River Bend, Randall Road and Great Western Trail Ride

Posted on August 23, 2011 by Rob

Yesterday, a friend and I went out and explored some new bike trails (which also connected to some bike trails that we had already ridden before) and had a really nice 35 mile ride.

I originally wanted to check out the Randall Road Bike Trail but it is actually a pretty short trail (4 miles) but what we discovered is that this is an excellent way to ride from the Fox River Trail to the Great Western Trail!

The other trail involved in getting from the FRT to the GWT is the River Bend Trail which is also known as the Silver Glen Trail. It is a little confusing since I have seen this trail referred to with 2 different names so I just referred to both names so people can find the info on it using either name.

The bridge over Randall Road on the River Bend (Silver Glen) Bike Trail

If you start on the Fox River Trail just before the long bridges in South Elgin, you’ll see a sign for the “Randall & Silver Glen Trails“. This is the River Bend Trail (as it is called on the map in the forest preserve that you go through). Some of this bike trail goes along Silver Glen Road so I believe that is how the SGT name came about.

Anyway, if you get on the River Bend Trail from the Fox River Trail, you can follow the trail all the way to Randall Road. At Randall Road you can get on the north end of the Randall Road Trail which you can then take south the the Great Western Trail.

We connected to the GWT, as described above, and then took the GWT to Virgil, Illinois where we turned around and went back. I actually put together some bike trail pages, with photos for the River Bend Trail HERE.

The River Bend Trail is nice as you go through the John J Duerr Forest Preserve and if you take it through the wetland area west of Randall Road but the part that goes along Silver Glen Road is not that exciting.

A view of the northern end of the Randall Road Trail from the corn field

The Randall Road Trail is not very exciting either when you first get on at the northern end of the trail (at Silver Glen & Randall) but once you go over the long bridge (that runs parallel to Randall Road), it goes into a nice forest preserve area, followed by a real nice prairie and then you connect to the Great Western Trail (which I have always enjoyed).

There was no construction or detours on any of the trails that I have mentioned above and overall it was a really nice ride.

Fox River Bike Trail Conditions – 2011

Posted on July 26, 2011 by Rob

Fox River Trail Closed sign before the tunnel

Well we finally got out to the Fox River Trail this past weekend so I can post an update of the trail conditions from Dundee to Aurora.

There were 2 sections of the trail that were closed. The first section was at the Tunnel/Bridge where the Fox River Trail connects to the Illinois Prairie Path (just South of Elgin).

This section has been closed for years now! A large part of the trail has been washed out right at the tunnel and there is a steep drop off from the pavement. I don’t know why they can’t manage to get this repaired!

If you do go around the “trail closed” signs (and I can not recommend that here, of course) you REALLY NEED TO BE CAREFUL AT THE TUNNEL.

Fox River Trail at the Washout

The other section of the trail that was closed off made absolutely no sense to me at all! This is the section just north of the bridge in South Elgin. We went around the signs and proceeded cautiously. Other than the path being in terrible shape and having a lot of large bumps in the pavement it was just fine.

I think that having these sections closed off causes more problems due to people getting accustom to going around the “trail closed” signs which could have more serious consequences when there is a legitimate need to close the trial

Other than those two sections, the trail was clear with no major problems from Dundee to Aurora (a 55 mile round trip for us).

One really nice improvement (for me since I had not been on the trail this year) is that they finally finished the Stearns Road Bridge project!

They have also built a Bike Repair Station at the part right before the bridge in south Elgin. This is actually pretty cool but I think that they missed out on one important feature. It is not very obvious that it is there and there is NO SIGN that says that there is a bike repair station there. This can easily be overlooked!

Anyway, at the repair station they have an air pump and tools that are attached to cables. The pump was already a little beat up but it still worked and the tools were all still functional. So if you have a bike problem and can make it to the bridge in South Elgin, you will have some tools available there.

I’ve added a few photos of the new bridge and the bike repair station on the related Fox River Bike Trail Photo Page.

And one final note, which has more to do with our ride than with the Fox River Trail conditions, is that we took a little time to get some photos of the Fabyan Windmill in Geneva, which I had not previously had posted on this site.

Since this is such an obvious landmark along the Fox River Trail, I selected and posted a page with a few of the Fabyan Windmill Photos here.

Bike Trails, Photos and Magazine Article in Competitor Magazine

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Rob

Competitor Magazine May 2011 - Cover Photo Competitor Group, Inc.

First off, I want to thank all of you out there that have visited the bike trail pages on this site and have made these pages and photos so popular (Google knows about this stuff, of course). The bike trail pages (Chicago area) get a very large amount of website traffic.

Busse Woods Photo in May 2011 issue of Competitor magazine

Next, I wanted to mention that I had another bike trail photo posted in another hard copy magazine. I believe that this is a national magazine and it is distributed at sports shops, running stores and cycling stores.

The magazine is called Competitor and the photo from this site was published in the May 2011 issue with an article about Busse Woods on page 68. The Busse Woods Photo that was published is on the right and you can see the Busse Woods Bike Trail page and Photos here.

Unfortunately, I did not have my original digital copies of the photos of this trail when the writer asked for them so I had to send them the smaller versions that I had posted on the website. When they published the article they only included one photo and it was very small. I joked with friends how you would need a magnifying glass to see it. OK, it wasn’t really that small, but I really wish that I had the original digital copy!

After this article I was trying to remember the other bike trail articles and photos that were published in hard copy magazines and decided to put together a list for future reference. Here are the magazine articles published from this site (so far):

Competitor Magazine – May 2011 issue, Small photo only of Busse Woods
Way of the Wilds – Autumn 2010 Issue, An article about biking the Fox River Trail North – Edited and called “Places to Play” – got us a visit to Bill Kurtis’ House! (There is another blog entry about this one also).
Family Time Magazine June 2010 issue An article that I interviewed for for a local freebie magazine. “Bicycling, Just You and Your Family”
North Shore Magazine – June 2007 issue, Photo only – Green bay Trail

Oh yea, another fellow cyclist, Dale Kiffel, who has contributed articles and quite a few photos to this site, has also gotten quite popular on our local weather channel (NBC (channel 5) in Chicago) and has had his 3 nature photos selected and broadcast with the weather segment of the NBC news in Chicago.

So I hope you enjoy the articles out here and even our (getting more popular) photos!

The Jane Addams Bike Trail and Flashback to October.

Posted on February 26, 2011 by Rob

Well, it’s been a while and we are already pretty much into the 2011 bike riding season already but I just completed the bike trail pages for the Jane Addams Bike Trail from the trip and photos that I took back in October.

I wrote a short blog entry back in October when we did this ride but never got a change to finish the official bike trail pages and photo pages on this website for this trail. Well, I finally got the photos and pages up and you can see them now at: The Jane Addams Bike Trail.

Jane Addams Bike Trail Pages - About-Bicycles.com

I enjoyed this trail quite a bit but I didn’t have as many photos to choose from as I would liked to have had but I managed to find a few pretty good ones that I think capture the feel of the trail on that cool October ride.

We also continued our trip on the connecting Badger State Trail but I did not write that up or post those photos yet because I actually wanted to do separate trail pages for that bike trail. I would also like to ride the rest of the Badger State Trail so I have a good feel for it and complete set of photos.

I have seen that there is a pretty cool looking tunnel on the trail and that it goes all the way into Madison. I guess I have some trail riding work cut out for me! Well, someone has to do it. 🙂

Actually, with the rock walls of the Jane Addams Trail and the Tunnel on the Badger State Trail, they kind of remind me a little of the Elroy-Sparta Trail up in Wisconsin.

I know that there are gaps, but I keep hoping that one day most of these major trails will be connected and that I could ride from my house, in the Chicago suburbs, to the Mississippi river around Lacrosse, Wis.!

Well, i don’t think that’s possible yet (on trails anyway), but maybe someday.

2011 Bike Trail Calendar and Free Calendar Generator

Posted on January 9, 2011 by Rob

I am a little late on this, since we are already into the 9th day of the new year, but I needed a new wall calendar at home and I usually generate my own each year.

For 2011 I have generated a Bike Trails and Events Calendar, in PDF and Excel formats that I am offering on this site for free. I just finished the web page with the Excel and PDF Bike Calendar Links.

See Bike Trail and Events Calendar for a PDF or Excel copy of the calendar. Both versions of the calendar include 1 page per month. The calendar includes the standard US holidays for each month and a Bike Trail photo on top (or you can choose the pre-made generic calendar with no bike trail photo).

Since I am so late on this, I have only included 1 Chicago bike trail event (so far) which is the Bike The Drive event. I will probably add events to this calendar through out the year so if you know of events that would fit this format, please send the event and date to me.

In addition to the pre-made calendars (with bike trail photos (Illinois and Wisconsin)) and the generic calendar (no photos), I am also offering the Calendar Generator program which is an Excel VBA program that allows you to generate a calendar (with or without photos) for any year that you select, with standard US holidays and customized events that you can enter yourself.

The PDF version is probably the easiest version. The Excel (no macro) version is a little more complicated but allows more customization (you can replace the photos with your own) and the Excel VBA Calendar Generator version is the most complex but allows the most flexibility.

I don’t want to make it sound like any of these are that complex or difficult to use but there are quite a few people out there with many levels of PC expertise. I’ve tried to keep options available from very simple to more complex and powerful.

Well, if you are in need of a 2011 calendar, I hope that some of you find the calendars and programs offered here to be helpful.

Now we can at least have some bike trail photos on the calendar to remind us of riding season all year long even when we can’t be out there on the trails! Have fun!

Once again the link for the calendar programs is: Bike Trail and Events Calendar

Jane Addams and Badger State Bike Trail Ride

Posted on October 4, 2010 by Rob

The days may be getting shorter but bike riding season is not over yet!

A friend of mine and I went out yesterday to explore some new trails and found the Jane Addams Bike Trail (starting at the southern end near Freeport, Il (west of Rockford) and rode north to the Badger State Trail (which connects to the Jane Addams Bike Trail at the Wisconsin border) and then on to Monroe Wisconsin! So I guess you could say that we were on the Bike Interstate!

Rock Walls along Jane Addams Bike Trail

It was cool on Saturday but still an excellent day for a ride. I brought my camera and got some photos but I haven’t had a chance to put together an official “trail page” on this site yet but I hope to do that real soon. I did do a little research on the Internet on both the Jane Addams Trail and on Jane Addams the person and I found that to be very interesting.

As for the bike trail itself and our ride, we did 20 miles each way (40 total) and the trail is a very packed down crushed stone and/or dirt in most places. You can tell that it is a popular place for snowmobiles in the winter.

The trail was out in the country and very scenic. Lots of wooden bridges crossing over wandering streams. This is another rails to trails project and there are many signs that you are riding on a converted railway. There are also a few passages through some fairly high rock walls as in the photo above.

If you don’t like crowded trails, then this is a great trail for you! We did not see a single other person on the trail for about 8 or 9 miles and then we only saw a few other riders, walkers and joggers total.

As for the trail conditions, the trail was totally dry and clear from the trail head in the south (around Freeport) to Monroe, Wisconsin. There were a few holes in the trail that you needed to watch out for and some of those seed ball like things (the size of baseballs) that I had to dodge a few times, but that was about it as far as obstructions go.

Scenic View from the Jane Addams Bike Trail (photo by Dale Kiffel)

Well, I’ll try to get a “more proper trail page” with the rest of the photos out here asap but I guess this blog entry will have to do for now.

And on another topic, I contributed a bike trail article for a start up magazine a few weeks ago which earned me the right to meet the Chicago area CBS news person Bill Curtis at his house this weekend! That was really quite interesting and I’ll have more to say on that later, but I’ll save that for the next post.

Stop back soon.

Kenosha Bike Trail Ride

Posted on July 18, 2010 by Rob

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.

Daisies Along the Bike Trail Photos.

Posted on June 3, 2010 by Rob

This should probably just fall under the “just my rides” post but I wanted to include one of my photos here and I can’t do that (easily) in a reply.

Daisies Along the Paul Douglas Bike Trail

Anyway, it’s a beautiful spring day here today in Chicagoland and I just took a really nice ride with a friend (mostly in Inverness) and on the way back home I managed to get some photos of some of the many daisies along side of the Paul Douglas Bike Trail.

I had noticed that there were quite a few daisies along the trail and wanted to play flower photographer on some nice day. Well, I guess today was the day!

I am only an average photographer (even though I really like photography) but I did get a few nice photos. My biggest regret is that I didn’t get my photos before they groomed the trail and mowed down all the daisies that were within 2 or 3 feet of the trail.

It really looked cool when the daisies came right up to the trail. I am glad that they keep the trail maintained but I wish that I would have gotten the photos before they mowed.

We can’t always “stop to smell the roses” but maybe we can “ride and enjoy the daisies”.

Anyway, here is the Paul Douglas Bike Trail Daisy Photo Page that I just posted if you are interested in checking it out. I also created a link to this page from the main Paul Douglas Bike Trail page (I originally called this the Algonquin Road Trail before the main Paul Douglas part of the trail was complete).

Illinois Bike Trail Flooding.

Posted on May 14, 2010 by Rob

I just took a ride on the Paul Douglas Bike Trail and found that it has flooded once again on the west side along Huntington/Freeman road. This page has some photos and updates if you are interested in the latest conditions on this trail (also see this blog post).

I also just took a trip to WIU in Macomb and I noticed a LOT OF FLOODING the whole way. Basically, the lakes, rivers and streams in a lot of Illinois are very high or flooding right now.

I know from past experience that if my local trail (the Paul Douglas trail) is flooded, then I’m sure there is some flooding on the Des Plaines River Trail(DPRT) too. The DPRT is very close to the Des Plaines river and has highway underpasses that flood pretty often when the river is high.

The Fox River Trail (FRT) is mostly up a little higher and away from the river enough to where I have not run into flooding problems on that trail before myself.

I’ll add more updates as I ride these trails, but if any of you out there reading this blog have been out to any bike trails with flooding (or by the rivers that aren’t flooded), Id really appreciate a comment to this post for updates.

Thanks, Rob.

Fox River Bike Trail Conditions 2010

Posted on April 15, 2010 by Rob

I just checked out the construction on the FRT in South Elgin and am starting this blog post for the Fox River Trail conditions for 2010 even though I have not ridden the rest of the trail yet this year.

FRT Construction in South Elgin

I knew that the South Elgin construction was a major event on the trail so I wanted to check that out before planning any log trips on the FRT.

I ended up taking quite a few photos and had quite a bit of additional information so I created a new page with the updates and photos (see the link below).

There is quite a bit of information at the page/link below and in the 2009 FRT Bike Trail Conditions in this blog so I’m not going to rewrite all of that here but I do want to have this post available for additional updates on the Fox River Trail conditions.

I’ll be updating post this as I ride more of the trail this year but if anyone else has updates on the FRT conditions, please feel free to add comments.

For the Stearns Road Bridge construction information and photos see: The Fox River Trail South Elgin Construction