Winter is here and it's too dark in the morning to ride bikes at 6:00 AM.
Instead of meeting at
Silver
Springs State Fish & Wildlife Area on Tuesday and Thursday mornings
I'm going to be teaching a half hour beginning spinning class followed
by a 20 minute abs workout on Tuesday and Thursday mornings at the
Fox Valley YMCA.
The spinning class is from 5:45 to 6:15 and the abs class is from 6:15 to 6:35.
This will supplement the old standby Monday, Wednesday and Friday 6:00
AM spinning
classes at the
YMCA.
Anyone who's interested in any of these morning classes please contact
the Fox Valley YMCA at 630-552-4100.
I've kept the journal of this summers rides below and will do so for a while.
Last year I rode all winter long but I looked back at my logs and decided the miles I got weren't worth the hassle. Wearing five layers of clothing, having my glasses freeze over and cleaning the bike every day when my hose is a frozen snake didn't appeal to me this winter. I've spent more time taking and teaching spinning classes at the YMCA and I started taking kick boxing fitness and step classes once in a while and yoga so I'm keeping busy. The first week in March my car was in the shop for a couple of days and I put 40+ miles on the bike in those two days. If I doubted the worth of spinning classes that convinced me. I had no soreness. My seat and legs were fine with that much riding, even after no real bike rides for almost three months. I'll start logging more miles as the weather gets warmer and the daylight hangs around longer in the evenings. It is officially spring now!
It's been a while since I updated this page. Riding has slacked off for a couple of reason. One is my goal for this year was 6,000 miles and I got there the first week in November. The second reason is it's cold! Last year I kept riding hard all winter because I was shooting for 8,000 miles. I got it but barely with 8,041. This year I'm walking more and riding less. The self induced wind chill factor is less :-) Plus the dog gets to go on walks and she likes that better than sitting home worrying where her next dog biscuit will be coming from :-)
I still ride my bike back and forth to the YMCA and take the dog on some mile or two rides around town. I don't want to get totally out of bike shape. Thanksgiving weekend I took the bike down to southern Indiana and did a 30+ miler through the hills. It was a great ride. With the trees all naked and shivery you could see the real shape of the land. It was in the 40's and chilly but a good ride anyway. It will probably snow soon and I'll get in some real winter riding. There's nothing like a fresh snowfall to hide the pot holes and road kill from unsuspecting bike riders :-)
Last weekend I rode the I&M canal from Morris to Joliet and back. I rode over to my daughter's house from the Joliet end and helped her with her computer. She only lives about 3 miles from the trail. The trees were starting to look good and the weather was nice. I crossed over the bridge at the Franklin Woods Forest Preserve and found a spot to put in my canoe. This weekend I canoed the I&M canal instead of biking and got some nice pictures stored at webshots. I'm going to try and ride it again next weekend when the leave should be just about at their peak.
Last night I did a fairly short ride out of town on Hale, then out Schafer Road, then down Eldamain to River Road and then back to Fox River Road. I saw three deer on Hale about a quarter of a mile past Rock Creek but that was it. When I got to Fox River Road I jogged over to Millhurst Road and then up Burr Oak Road. At the top of the hill on Burr Oak I saw nine deer in the field on the right side of the road. Three of them were nice bucks. In the next field on the right I saw two more does. A little further down the road where there is an orchard on the right. I saw one doe in the soybeans on the left side of the road and three more deer in the orchard. One of them was a nice buck. Then in the little cul-de-sac where they are planning to build some houses eventually there were two more does. Finally when I was on Griswold Springs Road heading back toward town I saw two more deer in the edge of the corn field just past Little Rock Creek. It was really too dark to see if they had antlers or not so I'll assume they were does. That makes 22 deer in one ride. That's a record for around here. I did a 20 mile ride at my parents in southern Indiana this summer and saw 28 but the deer are thick as thieves down there.
Tuesday morning it was raining when I got up and I stayed home.
I did a route that took me down Burr Oak Road at twilight that evening
though, and I saw six deer.
A couple of them were fawns that let me get real close.
Unfortunately the light was fading fast but I did get some pictures.
Yes...I ride with my camera hanging from my belt sometimes.
Here is one closeup of the fawn who seemed the most curious.
I had to work on the picture's light and contrast so it's a little grainy.
At the YMCA Wednesday I got teased since it had stopped raining by the time Jim showed up at Silver Springs Tuesday morning but since he's always 15 minutes late that means it had 45 minutes to stop raining before I got there. I leave home at 5:30. Then it was raining good Thursday morning so our last week of morning rides got rained out. That's not too bad though. We rode all summer, and while we did get soaked one morning, the weather was beautiful most of the time. I look forward to next summer.
Today (Saturday) I went down to Morris and rode the
I&M
Canal Trail
to LaSalle and back.
It was 78+ miles according to my bike odometer.
I got some good pictures.
I've included a couple here.
Now you'll see what I consider good pictures :-)
It was a long ride but portions of the I&M Canal Trail between
Ottawa and LaSalle are the best scenery on any trail around here in my
opinion.
I always make the ride up to
Buffalo Rock State Park
when I pass its entrance
just west of Ottowa.
It's right along the trail.
The river overlooks from Buffalo Rock are gorgeous.
Our morning ride group finished out the week with a long ride on Friday
the 8th.
This is the first week where we road four days in a row.
The YMCA was closed this week for fall cleanup so we decided to ride
every day but Monday - Labor Day.
There were some sprinkles at times Friday morning but we didn't really get wet.
We saw no deer today Friday we did spot what we thought were some wild
turkeys.
It turns out they were peacocks.
So watch out if you drive on Oak Brook Road.
The peacocks are out there.
Thursday our group spotted one deer and Jim spotted another deer separately. Jim was a little late to Silver Springs and rode on his own but I connected with him eventually. I rode some in the same area Thursday night and spotted nine deer before it got too dark to tell deer from volunteer corn in the soybean fields :-) It not only gets light later but it's getting dark before 8:00 now. Winter sucks!
Last week was good riding. It was nice and hot and I look back on it fondly :-) We did the ride through the woods behind Grasslands of the Fox on Thursday. We didn't see any deer but I spotted a great horned owl. The woods is so peaceful in the morning it's a soothing ride. OK...everyone doesn't agree with that adjective since this is the roughest trial we've ridden so far but peaceful is different things to different people.
This week we're riding every day since the YMCA has closed down for their annual cleanup. So far it's been freezing! I know it's all relative but it was in the 40's this morning and that's pretty cold compared to the 70's we were riding in last week. We had more people yesterday, since the YMCA is closed, so we did a couple of loops through Silver Springs to make sure we got done by 6:45. The trail along the river is especially nice early in the morning. We spotted a great blue heron standing in the shallows.
Today we did a loop up Fox River Road, down Griswold Springs Road and then back on Burr Oak and Millhurst Roads. We saw three deer this morning. Even though it's chilly the weather is beautiful. I'd just like another 20 degrees or so of warmth. This morning the official sunrise was 6:25 AM but it was light enough to see by 6:00. It sure felt good when that sun came over the horizon and started to warm things up :-) We will probably stop riding in the mornings after this week. It's getting too dark to ride the roads safely since I'm the only one with lights on my bike both front and back. We may stick to trails for a while though. Check back here to be sure.
Tuesday the 22nd was a beautiful day for a ride. We did a trip to Millbrook on Millhurst Road, over the old bridge and back on Fox River Road. On Thursday it was real foggy. We went on a road ride anyway because it was patchy fog and didn't look that bad, but as we got on higher ground away from the river the fog got worse. We went through Millbrook again but this time we went back Fox Road and up to Budd Road and back to Silver Springs on Fox River Road. This route is a little over nine miles and the longest ride we've taken this summer. Even with the fog it was a good morning.
As the sun sleeps later and later every week we're going to run out of riding time. I hope we can keep going in part of September but eventually it's going to be too dark at 6:00 AM to ride.
Last week and this Tuesday was great weather for riding. Tuesday the 8th we did a rode ride but it was pretty foggy on Thursday the 10th so we stayed in the park and had a good ride on the trails through the woods and along the river. Then this Tuesday the 15th we did another road ride.
When we showed up Tuesday morning there was a man exercising his pigeons from the Silver Springs parking lot. It was neat to watch him release his birds and see them fly off. He said he races them 150 miles on weekends. Boy you have to have some faith in your birds to give them that much freedom.
There are consistently two or three of us riding so this is definitely worth continuing. I'd like to see some new faces though. This isn't a race. We take it slow and easy and do our best to be back in the parking lot by 7:00 at the latest. If you're even remotely interested but have some questions drop me an email or give me a call at 630-552-8072.
This morning we had our first rain out. Actually we should have called it a rain out but we showed up and got soaked about ¾ of the way around the lake. We took shelter for a while under the porch of one outhouse and when it slacked off some we headed for home. That's not bad for the whole summer though. This is the first time we've been bitten by the weather.
We managed to avoid getting rained on this week. We stuck to trails in Silver Springs on Tuesday because it was too foggy to ride the roads safely. Thursday we rode through part of the Grasslands of the Fox area and then looped back up through Plano and back to Silver Springs. It was a good ride. That hill going up past the golf course on Hale Street is nice and steep. It's good practice for standing up :-)
It was a good week for riding and other stuff. I got a new grandson on Monday (24th). Then we got in a road ride on Tuesday (25th) and rode the horse trail at Silver Springs Thursday (27th). We didn't spot any deer but we saw a pheasant and some waterfowl, including a great blue heron, on the marsh toward the back of the trail. It was real nice not having to worry about cars coming from any direction. I really like trail riding.
This morning I took Sam (my dog) over to Silver Springs and rode some of the trails along the river and around the ponds. We saw one doe deer and half a dozen rabbits that Sam could chase as far as the bushes. She had a ball and I managed to wear her out for the day :-) Next week if it's not too wet I want to ride the Grasslands of the Fox trail one morning before squirrel season starts.
It's been a while since I updated the page but we've had some good rides. Last Tuesday (18th) I saw a beaver in Rock Creek and a raccoon on a trail in Silver Springs before I even got to the parking lot. On the ride we saw four deer. One doe and twin fawns in a field beside Burr Oak Road and later one lone doe crossing the road ahead of us.
On Thursday (20th) we took some of the bikable trails in Silver Springs itself. It was a learning experience. You have to watch the person behind you because if you get too far apart they can miss a turn. We had to ride back to the parking lot once to find someone who got lost. It was a good ride though. Not technically hard but some single trails with bridges to cross and some steep hills to go down. Maybe next time we can go up them :-)
I rode the Silver Springs horse trail this morning with my dog Sam. It's about 5.5 miles by bike. The good news is they just mowed it last week so the grass is nice and short. The bad news is they just mowed it last week so the grass clippings really stick to your bike. I had to stop after about four miles out and clean the grass out of my back brakes so I could keep going. We saw one deer and we saw ducks and herons and egrets on the marshes toward the back of the trail. It was a good ride for me and Sam enjoyed it too. Next week we'll ride the horse trail one morning if it doesn't rain.
It rained 2.5 inches on Tuesday evening and night, and while that put a damper on the fireworks, the creek came up about 10 feet Tuesday night. By Wednesday at noon it was back down to maybe three feet above normal and perfect for kayaking. I did four and a half hours down Laughrey Creek Wednesday afternoon. I only had to get out and pull over shallows once. It was a workout.
I'm looking forward to a busy week of spinning and riding. I hope to see people at Silver Springs on Tuesday and Thursday.
I admit to detouring through the park on the way home Thursday to snack at some raspberry bushes I know about. Mulberries are still ripe and ready to eat and there are some crab apples over toward the Duck Creek Trail that will be ready for snacking soon. Later this summer I know where there's a patch of wild plums that will make you pucker with pleasure. Wild fruit is the breakfast of champions and the best part is it's free :-)
I'm going to be on vacation next week but look forward to getting back on the road starting July 11th. You're welcome to ride along.