I thought that this weekend was going to be a cycling disaster. The forecast was for thunderstorms pretty much all day saturday and great weather sunday. However, "my" bike path that I ALWAYS ride on b/c it is beautiful, the perfect length, and starts a block from my apt was in use for a triathlon (that I wasn't participating in). This meant that I was going to have to find an alternative plan for sunday, so I recruited my tennis partner to join me on a route that I hadn't mapped out yet and had never been on before.

Lucky for me, however, the rain never came, and I got a great ~40mi ride in on saturday and clocked it in as faster than my usual ride. The weather was great and I was feeling really good after a day off.

Then this morning I met up with my tennis partner who is in great shape b/c she plays nearly every sport under the sun. However, she doesn't bike more than a few miles at a time, and that is on a small mountain bike with thick knobbed tires and all the "wrong" gear combinations. She tried to get slicks from her LBS yesterday afternoon but they were going to take 2d to get them on and my LBS could do them right away but only if she got the bike there in 10min - so she had no choice but to ride with the old tires.

We found an amazing bike path along the north branch of the chicago river. I will definitely be going back there! It's a 20mi trail (40mi out and back) totally in the shade, with a freshly paved incredibly smooth surface making for an exhilaratingly fast ride. The only problems are a) lack of water stations b) too many tight curves (especially for a fast ride). However, the trail wasn't very crowded, so even the tight curves were not too scary.

The lack of water thing was an issue. I am used to water fountains nearly every quarter mile on my usual path so we didn't bring enough water for a path that has, like, none. (For those who want to use this trail, it turns out there is no water in the north section, but reportedly, some on the south section.

My friend was struggling with her sub-optimal bike, and her lack of experience, and she could tell that I was getting frustrated. She voluntarily let me drop her under the condition that I came back to get her. So I went ahead and added a little loop to the top of the ride. I would have ridden further out, but the no water thing was becoming an issue.

I met up with my friend, took a short snack break, and then went ahead again and this time came back with water! The trail crossed a couple of big streets and at one crossing there was a gas station! Of course when I went back with the water, I had to climb a steep hill (no we don't have hills in chicago, this was man-made) for the 3rd time and just as I descended there was my friend! So I had to immediately turn around and do the hill again - hill repeats were not in the plan for the day, but I survived.

In the end, my friend did about 16mi and I did ~23 (hard to count without a computer and b/c of all the turning around). It was a shorter than usual ride for me, but having gotten my long ride in yesterday that was fine. The most important thing is that I discovered a really great new trail that I definitely want to try again, but next time with more water on board!

Another problem with the trail is access. It is pretty far from my house on not-so-nice roads, so the bike has to be transported there by car. W/o a bike rack this was probably the most challenging part of the whole experience. I'll just have to pick one up before we lose the good weather.

Unfortunately, no pics - next time.