cycling calendars on the 2013 Bike Trails and Events Calendar Page here.

I have also spent some time looking up the dates for many of the major cycling rides and events in our area and have included the 2013 dates and links to the websites that sponsor these events on our Special Cycling Events Page.

Well, here’s to a Happy 2013 and a lot of enjoyable cycling miles and activities!

Lance Armstrong Mess and Livestrong Exercise Bikes

Posted on November 28, 2012 by Rob

It really is a shame about this whole Lance Armstrong Mess. Personally, I still want to believe that the doping charges are not true and I wish that he would have fought to prove that the accusations were not true. Unfortunately, Lance chose not to fight and his downfall is now history (fairly recent history anyway).

There are many things that bother me about this whole situation but I want to focus on is the things that I am the most familiar with and on trying to preserve the good things (that can be preserved) that Lance has been involved with (outside of racing).

I think that most people that are familiar with Lance Armstrong know about his fight with and recovery from cancer and that he founded the Livestrong foundation to help cancer patients, promote healthy living and to help fight cancer.

If you have seen the recent news stories about Lance not fighting the latest doping allegations, being banned from professional cycling and being stripped of his 7 Tour de France wins, then you may also know that Lance Armstrong has stepped down as chairman of the Livestrong foundation (as well as being dropped from most, if not all, of his previous sponsors).

My concern, even though Lance has stepped down as chairman of the Livestrong foundation, is the potential harm that could be done to this organization since it was founded by Lance and has had such a close relationship to him for so many years. I mean even the name “Livestrong” still sounds like it is connected with the fallen cyclist.

I know that the Livestrong foundation has done a lot of good things in recent years and I really hope that they can continue their good work without a lot of damage or fall out from the Lance Armstrong demise.

The other thing that I am familiar with and that is very relevant to this website is Livestrong Exercise Bikes and Indoor Cycles. These fitness products are produced by Johnson Health Tech in Cottage Grove, Wisconsin. This company had made quality fitness products long before they partnered with the Livestrong foundation and continues to make quality products under the Livestrong brand name as well as other brand names (Horizon Fitness, AFG, Matrix, Vision Fitness…).

Livestrong LS28IC Limited Edition Indoor Cycle

My concern here is that, if the Livestrong brand name gets a bad reputation, this could cause problems for Johnson Health Tech and the sale of their quality Livestrong products as well as the Livestrong foundation.

I had met with some of the managers and product specialists at Johnson Health Tech in Wisconsin a little over a year ago which is one of the reasons why I am so familiar with the company and many of its products (specifically the fitness bikes).

I have not actually spoken to them recently about the effects of the Lance Armstrong “mess” (as I called it in the first sentence of this post) but I know that the sales of Livestrong Fitness Bikes (indirectly) from this site in November are about 1/10th of what they were last year so that is not a good sign.

Last year, at this time, Livestrong was still selling the Limited Edition LS28IC Indoor Cycle (pictured above) that totally celebrated Lance Armstrong’s achievements in addition to providing a generous donation to the Livestrong foundation for each sale of this bike.This was a limited edition bike and has been sold out for quite some time now which is probably good since I’m not sure how it would sell these days ~ who knows, maybe it would be even more popular. 😐

I don’t think that all this negative publicity about Lance is good for Livestrong brand fitness products but I have noticed that you can get their Exercise Bikes and Indoor Cycles (Spin Bikes) at lower prices these days on Amazon where they were rarely marked down in the past.

The following Livestrong bikes have had price reductions at Amazon recently:

Many of these bikes have been on our Best Buys list which is another indication of the quality of these products.

I know that there has already been a lot of stuff written about the Lance Armstrong news but I had to post what I’ve been thinking and concerned about and, of course, the Livestrong Fitness Bike information that is so relevant to this website.

Previously, I had a blurb on the LS9.9IC page about how Lance Armstrong had endorsed this Spin Bike and just now I jumped on the bandwagon and removed my LA endorsement comments from that page (which was a sad change to make).

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