Spring Shakedown Spin MLCB Post #136, April 27, 2016

I’ve been able to get out on the roads with the Trek 600, just my usual route, to see how things go, and what may need replacing on the bicycle. I don’t think there are many maintenance issues with the bike, and I’m ready to cover some ground on this fine machine. I had a little trepidation about the 700×23 tires, being a big guy, but they seem to be holding up quite well. They’re just some good basic Nashbar tires, so if I have to change, I can, but they seem to have few issues so far

The shifting on the bike, via downtube shifters, and driven by some fine indexed Shimano 600 Series derailleurs, is really smooth. The bike carried me over these little hills on my route with out complaints, either by me or the gearing. Close spaced cogs are a bit easier to shift than some of the wider gearing. I have yet to work out my gear development so I know which gear inches I’m in in which sprocket and which cog. Once I have that one figured out, I’ll attach a little chart that will show me which gears to select.

The Trek 600 gets me into the country pretty quickly, as the bike has good climbing ability and fast, but not twitchy handling. It has a good stable feel, it doesn’t flex under power, and it also has a good, quality feel to it. There is a threshold with bicycles that, once surpassed, you know you are on a fine machine that will make the most of your efforts. It doesn’t matter how old the bicycle is, once you pass that quality threshold, but it does vary, I think, from maker to maker

This bicycle is truly the first great, well-made bicycle I have owned that is well above that threshold, in my opinion. Reynolds 531 tubing sure does seem to make a difference, and I’m sure the higher marques are even better. But I also think there are limits to my ability, and this bicycle is probably as posh and swift as I need for what I will do with it, like ride roads like these for ample periods of time, with maybe a light rack and a very light load, if any. Keeping this bike light and unencumbered is a top priority.

I had to fight some wind on this ride, and the bicycle did that well, having plenty of gearing despite the close spaced cogs. It also handled well in the winds up to 30 mph, and I have to say that is a valuable asset here on the prairies of Illinois, where the wind is hardly ever still. These winds are often a major factor in my ride plans. They will continue to be, but this bicycle will help make the windward leg of my trips a little longer, and that’s a good thing for a bicycle to be able to do.

Smelling the Flowers MLCB Post #97, July 1,2015

When the rain stopped the other day for a few hours, I took the Fuji and rambled through the countryside. I figured I’d get a few miles in while I had the opportunity. It has been storming a lot this June, so it’s good to get out and ride when the chance presents itself. I had tried to get out all morning, but rain showers prevented it. I encountered a lot of wildflowers when I did get out. That’s one of the nice things about cycling, it gets you close to what is right there, in nature. What you speed past in a car, you have an opportunity to stop and encounter while on a bike.
These little blue flowers grow along sections of the Constitution trail. I haven’t seen them other places, although I’m sure they are there.

Chicory is quite common along roadsides and highways in Illinois. Sometimes it is so abundant, it looks like blue haze along the ground.

Daylilies grow in abundance along Illinois Highways and farmsteads. They always add a cheery splash of color.

I could see from the ridge the town of Hudson, and farther in the distance, the trees surrounding Lake Bloomington.

I also encountered this pink wildflower, sort of like a petunia, or pink lady.

Red Clover is a really common little wildflower, but it never seems to occurr in masses like the Chicory or Daylily

The weather started to shift back toward the rainy and nasty stuff we’ve been getting off and on all week, and I figured I’d better start toward home. Just enough time for the roads to get dry, and soon enough weather was making itself felt. I felt glad I was able to get out and enjoy the small break we had. It was cool and mild, and that’s always nice in June. The windmills looked neat against the sky. They are huge.

A few days later, on another day off, just after another round of storms, I went along the trail looking for other flowers, and found a few newcomers. These orange beauties appear to be Butterfly Weed. The purplish flowers are Crown Vetch

Butterfly Weed and Crown Vetch

The pink flowers shown here I see only rarely on my rides, they appear to be rose-like

The Common Milkweed, just getting ready to bloom.

The bicycle is a great vehicle for finding the beauty in nature. Just fast enough to cover some ground, but not so fast that you miss the fine detail. Even though I obviously know little of wildflowers, I have been able to find, approach, and photograph them just as they are. The bicycle intrudes only slightly into their setting, and disturbs all of nature but a little. That seems to be the best way to encounter nature.

Spring Metric MLCB Post #95, June 13-2015

I did a 38 mile ride on Saturday, although it was both hot and humid. I decided from the first not to loop back to the starting area after each loop of the ride, but rather to ride each loop from its junction with the previous loop, avoiding repetition, and cutting down my ride time and distance in the torrid weather. I got more than 600 feet of climbing done in the 35 miles I rode. I wound up ending my ride in Carlock, Illinois, which had orange soda at the gas station, rather than riding all the way back to my start point.

These cattle were grazing in a hilly field, beneath interesting clouds.

Corn is growing really well, with all the rain and humidity we’ve had

This farmhouse appears to growing hops, a crop I haven’t seen much around here

The spillway at Lake Bloomington, handling some of the overflow from recent storms

Hilly country, full of cornfields and cattle

Recent rains have also caused flooding of fields in the countryside

In many places, the areas the Spring Metric traverses are the hilly country surrounding the Mackinaw River as it wends it’s way through the Illinois Countryside.

Sometimes, it gets really hilly.

This marker, at the McLean/Woodford County line, commemorates Lincoln’s travels on this road as part of his duties with the circuit court. The plates on the bottom denote which county is on either side of the marker.

Panorama, showing Carlock, Illinois from the heights above the town.

An old style of grain elevator in Downtown Carlock.

My Specialized Sirrus in the Municipal Park in Carlock, where I chose to end this ride.

Weather was not so bad, I had a great time, and I stretched my riding distance just a bit farther for this year. The Sirrus did a fine job as a distance bike for this trip, although a drop bar tourer would have been better. But the Fuji is awaiting new shifters, and I’m needing to order a granny gear for the Austro-Daimler. This trip makes me see the granny gear as a necessity, especially with the step-and-a-half gearing on the AD. The Mclean County Wheelers Bicycle Club did another great job this year with a fine event.

To The Windmills Two, or A Change of Of Plans – MLCB Post #50 7-30-14

Sometimes, we change plans for ourselves. Sometimes, events take a hand in the decision. I was going to ride the Miles of Smiles event today. But Wednesday, I had a bad toothache, worse on Thursday. I called my dentist, he saw me, took x-rays, and immediately sent me to the surgeon for an operation to remove an abscessed tooth. So I did not feel like putting in 70 miles on a bicycle in humid weather with possible thunderstorm activity.
This proved to be a good thing, although I did get 26 miles in, they were about all I was going to be able to do. I was quite the worse for wear after, although was glad I did some riding. I took another trip through the wind farm near me on my ride today, and covered a good deal of ground, coming close to the towns of Carlock and Towanda, as well as getting some good climbing(for Illinois). I used the trip to further test out the new saddle and pedals, as well as the more cushiony handgrips on the Cannondale.

Truly a warm and humid day, good for the crops, but people wilt.

The weather was not hot, but as humid as it could be. The heat wave predicted today stayed south of us, as well as the severe weather for the most part, but it was still warm enough, and oppressively humid. I used a closed road to go west from home, as the road is complete except for the transitions on either end from old to new road. Later, a bike path now under construction will parallel it. I then crossed under Interstate 39, and rode a ways into the country, where the road really closed.

A Cyclist rides past a customary roadside cross.

I had another change of plan here, as I could not readily go south without a road to get me there, so I decided to go west, into the wind farm, and perhaps a bit farther. So I detoured to the north, and then turned west. I could have gone around Evergreen Lake, but I was afraid I’d be bucking the wind currently blowing from the Southwest as a headwind when returning. So I went west, and climbed the ridges between Normal and Carlock, passing through the wind farm.

This barn has a neat horse on the front, and a bulldozer as well

I returned by going East on the road that passes south of Hudson, getting near Towanda on a much used route before returning to Normal. Everything let me know then it was time to quit, so I put in an extra mile to round things out and rode on home. It turned out to be a good ride at a good pace and just about the limit of my abilities for today. While I’m frustrated that my participation in Miles of Smiles didn’t pan out, I’m glad I took the ride that I did, over the ride I didn’t. I think the National Cycling Challenge https://nationalbikechallenge.org has been a good impetus for me to ride this summer. Often I’m riding just to maintain ranking or points, and I wind up having a great time. Hope you do as well!

US Route 150 wends its way past the windmills

Around the Lake MLCB Post #45 6-25-14

Last week, I took a little jaunt on Sunday, from home to the nearby reservoir. The reservoir, Lake Bloomington, is ringed by camps and private vacation homes and compounds, as well as the city waterworks and parks, and an interesting old dam and a really long spillway that leads to the Mackinaw River. This day was a real “cap soaker” as I call it, high heat and humidity due to a stalled weather pattern. No breeze to speak of, and closeness in the air preceding that night’s thunderstorms, which were spectacular even by Prairie State standards.

A farm near the lake. It looks like soybeans are doing well this year.

>

Further along, the road curves past Hinthorn Chapel and the graveyard behind it

This island is in one of the creeks that feeds the lake.

A deep woods where I always seem to see some wildlife

East Bay Camp Entrance, with a nice little blockhouse.

Another camp I saw, very retro, as most of these camps are.

Part of the East Bay Facilities, and the Scottish Rite Camp area. Note the sign. It says “Now leaving East Bay. God Bless You”

Spillway of Lake Bloomington Dam

Panoramic View of the dam

A closer view, Mallard drakes are standing atop the dam in the water running over it.

Bloomington Water Works

The South area of the lake, right before a short, tough hill.

A baby skunk I saw on my way home

I wound up doing about 25 miles, good training for my next ride, in hotter and more humid conditions than I expect to encounter on the day(hopefully). About 345 feet of climbing, all told. Within two hours after these pictures were taken, a large thunderstorm hit Bloomington/Normal, with lots of rain and a big dramatic gust front.

Riding the Learning Curve 5-7-14 MLCB Post #38

When I first got back into bicycling, I got a Huffy from a church sale to see if I would like cycling again as much as I had 15 years before. I did. I moved on to a Sears Free Spirit for my first road bike of my new bike riding. I learned a lot from that bicycle. It was the first one I took apart and regreased, and the first one I repainted, and the first one I rebuilt and tuned the wheels on. Then I got a Giant mountain bike, and that gave me my first good set of gears and basic touring capability. I later got a Giant Hybrid bike new, and some other bikes have come and gone over the years. I seem to finally be happy with my current bicycle, a Cannondale H600. Sure, it needs narrower tires, and some low-rider front racks, but it is a good bike, and seems ready to have some miles put on it. I think once it is tuned, and maybe gets new shifters, that it will be a really good bike for commuting and touring.
When I started i riding again, I had little idea that bicycles come in several different sizes. The fact is, when I was younger, I was shorter, and could buy a bike off a sales floor without having to worry about my size, as I was the top end of average size, and that was the size most mass merchandised bicycles were. I did not know of the plusses of having alloy wheels, and that they were lighter, and stopped better in wet conditions. Cranksets, brake quality, gearing, and other aspects of cycling were new to me. I had books and the internet to turn to, and I educated myself as best I could from them. When I joined a bicycle club, I was able to follow conversations about components and other aspects of cycling.
I still wonder at the amount of knowledge out there today regarding bicycles. Blogs, forums, websites and clubs still have a lot of information and resources to offer. I think this is part of the cycling renaissance we are experiencing, as well as personal cost-cutting measures required of everyone by the recent financial catastrophe and recovery. This emphasis on more basic living has brought a lot of people to the bicycle as a means of commuting to work and other commitments. This may be a good point for using the bicycle as an alternative mode of transportation as well as fitness and health. This has received a mixed reaction from both citizens and government alike. I think that local governments that support cycling are doing the right thing. One look at the infrastructure surrounding the automobile shows us that we are having a hard time filling all the potholes and patching all the streets that automobiles require and wear out. The more folks we can get riding bicycles for part of their errand running and work commuting, the better.
Now that I have made the transition back into riding again, on a frame that fits me, I have seen that I still have a lot to learn. One thing about cycling is that it, and the environment surrounding cycling, are always changing. Cities are expanding, and rural activities and hazards are where the edge of the city meets the edge of the country. Keep an eye out for agricultural equipment on the roads, some of it is sharp, and much of it takes up a couple of lanes of roadway. Tractors and attachments are still plowing where they always have, but thanks to urban sprawl, bicycles and cars are encountering them more. Enclaves of fields seem to populate the margins of our town. Sometimes, they are right next to destinations or trails. We are now in the season of planting, so these areas may be seeing a lot of slow, ponderous machines going about the work required of producing your cornflakes.
As I sometimes show or discuss trains from time to time on this blog, it would be remiss for me to mention that May 10 is National Train Day. http://www.nationaltrainday.com/s/ and you may be able to find an event near you. Also, May is National Bike Month as wellhttp://bikeleague.org/bikemonth. There are many events planned for this, so be sure and check those out as well. Now that spring, and temperate weather, are here, it is a great time to get out and explore by bicycle, and see some of the spaces between places you may not have found before.

Errorandonee!! 4-23-14 MLCB Post #36

Errorandonee- any long journey over 5 miles undertaken by bicycle, which does not achieve the desired result of the trip. This comes from the term Errandonee, using a bicycle to do errands. Which is related to Coffeeneuring, and so on. All of these tongue-in-cheek phrases have to do with use of the bicycle. My Errorandonee was part of an attempt to deliver an old-time coffee grinder to my church, a 17 mile round trip that I realized may not turn out, as I realized it was Holy Week, and the office may be closed.
But I got to see the local trail and some of the town getting ready for spring. Early leaves are starting to come out on the trees, and a few daffodils are starting to bloom, as are some crocus. Other bulbs and plants are beginning to emerge from the ground still covered with last autumn’s leaves. I saw some folks flying a kite in the 25 mile an hour winds we have had lately, with 35 mile per hour gusts. I made good time as I was riding downhill into the wind, and returning uphill with a tailwind.

The Cannondale got a new chain, as the old one it came with was just a little stretched, and I put too much effort into its’ meager metals the other day and nearly broke it. Large rider on marshy soil with strong headwinds will test any chain, I suppose. I’m still switching saddles around to find a good one, and may have to go to the extreme of buying new. I know, that seems like crazy talk, but my stock of old foam saddles are pretty much used up, except for a period Avocet I have reserved for the Voyageur. I’ll let you know how that one comes out…

The trail has a rather abrupt hill rising near Emerson Street, with a big fancy bridge over the street for the Constitution Trail. The hill is always a challenge, as are the approaches to the tunnel under Washington Street, where I found a nearly new tarp with some oil on it. I rolled it up and put it back where I found it, and when I went by the Hatchery, there were some fellows patching the asphalt. I asked them if they had lost a tarp, and they thought they may, in fact, have. On my return, it had been reclaimed.

I got to the church, and found it closed, so I took some photos of my bicycle there, and found the saddle-du-jour had some sort of metal in it that had poked through the covering, so I placed a business card, folded, into the hole it was beginning to make. The shape is just right(quite narrow) but age has taken its toll on this good old saddle. Once I had made the necessary repairs, I drank some vitamin water I had brought with me, and turned for home.

On my return trip, runners were starting to come out in force, as were a few hardy cyclists on this 55 degree day. I had no mechanical trouble with the Cannondale today; the new chain seems to be doing a fine job. I am now in the place I want to be to start putting more miles in, in preparation for the Spring Metric, a 100 kilometer ride that may be coupled with the trip to and from for a Century Ride. I may not be up to that this year, but we will see.
The trekking bars are working out well with this larger frame, and give me a variety of hand positions on the bars, as well as the width I need for handlebars on the bike. You can tell if the handlebars are wide enough by seeing if they correspond to the width of the place where your shoulder joint bones are. This ensures that your arms have room to allow your chest to expand naturally with effort. Proper and unobstructed breathing is greatly advantageous for the cyclist.
I hope that your spring is progressing enough to allow you to get out and enjoy cycling. Enjoy your ride!

I Discover… 4-16-14 MLCB Post #35

Lost Lake! On my bicycle.
I had no dreams of being a latter day Coronado when I set out to do shopping at a local market accessed by the trail, yet there I was, on my Cannondale H600, discovering a pond for water retention I never knew existed I don’t think many people know it is there, and it sure is not much to look at, just grass, a couple of scraggy trees, and some water. I suppose if you work at the nearby Wendy’s or Discount Tire you may have seen it. But the casual passerby would not see it from the car window speeding by on Main Street to the I-55 Interchange. And it is just as hard to see from the parking lot of the nearby Constitution Trail Centre.
I did find the lake to be a favorite of some area waterfowl, most notably Canadian Geese and Mallard Ducks. But other than the sometimes dirt covered trail, there were no facilities or benches or much of anything else around there, just a man made pond to retain water runoff from the parking lots nearby. There isn’t really a connection to the parking lots from the trail, but the trail circles the lake and then returns you from whence you came, the Constitution trail about a half-mile or so distant. But it is a nice connector to this area, so long as you do not mind walking your bike a short ways to get to the grocery store or theater or fast food.

There are a lot of places that I have discovered anew via bicycle. It is amazing what you can see without the speed of the automobile to blind you to the little out of the way places. These places may not warrant a stop in the headlong rush of the automobile, but the bicycle is a gentler guide. Its’ personality leads you to stop more often, due to the need for rest, and the ease of stepping from the bike directly to your destination. I went to the shopping center for some groceries, and was able to park directly next to the door. I got my groceries, and carried them from the cart area at the front of the store maybe 40 feet to my conveyance, while auto drivers had to walk a great deal farther.

I find the bicycle a lot more natural as a conveyance for these little trips to market and the like. It has a natural convenience and sensibility, the right tool for the job. And six bikes or so will fit in the space required by 1 car. And after the last winter, I think we can all agree that our weather and climate may benefit from a bit less carbon and methane in the atmosphere. And, biking to do your errands and get your groceries actually burns calories and promotes fitness. Commuting to work always seems to get you a better parking space if you are on a bicycle. And you can always supplement with public transit, as many bus systems offer a way to carry your bicycle. So get out there and discover the lost parts of your world by bicycle this spring!

Getting ready for Spring, or, What The Groundhog Saw. MLCB Post #25 1-26-14

Getting ready for spring is always how I view this time of year, because winter often seems endless by now. Indeed, this winter in the Midwest has been a long one so far. The weather could moderate right now, and the winter would still be regarded as a long winter. But that doesn’t mean that we, as cyclists, do not have things to do. Many are the concerns for the coming riding season, and the time is drawing nearer when we will all be outdoors riding again.
I have been preparing by gathering a few bikes for spare parts, as well as refurbishment and sale once the weather turns warmer. Also, I’m organizing my tools, touring equipment like panniers and stoves and clothing, as well as camera concerns and gps technology. Each polar express-vortex-cold spell that hits us gets a little less extreme. In recognition of this, I have been working on cadence over endurance and power on the indoor trainer, as I always find myself struggling with cadence early in the season. I have also been doing some weight training, as that is helpful for balance and strength issues related to the core muscles of the upper body.
I also am getting a handle on a new area of cycling for me. I am getting more into mountain biking, taking more advantage of the trails near me. We will see a bit more of the hillier and woodsy parts of Central Illinois in coming posts. Trying to educate myself in mountain biking has been interesting. Different skills and abilities apply to this sort of cycling. Still, when I tried the mountain bike I got the other day, I enjoyed it greatly. It certainly puts some youth back in my cycling experience.
A new year means time to try some new things. New experiences and new or different equipment keep the cycling spirit fresh within each of us. We are all subject to the winter blues, but planning for the delights of spring can put a little sunshine in an otherwise stormy day. We may still be a few weeks away from riding here in the Central Illinois Area, but we can always dream, plan and prepare for better cycling times ahead. Support your local groundhog!