Monthly Archives: May 2009

Des Plaines River Trail is Ready for Riding Season.

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This is just a quick update to let you know that the Des Plaines River Bike Trail (the lake county end) is ready for riding season.

I just talked to my friend who rides this trail quite often and he told me that the underpasses are all open and the trail is all passable.

Since this is a trail along the river, it has been known to flood fairly often when we have a lot of rain. As of today, the lower shadier areas have a few puddles now but the sunny open areas are even a little dry and dusty already.

Algonquin Road / Paul Douglas Bike Trail Updates – Photos and Videos

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It was a beautiful day yesterday so I got out to the Algonquin Road / Paul Douglas Crabtree bike trail and got photos of the new section (around Paul Douglas Forest Preserve) and got videos of most of the trail.

First of all I just did a quick update on the Algonquin Road trail page on the flooding problems. As of yesterday, there was no flooding. I didn’t see where they did any improvements so I think that it just dried up and could flood again the next time that we get wet conditions.

I also just discovered that they added another 1.2 mile extension to the other end of the trail! At the western end of the bike trail (where it used to end at Penny Road) it now goes through the forest preserve north to Dundee Road and ends at the Crabtree Nature Center (which, unfortunately has a “no bikes” allowed sign).

I have been wanting to get photos of the new section of trail around the Paul Douglas Forest Preserve and managed to get quite a few pictures yesterday. This part of the trail is still brand new (as of last year) so the grass hasn’t even come in completely yet. I also got photos of the new section of the trail from Penny Road to the Crabtree Nature center.

I have not had a chance to review the photos (and video) and format the web pages yet but I hope to get to that fairly soon and update the ART trail page.

As I’ve written in other blog posts, that I have been wanting to get some bike trail videos up on the website to enhance the bike trail photo sections. Since this trail is the closest bike trail to where I live, I started with this one.

I learned a couple of biking photo/video lessons yesterday. First of all, I was trying to do the photos and bike trail video at the same time. This did not work out well at all. It is already a little difficult to do bike trail photos or videos while riding (or stopping periodically) but to try to do both at the same time was just way too much!

I also had a camera and camcorder strapped to me. This does not work out all that well either. I am going to check into either getting still photos from the camcorder or videos from the digital camera or I’ll just make separate trips (when possible) for photos and videos.

At any rate, I did get both photos and a video of the bike trail. I am hoping that I got some good shots but I think that the quality of both the photos and video might not be as good as it could have been if I had just focused on photos or the video seperately.

I should be able to get the photos posted fairly soon but the website bike trail video production is new for me so that will take a little more time. I will be getting to these photo and video updates ASAP though!

I am not a Bike Thief!

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But I could have been… OK, here’s the story: I bought a cheap bike for my son to use at college this year and locked it to the bike rack in front of his dorm when we dropped him off last fall. He ended up getting a skateboard and never even used the bike. He also lost the combination to the lock!

The bike was left out all year and we just went to pick him up from school yesterday. We still didn’t have the combination so I brought a hack saw, some sheet metal cutters and other tools with me in case I had a problem with the lock.

I didn’t want to waste a lot of time getting permission to cut the lock so I thought that I would just give it a try and if campus security came by, well, I’d just have to explain and beg for mercy (it’s the “easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission” theory).

So I put the tools in an inconspicuous, flowery shopping bag and went up to the bike rack (no ski mask to hide my face or anything!) I whipped out my hack saw and got ready for the heist. It took 10 to 15 seconds to saw through the cable lock! It was so easy. I had just done some research for my bike locks page and was reading about how easy it is to cut through cable locks. Well, I just proved it. I’ve read about it but it really sinks in more when you have actually done it and see how easy it is.

Bike lock easily cut with old rusty hack saw

Bike lock easily cut with old rusty hack saw

Even though I was in front of a dorm on a crowded campus in broad daylight. Ten seconds to cut through a bike lock did not drawn any attention. In this case it was our bike anyway but that event highlighted how easy it is to steal a bike if I really were a bike thief.

This lock was pretty thin and cheap but if I can cut through it in 10 seconds then 20 seconds for a thicker cable is still not really a problem.

So, if you have a cable lock, it’s almost useless against someone who really wants the bike.  A high quality U-lock is much better. See the bike locks page for the latest bike security and bike lock updates.

Reaching Bike Riding Nirvana!

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For the love of bike riding… Yep, that’s what it’s all about. I’ve been wanting to complete this article on the love of bike riding or Bike Riding Nirvana for quite some time now and have finally completed it today!

You can find the full article Here – “Bike Riding Nirvana”.  I actually really underestimated the effort required for this article. I thought that this would be a creative no brainer since I really didn’t need to do much research for the article but you know it really takes a lot of effort to write a decent, creative and convincing article about something that you really care about.

OK, enough about the creative effort and work behind the article… The “Bike Riding Nirvana” article has a listing many of the important benefits of bike riding and I have also attempted to describe, in my own words, the love and joy of bike riding (it’s not as easy as it sounds).

When I was searching the internet for similar articles, I did find some very informative and creative pages and blog entries but the descriptions were usually just a line or two and were often tutorials on “how to” do something or were slanted in some other way to specifics types or styles of bike riding.

So my goal for this article was to stick with the love, joy and benefits of bike riding only. I think that the article pretty much stays on that topic.

This is the type of thing that I think I may tweak, enhance or add to occasionally but for now I hope you enjoy the Bike Riding Nirvana article.

New Power Grips Pedal Straps

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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. powergrips 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.

Bike Trail Flooding

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I just rode the Algonquin Road / Paul Douglas Bike Trail yesterday and I was surprised to find that the west side (at the Huntington / Freeman Road and Lakewood intersection) was flooded again (or still)!

Bike Trail Flood

Bike Trail Flood

This is a new trail so I guess they missed this low area in the design and haven’t worked out the kinks yet.

The last time that I did this part of the trail it was even worse and I started to go through but chickened out and turned around when it looked like I was riding into a lake!

This time the water was a little lower and I could see the center line of the trail all the way and I could see where it ended so I went through. I’ve ridden through flooded trails in the past (like along the Des Plaines River Trail) but it can be scary and if the water is too deep you just need to go around it or go back.  I would say if it doesn’t look safe then just don’t do it.

Anyway, the deepest section was probably about 4 inches, which got my shoes wet as I pedaled. On the way back I tried to pedal in short strokes (back and forth and not all the way around) and to keep my feet above the water. Since this was just a short stretch that worked out pretty well.

You can also just go around this little section (it is only about 3/10 of a mile) by going out onto Huntington / Freeman Road which is not very busy at all at this point. You can go out to the road and back to the trail at the trail entrance at Lakewood (south) and at the red fire hydrant (north).

I was considering photographing this part of the trail (which I don’t have on the trail pages yet) but decided that it was too cloudy and not green enough yet (I think I’ll wait a few more weeks). But the nice part about that was that I did have my camera with me (in my bike bag).

Since I had my camera with me, I did take some pictures of the flood and I have posted them on the website. Check out the Bike Trail Flood Photos here.

This is still a really nice bike path so I wouldn’t avoid it just because of the flooding in that one section. But it’s nice to know that it is there ahead of time.

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!