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Saturday, September 27, 2014

Chicago Critical Mass ride September 2014

Wat a blast! I am not sure how many people were there this month. But it sure felt like alot of people! Am gunna take a guess and say maybe a thousand people? I saw stacked bikes and Penny Farthings and folding bikes. There was even a few of those commercial passenger bikes and a few stacked bikes made from discarded kids bikes. My overall mileage for the day was 25 miles. My odometer was reading 22 miles at the end of the ride. But that includes my mileage from Augusta blvd. where I had parked. The groups stopped for a break half way through the ride at the Nature Museum parking lot. The ride started about 6:30 and ended at about 9:00. What a fun ride! Come join us next month! The Chicago Critical Mass ride is on the last Friday of every month at Daley Plaza 5:30PM.  CYA there!
Folding bike encountered on the way to Daley Plaza.
Water fountain at Daley Plaza
Bikers amassing
Scupture at Daley Plaza
Buildings around Daley Plaza
More buildings
me
more me
Double stack bike
Double stack bike preparing the fording gear
Fording the fountain.
Exit...stage right...evennnn.
Circling Daley Plaza
Rding under the L
Map of route from THE DERAILLEUR

Sunday, September 7, 2014

August Mileage

2014 BIKING MILEAGE & STATS
MONTH TOTAL
MILES
TOTAL
TRIPS
AVERAGE
MILES
PER
RIDE
LONGEST
RIDE
SHORTEST
RIDE
AUGUST 172.5 7 24.64 51.0 10.2

Pretty lame miles for a summer month. Back problems will do that. I hope I can get more miles this month! :D

Saturday, September 6, 2014

How long ya had that weak back?

And the answer to that question is, "Oh, about two weeks back."(The Three Stooges answer is, "Oh, about a week back.") Hehe. I managed to mess up my back by riding my usual miles but then immediately getting into my car and driving for an hour. That allowed my back to tighten up and cause great trouble later. I ended up staying off the bike for two weeks to give the back a chance to heal. I figger that I missed out on 200-300 miles. Well anyways, I finally have made it back to biking and got in a good 20 miles.
My new Scott bike at rest(Resting the horses).
Looking South on the MCCP bridge over Rakow Rd.
Looking West on the MCPP bridge over Rakow Rd. in Crystal Lake.
The bridge is a pretty steep incline for some.
I hope I can enjoy biking for the rest of summer/fall without the back issues again.

Sunday, August 10, 2014

Four New Trails In One Day!

Wow! Has it been that long since I have posted to this blog? Yikes! I will have to do some back blogging to get caught up here! I have been racking up some good miles since May when I decided to abandon my old road bike project and just get to the biking by buying a new road bike that noone in my family had already owned. I will back blog my monthly mileage later on.
        Yesterday, Saturday 8-9-14, I managed to ride on four new trails I had never turned a spoke on in the past. My friend Rob and I decided to take our road bikes down to the inner Chicago suburbs to do some trail riding. I looked at some pictures and video ahead of time at this great website called About-bicycles.com . They are a great resource for videos and pictures of trails in the Chicago area. So I was looking at the Greenbay Trail page at their site, as well as a few others, and realized that maybe road bikes weren't the best choice of bikes to take. So managed to talk Rob into using a mountain bike. I used a hybrid folder.
    Ahead of time we had decided that Lake Bluff would be the best "middle" spot to park. From there we took the North Shore bike Path to the West(Map). This trail connects the Robert McClory Trail(Map) and the Skokie Valley Trail(Map) to the Des Plaines River Trail(Map). We took this to the Skokie Valley trail.
A winded Rob pointed South on the Skokie Valley Trail.
We picked the right trail to ride first in the early morning light. Note there isn't much shade to be had on the Skokie Valley Trail. We found that the bikes had low tire pressure so we were in search of a gas station for most of the Skokie Valley trail.

Skokie Valley Trail sign


Skokie Valley Trail in the Lake Forest area looking South. Have you ever seen a double no passing line on a bike trail before? Wuuuut?


Looking North from the same location as the last few pictures.
The Skokie Valley Trail is somewhere in the approximate range of 8 miles long. It currently runs from Rte. 176 South to Lake-Cook Rd. When we got to Lake Cook Rd. we went East to the Braeside Metra train station where we headed South on the Greenbay Trail. The Greenbay Trail is approximately 16 miles long, running from Wilmette to Highland Park. We went as far as Kenilworth and then headed back North.

Robert McClory Bike Path sign
We took the Greenbay Trail back to the Robert McClory Trail and North on that back to Lake Bluff. The Robert McClory Trail stretches all the way from Highland Park to Kenosha Wisconsin for a nice approximate distance of 26.5 miles! That full trail I am going to save for another day. That will make a nice round tripper. Now back to Saturdays ride.

A 90 degree turn on the Robert McClory Trail
We stopped for lunch at Buffos Restaurant in Highwood. Good stuff. Mmmmm, pizza!

Rob is about sick and tired of the mountain bike and its sluggishness.
At the end of the trip we had a nice 40 miles in. What a good day to ride. The temperature averaged about 73 degrees during most of the peak hours of the days riding. We decided to break out the road bikes when we got home to remove the kinks that the other clunky bikes had worn into us. So we finished with a ten mile ride on the Fox River Trail.

Thursday, July 31, 2014

July Mileage

2014 BIKING MILEAGE & STATS
MONTH TOTAL
MILES
TOTAL
TRIPS
AVERAGE
MILES
PER
RIDE
LONGEST
RIDE
SHORTEST
RIDE
JULY 381.9 17 22.47 50.0 10.4

Monday, June 30, 2014

June Mileage

2014 BIKING MILEAGE & STATS
MONTH TOTAL
MILES
TOTAL
TRIPS
AVERAGE
MILES
PER
RIDE
LONGEST
RIDE
SHORTEST
RIDE
JUNE 263 13 20.23 30.2 10.5

Saturday, May 31, 2014

May Miles

2014 BIKING MILEAGE & STATS
MONTH TOTAL
MILES
TOTAL
TRIPS
AVERAGE
MILES
PER
RIDE
LONGEST
RIDE
SHORTEST
RIDE
MAY 263.3 12 21.94 50.5 4.5

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

April Miles

2014 BIKING MILEAGE & STATS
MONTH TOTAL
MILES
TOTAL
TRIPS
AVERAGE
MILES
PER
RIDE
LONGEST
RIDE
SHORTEST
RIDE
APRIL 152.0 8 19.0 30.1 10.0

Saturday, April 19, 2014

Spring ride on the FRT



Went for a nice trip down the Fox River Trail to the North to Crystal Lake. Got a nice 21 miles in an hour and fifty minutes. As you can see by the picture of the temp, Spring has finally arrived. Woohoo!

Monday, March 31, 2014

March Miles

2014 BIKING MILEAGE & STATS
MONTH TOTAL
MILES
TOTAL
TRIPS
AVERAGE
MILES
PER
RIDE
LONGEST
RIDE
SHORTEST
RIDE
MARCH 158.0 14 11.29 20.3 8.1

March was another month slowed by winter sicknesses and doldrums. I only really logged miles for half the month. What a winter. Bleh. Total miles year to date is 460.5. I am starting to do more walking/jogging as well as biking. I am sure this might take a few miles away from biking at times when I am forced to make a choice between one or the other for a days exercise.

Friday, February 28, 2014

February Miles

While I had a great start to the year with 170 miles in January, I only managed to bike half of the month of February. This was due to a nice bout of Bronchitis that inhibited miles starting on the 19th. I figger I lost about 100 miles of exercise cuzza that. I will probably hop back on the bike starting next week or once the cough finally gives up the ghost. Whichever comes first. Here's what I managed in Feb anyways:
 
2014 BIKING MILEAGE & STATS
MONTH TOTAL
MILES
TOTAL
TRIPS
AVERAGE
MILES
PER
RIDE
LONGEST
RIDE
SHORTEST
RIDE
FEBRUARY 132.2 11 12.02 15.2 10.0

This gives me a total of 302.5 miles at the end of February. Was hoping to have over 400 miles by the end of February. Oh well. Maybe next year. If I can average about 200 miles a month during the off peak months of the year, I could have a nice smooth 2000 to 2500 miles by the end of the year.  What kind of miles are YOU intending to get this year? Drop a comment and lemme know! :^)

Saturday, February 1, 2014

2011 biking mileage and stats

I was surprised at the mileage I put on in 2011 when I calculated this up.

2011 BIKING MILEAGE & STATS
MONTH TOTAL
MILES
TOTAL
TRIPS
AVERAGE
MILES
PER
RIDE
LONGEST
RIDE
SHORTEST
RIDE
JANUARY 0 0 0 0 0
FEBRUARY 0 0 0 0 0
MARCH 88.4 7 12.63 30.0 2.2
APRIL 246.4 10 24.64 41.5 10.1
MAY 205.2 10 20.52 65.5 4.5
JUNE 575.8 22 26.17 81.2 3.0
JULY 495.5 18 27.53 84.2 2.8
AUGUST 388.8 17 22.87 80.0 2.4
SEPTEMBER 198.3 4 49.58 72.1 27.9
OCTOBER 61.1 4 15.28 20.1 10.1
NOVEMBER 20.0 4 5.0 5.0 5.0
DECEMBER 5.0 1 5.0 5.0 5.0
TOTAL 2284.5 107 21.35 84.2 2.2

Average miles per month was 190.38 miles.And would have been much higher if I had gotten any mileage in the winter. I didn't buy rollers for inside biking until 2012. Average number of trips per month was 8.92.

2012 mileage and stats.

I decided to calculate the miles from 2012 to see how they stack up to the charted 2013 miles I have in the other post.
2012 BIKING MILEAGE & STATS
MONTH TOTAL
MILES
TOTAL
TRIPS
AVERAGE
MILES
PER
RIDE
LONGEST
RIDE
SHORTEST
RIDE
JANUARY 110.2 12 9.18 10.0 2.1
FEBRUARY 80 8 10.0 10.0 10.0
MARCH 63.5 5 12.7 23.8 9.5
APRIL 32.8 3 10.93 11.0 10.9
MAY 197.17 12 16.43 36.0 5.2
JUNE 348.4 12 29.03 40.6 13.0
JULY 117.5 5 23.50 39.2 10.0
AUGUST 155.9 4 38.98 47.6 30.0
SEPTEMBER 201.3 5 40.26 110.4 15.4
OCTOBER 26.2 3 8.73 10.1 6.0
NOVEMBER 50.0 3 16.67 20.0 10.0
DECEMBER 55.0 4 13.75 20.0 5.0
TOTAL 1437.97 76 19.18 110.4 2.1

Average miles per month was 119.83 miles. Average trips per month was 6.33.

January Biking

This January was probably one of the most prosperous winter months I have recorded. After Christmas, I felt it was time to get burnin off all that junk food and holiday glut.  And aside from a slight period of being sick and a minor sprained ankle, I managed to string together quite a few back to back biking days.
2014 BIKING MILEAGE & STATS
MONTH TOTAL
MILES
TOTAL
TRIPS
AVERAGE
MILES
PER
RIDE
LONGEST
RIDE
SHORTEST
RIDE
JANUARY 170.3 14 12.16 16.0 10.0

 I was one ride away from equaling the busiest month I had in all of 2013 in number of rides per month. The longest ride of the month is/was a laugh. But hey! That's better'n nothin! Maybe in February I can push a 20 or 30 miler here or there. It's tough to get motivated to bike longer distances when the scenery doesn't change AT ALL! Heh. I would provide pictures of the scenery I encountered in January. But I am thinking you have seen a painted room before. So I will save you the bandwidth on that one. Happy biking! :D





Sunday, January 12, 2014

Red Gate Bridge

As promised, here is more pictures of where I went and what I did while biking in 2013. These pictures are from 17 July, 2013:

 This bridge is a nice addition to the chain of bridges on the Fox River.
 The pedestrian/biking bridge underneath the automobile version connects the Fox River Trail(FRT) on the far bank with nature trails and a local subdivision with no sidewalks.

Just some proof that I was there.

Sunday, January 5, 2014

2013 BIKING MILEAGE AND STATS

Here is the stats I came up with for my biking in 2013:
2013 BIKING MILEAGE & STATS
MONTH TOTAL
MILES
TOTAL
TRIPS
AVERAGE
MILES
PER
RIDE
LONGEST
RIDE
SHORTEST
RIDE
JANUARY 17.2 3 5.73 10.0 2.0
FEBRUARY 10 2 5.0 5.0 5.0
MARCH 60.0 12 5.0 5.0 5.0
APRIL 96.3 6 16.05 25.8 10.0
MAY 126.8 9 14.09 45.3 10.0
JUNE 205.3 12 17.11 30.9 10.0
JULY 301.4 15 20.09 50.3 10.0
AUGUST 234.1 14 16.72 40.1 10.2
SEPTEMBER 251.1 11 22.83 50.0 10.1
OCTOBER 77.0 6 12.83 21.2 5.0
NOVEMBER 65.2 6 10.87 18.2 7.0
DECEMBER 61.0 6 10.17 10.5 10.0
TOTAL 1505.4 102 13.04 50.3 2.0

Average miles per month were 125.45 and average rides per month was 8.5 rides.
Note: February and April were sparse riding months due to surgeries.