October Ride Summary

October 23: Fox River Trail from Aurora to St. Charles
With this trip plus the other two we took on the FRT this season, we ended up covering quite a bit of this great trail. Since moving to this area four years ago I have been wanting to ride this portion of the trail in the fall, on a sunny cool day when all the leaves were changing, so I finally got my wish. The conditions on this day were just about perfect for late October. We even managed to take a few pictures!

September Ride Summary

Saturday, September 17: Fox River Trail from Oswego to Illinois Avenue in Aurora
This was our second of two rides on this portion of the FRT. Later in the season you'll see we explored a different section of the FRT, that time starting at Illinois Avenue and heading north to St. Charles.

August Ride Summaries

Saturday, August 6: I&M Canal from McKinley Woods to Morris
One of the nicest, most enjoyable, and most accessible local trails for our group is the I&M Canal. Usually we start at Empress Road in Joliet, but to see different parts of the trail we sometimes gather at the state park in Channahon or at McKinley Woods. We'd also like to explore the portion of the trail west of Morris, but there are rumors of washouts and poor maintenance due to state budget issues. Probably something to look into for next year.


Sunday, August 21: Fox River Trail from Oswego to Illinois Avenue in Aurora
This was the first of two rides we took from Oswego into Aurora this summer. I like showing people this route on the FRT because the first time I tried it I became very lost while trying to navigate through Aurora. The key is to cross the river on the Virgil Gilman Trail, and then follow the signs through town. On my first attempt I tried winding my way through the east side of Aurora, eventually giving up when I didn't feel like competing with busy downtown traffic. Getting through town on the west side of the river is a piece of cake.

July Ride Summaries

Saturday, July 2: Virgil Gilman Trail
This was a fun ride on a warm day with our newest participant, Doug Lloyd. We rode the length of the Virgil Gilman Trail starting behind Menards in Montgomery and turning around at Waubonsee Community College.


Sunday, July 17: Plainfield to Oswego
This is one of my favorite on-road routes, starting at my house and turning around at Hudson Crossing Park in downtown Oswego. From there you can get on the Fox River Trail and ride as far as your legs (and rear) will take you. This day was particularly toasty, so we made the point of stopping at Dairy Hut to enjoy a couple of brain-freezing slushes.

June Ride Summary

Sunday, June 5: I&M Canal from Empress Road to Channahon


I thought there had been more rides in June than just this one, but looking back through my email and the Garmin logs, I can't find anything. I see lots of references to weddings and mission trips and Relay for Life and bad weather, etc. So I think it was a really busy month for lots of people, with uncooperative weather on top of that.

AN UPDATE!

After more searching, I did end up finding a GPS log from another June ride...

Sunday, June 5: I&M Canal from Channahon to Somewhere past McKinley Woods
This was a fairly short and somewhat different type of ride for the group. We wanted to explore the idea of family bike rides, with kids included. It turned out to be a really fun time, though the distance was maybe a tad too long for the youngsters and quite a bit shorter than adults prefer to ride. In the future we would like to re-explore the idea of rides for the whole family, but we are not yet sure how to make those work for everyone.


ANOTHER UPDATE!!

I knew there was one ride this summer when I didn't take my GPS watch to log our trip. I believe that was June 30th. We rode the Rock Run Trail from Gaylord Road down to the I&M Canal, east along the canal to Larkin Road, and then back up the Joliet Junction Trail to our starting point. Here's a map.

Back in Business!

Some things take a while to figure out. And in my case, some things take a very long while to figure out. Long story short: the Plainfield UMC Cycling blog experienced quite a lag over the summer as I tried to sort out access privileges between my multiple Google accounts. In addition, I was having problems managing the route tracking with my Garmin GPS watch. Thus I didn't have ride summary information to post, nor could I access the blog to post the summaries. Other than that, everything was working just fine! Fortunately, both issues have now been resolved.

For those who might have wondered, the Cycling Group actually did hit the trails many times over the summer, and we have continued riding this fall. I'll post a few ride summaries all at once, though I realize it would have been much better to post these right after the actual rides. Although we had quite a few rides this year, and may yet have a couple more, I think we had more frequent participation from more people last summer.

This for me is a lesson in marketing. We need to let the world know we're getting out there and having a great time! Then more people will want to join us! I also realize it was quite a busy summer, so even those who wanted to ride more often might not have been free to join us.

They'll regret it come February when cabin fever sets in and they wonder why oh why they didn't take the chance to ride when they could. Happens to me every winter.

-- Eric