Map of All Rides

Click the image below to see an overview map of all the routes we've ridden so far this year, or at least the ones I've been able to log with my GPS watch. We've covered quite a lot of ground!

On the IPP and FRT: 9/19/2010

Oops on the part of Mr. Group Leader. My little navigation error this past Sunday added an extra four miles to our trip...on top of the extra two we voluntarily committed to riding before discovering my error. Even though Marie can now be proud of getting her first 30-miler out of the way, and Don can be surprised that his first two trips with our group averaged over 30 miles, I was feeling pretty bad about the whole thing. And now Marie has suspended me from leading a ride this coming weekend. Lucky for me my parents are coming into town and I wouldn't have been available anyway.

So here's what happened. I thought the group should make at least one visit to the Illinois Prairie Path (IPP) this year before the weather got too cold. This is a very significant trail in the Chicago area, and one I had not previously ridden. So I planned a trip starting at a junction of the IPP and the Fox River Trail (FRT) in Aurora. We started riding northeast on the IPP, then headed back northwest after crossing under I-88. These two legs of the triangle brought us back to the FRT just south of Batavia.

My plan was to ride a mile or so north of Batavia along the FRT and then turn around, following the FRT back to our cars. Total distance would have been about 24 miles. But I also mentioned that an extra mile north would get us all the way into downtown Geneva. The extra mile up and back would bring the total to 26 miles.

Trouble is, I got confused and thought the original plan (24 miles) was to ride a mile or so north of Geneva, and the bonus mile or two (each way) would take us into St. Charles. So I told Marie and Don that if we rode steadily, didn't take long breaks, and didn't have mechanical troubles, we could just make it to St. Charles and then back to our cars by 4:30 PM. So the extra four miles added 20 minutes to our trip, and we got back around 4:50 (after taking no breaks and riding too fast to enjoy much conversation).

The IPP itself, or at least the Aurora spur, was not the most scenic path we had ridden. I'd call it more "utilitarian." It got us from Point A to Point B. Here's an example of what I mean (with B&W to emphasize the true beauty of this segment):



Luckily the Batavia spur was a lot nicer:

And the Fox River Trail was its usual interesting self, complete with a trip past the amazing Fabyan Windmill:


So in total we rode 30 miles, with relatively few breaks and not as many enroute conversations. I think the remaining few rides of the year will be shorter and more conducive to visiting. The fun and fellowship to me are the most enjoyable things about these rides. We don't want to go so far and fast that fitness becomes the only thing we have left. Heck, on this ride we didn't even have time to stop for ice cream! I promise to do better in the future.

Here's our ride summary from Garmin:

Down the Old Plank Road

Beautiful weather, a great bike path, and an excellent turnout made for an enjoyable day of riding along the Old Plank Road Trail (OPRT). We were very glad to welcome Don to his first ride with the group, and also were quite happy that Ken and Pat's daughter Kathryn agreed to join us. The others along for the ride included Jason, Marie, Pat, Nelson, and me (Eric L).

We started the ride at the western end of the trail just off Washington Street in Joliet. I had ridden the trail one time before, but it had been a couple of years. I remembered it having quite a few road crossings but otherwise being a very enjoyable ride. That was the case today, and fortunately on a Sunday afternoon most of the roads we had to cross weren't very busy at all.

The trail itself was pretty busy with families out for a stroll, old ladies walking their dogs, and old men passing us on their bicycles. Luckily it was almost perfectly straight and mostly flat, so you could ride at a pretty good pace and still see quite a ways ahead.

As we sort of anticipated and planned, our cycling group ended up splitting into multiple pieces, each according to their preferred distance:

• I think Pat and Kathryn had hoped to reach the 10-mile halfway point at Frankfort, but ended up making just about 10-12 miles round trip, in large part due to an unfamiliar bicycle for Kathryn.
• Marie headed back after resting with the guys at Frankfort, ending up with a total of about 22 miles.
• Don, who says he has hardly been riding much at all in recent years, turned in a 38-mile performance after riding 19 miles out and then heading back due to time constraints. We may need to check and see if Don is telling us the truth about his recent riding habits.
• Nelson, Eric, and Jason rode all the way to Western Avenue in Park Forest. Round-trip they totaled 41 miles...or actually 40.98 despite Eric's attempts to reach 41 by doing circles in the parking lot. (Stupid rounding errors. I thought I had it!)
  

The best thing about the OPRT would have to be downtown Frankfort, approximately the halfway point of the trail (11 miles from the western end). This is by far the nicest 'rest area' we've had on our rides so far this summer. There are trail-side restrooms with flushable toilets and running water, drinking fountains for refilling water bottles, nice benches for resting, a bike shop if you need assistance, and best of all, a convenience store that sells frozen treats!

Here's Jason working to offset some of those calories he was burning on the 41-mile ride:

And yes, that is a sandwich of ice cream stuffed between chocolate chip cookies. (Ken and Pat, don't you wish you were with us during that stop?!?)

And here's a photo of the trail area itself in Frankfort:

I really commend the town for making this a very nice place to stop and rest.

And finally, the ride summary itself, taken with my fancy "Forerunner 205" gadget which turns out to be not so nearly as fancy as Nelson's new "Forerunner 305" gadget:

Last but not least -- if you dare -- click on the following video to hear the song that was stuck inside my head the entire time we were riding today:

Going in Circles

Marie, Jason, and Eric L. visited DuPage County's Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve on Saturday afternoon to check out the hiking/biking/skiing loop around Argonne Labs. One goal was to see whether this 9-mile circle would be suitable for a family outing with younger kids or less-experienced adult riders. Conclusion: perhaps not.

The ride was slightly more challenging than we had anticipated, mainly due to the frequent elevation changes that required controlled braking on the downslopes and frequent gear adjustments on the upslopes. In other words, you couldn't just put your head down and ride.

We were planning to go around the loop twice, but after the first lap we spent quite a bit of time in the parking lot trying to adjust our derailleurs so we could actually reach the gears we wanted to use. (We should have checked out this website first!) Not having any success, we decided to call it a day and to enjoy the rest of the beautiful afternoon at home.

Here's the ride summary, on which you can zoom in and see lots of little loops in the parking lot as we rode around testing our derailleur adjustments:

And just so people don't get the wrong idea about this route, it was actually a pretty neat area. Having enjoyed the scenery and the ride itself, and having familiarized ourselves with the route, we probably would have made the second loop if not for spending so much time on bike adjustments.

In addition, as we rode through the forest preserve surrounding Argonne, we naturally started to wonder what exactly does take place at Argonne National Laboratory. As it turns out (and to no great surprise) its history is pretty interesting. To quote:

Argonne National Laboratory is a direct descendant of the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory, part of the World War II Manhattan Project. At the Met Lab on Dec. 2, 1942, Enrico Fermi and his band of about 50 colleagues created the world’s first controlled nuclear chain reaction in an abandoned squash court under the stands of the University of Chicago’s Stagg Field. By the end of February 1943, Fermi’s reactor had been moved to the then-remote Argonne Forest section – named for the Argonne Forest in Europe where a major battle was fought during World War I – of the Cook County Forest Preserve. The small laboratory that grew up around the reactor became known as “the Argonne Lab.”

....

In the late 1940s, Argonne moved to its current location in southwest DuPage County, Ill.

So now we can say that our cycling group is not solely about fun, fellowship, and fitness -- we also have an educational component to our mission! Perhaps an upcoming trip could be planned around an outing to Fermilab?