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?