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 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

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.

Not long ago I completed an article on the About-Bicycles site called The Top 5 Bike Trails North and Northwest of Chicago . I’ve ridden most of the major trails in this area and also did some additional research online to compare my opinions with others but it was still quite difficult to narrow this down to 5 bike trails.

I wanted to do a “best of” type of bike trail article and decided to limit the listing to 5 trails in order to keep it in a nice easily readable format. I’m glad that I completed the article but I might change the top 5 at some point and thought that I would explain some of the preferences and criteria that I used for the selections.

The Fox River Trail

The Fox River Trail (above) was a pretty obvious choice. As with any long trail some sections are much better than others but overall this is a really nice trail! Also, for those who prefer paved trails this one is paved.My next personal favorite was the Des Planies River Trail. I really prefer long trails that I can ride all day on, if I choose and trails that are not too crowded and that do not have a lot of difficult road crossings or areas. Although this trail is crushed stone (which will turn some people off) it is a great trail.Next, I choose the Green Bay Bike Trail, The Great Western Bike Trail and the Busse Woods Bike Trail. I believe that each of these trails have something to offer to people with different preferences.