I have been wanting to post simple bike ride updates on the about-bicycles blog but I didn’t want to fill the blog with tons of bike ride stories and make it hard to find the other bike trail and bike accessories information so I have decided to create a post for just this purpose.
Better late than never! Well, it’s mid-October and there isn’t a real lot of good bike riding weather here in the Chicago area, but I still wanted to create this post and add some of my ride stories here so here it is.
Also, as with the other posts in this blog, this post is open for comments so feel free to add your own bike ride stories here as replies to this post if you like.
As for myself, since it is so late in the year, most of my rides are close to home (the Paul Douglas Bike Trail is my favorite close to home trail) so there may be a lot of stories on this trail. But then again, if we get some nice days, I still may make it out to some more exotic trails this year 🙂
OK, my first “ride story” will be a reply to this post so I better get to it.
Saturday, October 17th Ride – A record number of deer sightings!
Well, it’s been cloudy today and barely in the 50s but still a pretty nice day for a ride. I headed out the the Paul Douglas bike trail this afternoon and ended up riding 26 miles!
I doubled back and rode the south and west side of this trail twice today. This is the section where I usually see the most deer.
I think that since it was so cloudy and chilly there were very few people out on the trail to scare the deer away. Well, I started to keep a cound of how many I saw and ended up with a total of 16 deer sightings (not counting 3 off in the distance across Roselle road).
Most of the deer were in groups of 2 or 3 and my 16 sightings could have included deer that I saw more than once since I doubled back (hey, I can’t tell one deer from another. They all look the same to me! :-))
I rode late in the afternoon today (between 2:30 and 5:00) and I think since it is fall there are quite a few of these critters out now.
Well, anyway I had a great ride and the deer sightings today made it a little more interesting.
It was a beautiful day for a ride here in the Chicagoland area. Finally! Most of October has sucked. It’s been cloudy, cold and rainy. Today was much more like I would expect October to be like.
It actually got into the 60s and I was able to ride with shorts and a t-shirt. OK, with a light jacket too (I’m not that crazy).
I’m glad that I started the “Just my Rides” post since we are going to be having some warmer days coming up.
As for my ride, I did not see any deer today as opposed to Saturday when I saw so many. I did see one hawk though. That is always a beautiful site. BTW: I just did a 15 miler around Paul Douglas.
I know that somewhere on this site I explained that I reset my bike odometer at the beginning of each riding season and I like to keep track of how many miles I’ve ridden each year. I used to try and beat my records each year but I haven’t been able to top my 2,182 miles that I did back in 2005.
Most years I try to at least do over 1,000 miles and I am well past that for this year. I was pretty sick in June and missed a lot of riding or else I think I would have beat the 2,000 mile mark pretty easy this year.
Well, right now I am at 1,579 miles for the season and I keep thinking that just maybe I can cross the 2k miles mark again this year. I guess if there a lot of good riding days in November and even December, maybe that will be possible. We’l see.
It was a pretty nice day for a ride today although I had some bike computer problems which distracted me and caused a detour. I went a little off of the bike path to a Walgreens to buy a battery.
You may recall from a previous post that I just replaced bot of my bike computer batteries, but my speedometer would start and stop working so I am thinking that, since I was flustered that day, I may have accidently gotten the new and old batteries mixed up and put one of the old ones in by mistake, maybe I bought a battery that was already weak (not too likely, I think) or maybe there is really something wrong with my bike computer (I certainly hope not!)
I have checked the magnet and transmitter alignment many times (and even had them close enough to lightly contact each other) and have checked the contacts on the main unit bracket so there isn’t much else that I can do except to replace the main unit battery again (I didn’t have enough cash with me when I bought the other battery).
Well, I’ll let ya all know how that goes after I work it out.
Sorry for the long blurb on bike computers and batteries and back to the basic ride info…
I was pretty close to my 1,600 mile mark for this season and needed 21 more miles, so I planned todays ride to make that goal. I actually did 1 mile extra for the battery side trip so I am now at 1,601!
It was cloudy today and there were not as many people out on the trail and it ended up being a 4-deer-day (i.e. I saw 4 deer on my ride today).
That’s it for todays ride…
Cloudy but nice… I might go for 2,000 mile for this year.
It was a great day (mid 50s) for a ride today. I did a 30 mile TDPD (Tour de Paul Douglas). It was a 5 deer and 3 hawk day. I surprised a few of the deer which then surprised (startled) me as I rode by.
Most of my casual/exercise rides are around 15 miles (give or take some) but I am starting to get interested in passing the 2,000 mile mark for this year and pushed myself a little.
I had a slow start to the riding season since I was sick a lot in June and was not really trying for any major distances for this season but I’ve done a lot more riding late in the season and am now at 1,677 miles.
I’d like to get over 1,700 before the end of October, which should not be hard at all and then I will only need 300 more for November and December.
I have done over 300 miles in a month in the past but never in November (or December). It is really going to be dependent on the weather. I’m still not sure if I can make that a goal for this year, but it is nice to have something to shoot for. Maybe though…
It was a great day for a ride yesterday (10/31) and I managed to make my mileage goal for October (over 1,700 miles for the season). Now, if I can just do 300 more in November (and maybe december), I’ll make my tentative goal of 2,000 for the year. I’m not totally serious about that yet, but if we have a lot of nice days I may go for it.
It was a cold ride yesterday (in the 40s with a strong wind) and I only saw 2 deer on my 23 mile ride (including 1 really cute fawn).
On to November!
It was an excellent day for a ride in Chicagoland! Yesterday (Sat 11/7), we made it into the 70s and my friend, Dale, and I had a nice 30 mile or so ride on the Greenbay Trail.
You just don’t get a lot of good riding days like this in November, but I will take all I can get.
For this ride we took (drove) Route 22 to Highland Park and started our ride south from there. Technically, I think the trail is called the Robert McClory Trail at this point but most of our ride was on the Greenbay Trail.
We went south from Highland Park, through the neighboroods, to the path then through Ravina, Glencoe, Winnetka and finally ended up at the beach in Wilmette.
The last time I rode this trail I just went to the southern end of the Greenbay Trail (in Wilmette) and never took the road east (Greenleaf) out to the beach. If you follow the signs that say “east to the lake front” it takes you on some nice side roads to Gillson Beach. I was really glad that we took this short extension to the beach on this trip and would highly recommend it.
We had a light lunch at the beach and cruised along the lakeshore a little. This is a great place for a break before turning around and heading back (for us since this was the southern end of our trip).
I really want to get some updated photos of this trail but even though it was scenic on this beautiful fall day, I wanted to have some nice summer photos. Well, I will put that on my list for next summer.
The photos that I do have for this trail at: http://www.about-bicycles.com/green-bay-trail.htm are from early spring before the trees were in full bloom.
Also, if you are interested this is one of the trails that I have video taped and the video is available at: http://www.about-bicycles.com/greenbay-biketrail-video.htm
I am not going to be able to ride again today (Sunday), but it is another excellent day for a ride here in Chicagoland so I hope you can get out there and enjoy it this weekend!
Another excellent day for a ride yesterday (11/13/09) and my friend Dale and I drove downtown and rode the Chicago Lakefront Path.
It was an excellent ride and we strayed away from the main Chicago Lakefront path a few time to see some things that I had never seen before. The last time I rode the Lakefront path, my goal was the photos and video since I did not have this path information on the about-bicycles site yet and I stuck to the main path the whole time.
This trip was nice to see the things that were close to the path also. For example, we crossed Lake Shore Drive at Jackson and saw Millennium Park (which I had never seen before even though I live in the Chicagoland area). We also rode out to the Adler Planetarium and rode the paths on the Northerly Island. This was cool and I think this would be even nicer in the summertime.
We also rode some paths that were right next to the Lake by some of the harbors.
All in all we ended up riding 37 miles and had a great day.
Turkey Ride! So close but still so far…
OK, normally I am having Thanksgiving dinner like everyone else today but this year our family is having our TG meal on Friday (because a few people in our family have to work today).
Well, since I had the day free and I am getting so close to my 2k mile goal for this year, I decided to go out have do another Tour De Paul Douglas today.
It was pretty cold (in the lower 40s) with a fairly strong wind and I must admit that I was pretty frozen when I got back from my 18 miler. I have very light shoes that I usually use for riding (since most of the riding season is pretty warm) and the wind just cut right through them this time. I think they also got a little wet from riding through some fairly deep puddles.
Well, I am now at 1,930 miles for the waning season. It’s getting pretty cold out there but if I could just do 2 more 30 mile rides, I will make my goal! No guarantees this year, but I do get pretty obsessed with my goals. 🙂
I pretty much had the trail to myself so I figured that I would see quite a few deer… and I did. Unfortunately, I lost count (I just wasn’t keeping track that well) but I think I may have seen around 30 deer on this ride! That would be a record but since I can’t say for sure, I’m not really calling it my record.
Whenever I see deer I am never sure if I see the same one more than once (since I go back and forth on the trail) but I just count how many I see even if they are the same critter. I just can’t tell which one is which.
Anyway, I guess I’ve gotten some good “mileage” out of this blog post even though I did not start it until pretty late in the riding season.
I’m still hopeful for that 2k miles goal!
2009 (bike miles) in 2009!!!
OK, I finished up the bike riding season today (12/5) with enough miles to make my 2K goal and exactly enough miles to have 2009 bike miles in 2009 🙂 OK, so it’s a little goofy but it’s mostly for fun anyway and it will help me remember my mileage for this year very easily.
Normally, I probably would not be riding this late in the season and in this weather (it was in the 30s today) but I only had a few miles to make 2k for the year and just had to do it.
It was a nice sunny day and I dressed for the weather and rode in the warmest part of the day. Since I only did 14 miles, for my goal, I really did not get cold today. As a matter of fact, it was quite comfortable and nice. I knew that this was going to be my last ride for this year so I had a nice warm feeling reminiscing about all the miles that I did on the Paul Douglas bike trail this year. It’s been a great riding season!!!
I did not see a single other rider on the trail today (what a surprise 🙂 ) so there was no one to scare off the deer and I must have seen about 20 or so on my short ride today. Speaking of deer, my record number of deer sightings, on the PD trail, was last week (I was being very careful about keeping count) when I saw 38 deer! (as I’ve mentioned before, it could be 19 deer if I saw each one twice, or any other combination, but I had 38 “sightings” anyway).
Well, I’ll be resetting my bike odometer for next year soon and get back into my walking and running routine that I usually do during the winter months.
It’s a little bit sad to be calling this the end of the riding season, but, well, it is December so… I may very well be blogging some more throughout the winter, but this will probably be the last post (from me anyway) in the “Just My Rides…” post.
Catch you all later, Rob.