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!
I love your Fox River Trail videos! How did you film this? I was impressed with how clear it all was. The music was very fitting. As you came down the hill at Takakwitha Hill, I was just waiting for the video to start shaking all over the place as you reached the bridge at the bottom, but it never happened! Great job and thanks for posting it.
Thanks for your comments on the FRT video Sue. I have just been doing the bike trail videos with a hand held camcorder that I have strapped on. When I get to a part of the trail that I want to record, I hold the camcorder with one hand and the handlebars with the other. It is not easy and a little risky, of course, but I keep my eyes open (out of the view finder)and am very careful.
I try hard to keep the camcorder still but that is almost impossible. As for the Takawitha hill, I slowed down more than usual and I edited out a few of the real shakey parts.
Thanks again and I’ll have more videos real soon. Rob.