Travels with Fred

Biked to work again today, accompanied by Fred, my friend and neighbor. Fred's a *real* bicyclist, and I hope I didn't hold him back too much.

He pushed me just a little bit — the way he attacks a hill is something to see, especially considering he's got 15 years on me. We covered the 12.5 miles to Argonne in 61 minutes. A little better than last week, but I'd like to trim that down to 50 minutes.

It was already in the low-70s and very humid when we left at 6:30 a.m. This afternoon's ride home should be a real pleasure for this warm-weather fan.

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11.9 miles to the bowl of oatmeal

Happy National Bike to Work Week!

Why yes, yes I did bike to work today, thanks for asking, prompted by the unofficial participation of my workplace in the League of American Bicyclists' "Bike to Work Week" event. I enjoyed the ride very much — enough that I'm probably going to be a fairly regular bike commuter this summer and fall.

Google Bike Maps (hereinafter GBM) did a bang-up job of creating a bike-friendly route from my home in Naperville to Argonne National Laboratory's West Gate. The map did need a tweak here and there — just a matter of clicking and dragging the route line to a more-direct street — but 90 percent of the route was perfect. (To access Google Bike Maps, pick "bicycling" when getting directions on Google Maps.)

Fuel for the commute: a bowl of oatmeal and two strips of microwave bacon. Channel 9 News said was 47 degrees when I left the house at 6:30 a.m., dressed in sweatpants, hoodie sweatshirt and a windbreaker. A helmet, of course. Printouts of the route were at the ready in my handlebar bag, as was a radio tuned to the local sports talker. My backpack held a change of clothes and necessaries for a shower.

Your commute looked like this ...

... and my commute looked like this.
Neener neener neener.

The route took me though leafy suburban backstreets, then down 79th Street to Greene Road. GBM provided a great shortcut through the Greene Valley Forest Preserve's pathways.

The delightful, partly paved mile and a half wound through prairie and forest alive with birds. Red-winged blackbirds perched on rushes near a small lake. Snowy egrets padded through the shallow water. A bluejay: brilliant blue and white with an incongruous, ugly squawk. Goldfinches with their sine-wave flight paths. I took one wrong turn on the maze of trails in the preserve, but all too soon, I was looking at Rt. 53 directly across from 83rd Street and staring at a steep uphill. That climb up the ridge presented the only serious bicycling challenge of the morning.

A smooth bike lane on Woodward Ave.,
Woodridge

Soon I was gliding east along 83rd Street, and then west on Woodward Avenue, both of which have wide, smooth asphalt bicycle paths separated from the roadway. I stopped for a Diet Coke at the BP station at Boughton Road, where I peeled off my windbreaker and gloves.

Up over I-55 — the inbound lanes already clogged at 7:15 a.m. — and then along Frontage Road. A quick squiggle through the subdivision brought me to the Westgate Road and the laboratory's western entrance.

Shower facilities at work, while not luxurious, were adequate to the task and the patient bicyclist is rewarded with hot water after only a few minutes' wait. I arrived at my desk at 7:50 a.m. The ride was 11.9 miles long, which I covered in 69 minutes, as measured by my cheapo GPS unit.

I wasn't particularly tired in the morning although I did notice I needed my mid-morning snack (a banana from the coffee shop) about an hour earlier than usual. Got pretty yawny in the afternoon; perhaps joining in the Running Club's 2-mile walk at lunch was pushing it.

The ride home was assisted by a very welcome 20-mph tailwind. It was 12.8 miles in 68 minutes. The day's total: 24.7 miles by bicycle, and a two-mile walk. Yah, I'm tired.

My Toyota Highlander hybrid gets about 25 mpg in the city, so by riding my bike today, I avoided burning about one gallon of gas and the attendant generation of 19.4 lbs. of carbon dioxide, per U.S. EPA estimates. To be sure, that total is offset by the pound or two of CO₂ generated as I huffed and puffed my way up that hill on 83^rd Street.

Gonna ride the Harley tomorrow, to give the legs a break, and try the bike commute again Thursday.

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DuPage River Trail / Whalon Lake

Tried the new DuPage River Trail on a temperate, breezy spring day. Parked in the DuPage River Sports Complex at Washington Street and Royce Road in southeast Naperville.

The brand new, paved trail is a short but scenic segment of what will eventually be a world-class ride: an off-street, paved route from downtown Naperville along the DuPage River to 188th Street. Currently, the trail runs from downtown Naperville to 87th Street; the segment from 87th to Royce Road is under construction (It's also blocked off at 75th Street due to a major intersection reconstruction project.) The route I took this day will be a spur off that main trail.

It's about two miles from Washington Street to Whalon Lake. The trail is mostly a gentle downhill grade as you ride eastward, paralleling Royce Road. The asphalt pavement is baby-butt smooth; silt fencing from the construction still lines the riverward side. The trail passes through open prairie and patches of woods. The DuPage River meanders through the park.

A small lake sits above the river next to the trail; it must be fed by a spring from the higher ground to the north. I stopped to watch a small largemouth bass patrol the weed edge.

All too soon, thanks to a tailwind and the grade, I arrived at the Whalon Lake complex. It's a two-year-old facility with a small lake -- a former limestone quarry -- as its centerpiece. It has excellent facilities: toilets, picnic tables, covered pavilions and a dog park (the dogs are having a blast running around inside the fenced enclosure, which is a joy to watch). The lake is stocked with largemouth bass, bluegill, channel catfish, and crappie -- Catch and Release only, yay.

The lake is limited to boats 16 feet long or less, and no gas engines are allowed; you can launch your dinghy at the disconcertingly large ramp and pier big enough to handle a cabin cruiser. The paved trail loops around the 266-acre lake. It's about 1.5 miles around.

I actually worked up a sweat on the return trip: the long, gentle uphill grade combined with the steady 20-mph headwind from the west to make a moderately challenging ride.

I'd highly recommend this trail for families with kids looking for a pleasant hour or so on a gentle path. The scenery is wonderful.

Once construction is complete on the segment from Royce Road to 87th Street -- sometime this summer or early fall -- this is going to be one of my favorite local rides. The DuPage River Trail will eventually connect to the Illinois Prairie Path to the north, and the Virgil Gilman Trail to the south.

Little Miami Trail, southern Ohio

Visiting the in-laws near Cincinnati this past weekend. Great people but I'm not much for coffee-klatching and it was a warm early spring day perfect for a bike ride. A few seconds of Googling found me the Little Miami Trail just a couple of miles away.

Coolest thing about a paved trail: when you take a pull on the water bottle, you don't get limestone in your mouth.

This 78-mile, paved trail more or less parallels the Little Miami River and the rails-to-trails route of a former railroad. I got on the trail at the Train Stop bar, just west of the King's Island Theme Park, and headed south into the wind.

The smooth, well-maintained asphalt is 10 feet wide. It's patched in many places but not *stupid* patched, like it would be in Illinois. The patches were professionally applied and smoothed so that there wasn't a big bump or wide cracks.

I can't wait to ride the trail again when we return in June. Once the the trees leaf out, sections of the trail are gonna be like riding through a green leafy tunnel. There are very few cross streets, so I could really get into a rhythm.

The Little Miami Railroad ceased operations in 1962; a few reminders remain, like this rusty mechanical signal. Abraham Lincoln rode the Little Miami route on his way to Washington after his election.

I was riding on the far south end of the trail. It was perched about halfway up the east side of the bluff along the Little Miami, providing a great view of the scenic river. On my left, the steep hillside was occasionally cut by v-shaped gullies carved by small trickling creeks.

All too soon, I reached Milford, about 15 miles from where I started. My map showed the trail ending there, but it kept going another five miles or so.

The wind began to kick up as I passed through Milford -- I really started to feel it as the trail left the riverside and entered some more open country. Blowing dust kicked up by the gusts cut visibility to a half-mile and sent grit into my eyes. I actually caught up to a guy in a Livestrong Jersey with big-time calves. We were both knocked back to a 7-mph pace by the now-howling wind. I stopped at a Shell Station for a Diet Coke and a breather.

I think the trail kept going, but some dark clouds were rolling in on the wind and I decided to head back. I rode through a short, refreshing rain shower, and arrived back at the Train Stop tired and very ready for a beer. Carl's a great bartender -- tip him well!

BTW, my new mechanical speedometer crapped out 3.9 miles into the ride and only 45 miles after I installed it. According to Google Bike Maps, it was 22.5 miles from the Train Stop to the Shell Station. 45 miles for my first long ride of the season?! Pavement really makes a difference --- after 40 miles on limestone I thought I was going to lose a lung.

Do not shoot the motorcyclists.

In which Mr. Pither cheats death!

A good ride at Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve on a cool early spring day, despite the five seconds of abject terror.

Took the bike to work with me today, and hit the trail at about 4:45 p.m. Winter has not been kind to the 9.5-mile loop; it's very hard -- oddly pavement-like for a limestone trail -- but carpeted with lumps and bumps from hoof- and footprints. Here's hoping some automotive patrols by the Forest Preserve District rangers and a lot of bicycle tires smooth the surface a bit.

During my previous trip around the loop, I noticed an odd tendency for long downhill runs to end in an abrupt hairpin turns that force the rider to brake away all that wonderful momentum. I decided to try going the other way around -- clockwise -- this time to see if it worked better in that direction. The verdict: not so much.

I departed from the Lemont Road trailhead, figuring the cool east wind would assist on the return half of the loop. Well, the fact that most of the last quarter of the trail was (by Illinois standards) fairly seriously uphill negated the tailwind.

As I noted before, the main trail isn't particularly well marked. I reached a crossroads (crosstrails?) and guessed that the main trail would be the one that didn't involve a 90-degree turn.

Bzzzzzt! Wrong, stupid bicyclist with your arrogant directional presumptions!

Hey, it's steeper than it looks.

In fact, the default straight-ahead option took me straight into the GLACIAL RIDGE DEATH PLUNGE. OK, I have to admit there was a small sign that said something to the effect of "Slow: steep downhill, loose gravel." And wow, they weren't kidding. I was pushing 30 mph with my front tires slithering drunkenly through the gravel. I didn't dare hit either brake. All I could do was hold it together and do my best to stay upright. Which I did, somehow.

I stopped at the bottom of the hill for a few out-of-breath profanities. Once the adrenaline receded to merely fatal levels, I noticed what a pretty little spot it was. A rock-strewn Sawmill Creek trickled under a graceful steel bridge. Songbirds arced across the small clearing in the tiny valley. The trail ambled across the bridge and ... back UP an even steeper hill with more loose gravel. After chugging my way up on the granny ring (OK, I admit it, I walked it up the second half), the gravel/limestone petered out and became a thin dirt track in the grass. It took me a while to find my way back to the actual loop trail.

A 50-yard stretch of the trail just west of the poverty prairie is under water. I imagine it will dry out by summer, but for now, you can walk along the railroad tracks and bypass the swampy bit. After that comes the major uphill assault. I think I acquit myself pretty well for a flatlander, although I'm certainly feeling it now in my calves.

I'll definitely hit this trail a lot through the summer months. Lots of variety and challenges. Maybe I'll even figure out how to stay on the stupid main loop.

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Villa St. Benedict

These wonderful paintings grace the foyer of Villa St. Benedict in Lisle, Ill., a former girl's school and convent. The building is now an assisted living center my grandmother calls home. They take excellent care of the woman who gave me my wanderlust.

Now that the weather is warming up, I can bike there in a half-hour, and plan to do so as often as possible.

The paintings are by a Mr. Malinovich of Chicago. The Yugoslavian native had academic training in church decorations.

From left to right are:

• King Wenceslaus (you hear about him every Christmas) distributing food to the needy.
  
  
• The Sacred Heart of Jesus. His heart, apparently, is the patron of the Benedictine Sisters of Sacred Heart Monastery.
  
  
• The last meeting of St. Scholastica and St. Benedict.

There are a trio of similar paintings on the other side of the foyer. Next time!

Must ... resist ...

Arrgh. A beautiful day. I hate it.

Sunny, light wind, pushing into the upper 50s: perfect bicycling weather. And 500 yards from where I'm sitting is one of the southwestern suburbs' most interesting trails (PDF).

I also have a prior commitment this evening, so I can't take advantage of any of this.

Maybe tomorrow.