I&M Canal Trail - Brandon Road Lock & Dam

At over 80 miles in length, the I&M Canal Trail offers a lot of territory to explore here in Northern Illinois. For myself, I’ve ridden various distances across the western section of the trail, between LaSalle and Ottawa, finally getting the opportunity to ride the entire distance between the two cities this spring.

The trailhead in LaSalle is only about a half-hour from home, which makes it an attractive starting point for a rider who mostly just takes out of his driveway. But, as sometimes happens, I had to travel eastward for other purposes, so I took the trike along in case the opportunity for a ride presented.

As luck would have it, the opportunity was quite cooperative, and I found myself in the vicinity of the Brandon Road Lock and Dam entrance to the canal trail. This point of trail access is sited in the comparatively tiny town of Rockdale, just south of Joliet. I’d never been to this particular part of the trail or, frankly even heard of Rockdale, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. What I found was what felt like a somewhat remote industrial area. When I saw the small parking lot it helped that I knew what I was looking for, because it was immediately obvious that there was a canal there until I opened the door of the car and heard the water rushing.

And it does rush here, which is not true everywhere along the canal. There are several miles of the canal in other portions where the waterway itself has since silted in. In those portions you can usually - but not always - tell where the canal used to be, but only because you know that it used to be there. It makes you a little more aware that Mother Nature did not intend for this waterway to be present and, without human intervention, she has a tendency to put things aright as she sees they should be.

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But that’s not the case at the Brandon Road site. In fact, tho I didn’t notice it before I started out - in too big a hurry to just get riding, I think - there’s a spillway of sorts right at this site (perhaps part of the system for the newer canal that replaced the I&M) that accounts for all of the rushing sound. And this all means that, for this section of the trail you are afforded the sort of views that come with riding along the water:

Wetland

It also offers up the type of wetland wildlife you might expect. Probably my favorite sight was the Snowy Egret (I think - it was white and heron shaped) that I saw both in flight and standing on the bank. It was shy of the camera (or perhaps I was just too slow and clumsy to capture it), so I wasn’t able to capture its image. But I did see plenty of these guys:

Gooseflesh

Gooseflesh

I came across them in a large flock within the first half-mile or so of the ride. I figured they would simply peel off into the water as I approached.

They did not. In fact, what they chose to do was run away from me, straight down the trail in the same direction of travel. I slowed down so as not to catch up with them - I am well aware that a goose can be a large batch of unpleasantness if it wants to be, and further aware that I was sitting at about goose-height, so discretion seemed the better part of valor in this case. After a bit they did break off into the canal, leaving me alone again along the trail.

Over the four-ish mile stretch I covered before turning around the trail had a feel of combining nature and industry.

It’s not natural…

And although the presence of such sights did not surprise me - after all, it is what I was driving through on my way to the access point - I was surprised by the number of rail crossings I encountered over a relatively short ride. Some were somewhat picturesque…

…on a train bound for nowhere…

…While the others were more utilitarian. It occurs to wonder just how active these tracks are as one is approaching them with very little open lateral view to see whether a train is approaching…

One is reminded at these times that the land occupied by the canal trail represents territory would have been marginal for other uses both in the days of the Canal’s acme, as well as now. Sited near the Des Plaines River along this portion, it occupies low territory. Vital for a waterway, of course, but perhaps for not a lot else. That was also fairly clear to me as I encountered what is, by now, a familiar occurrence with canal trails:

Standing water.

There had been a fairly heavy storm system roll through the area earlier in the day, and the week prior had been fairly damp as well, so this wasn’t terribly surprising.

Fortunately, aside from a few healthy puddles along the way, it didn’t have much impact. The trail is mostly crushed stone where I rode, and while some sections were soft, they didn’t impede my progress. The one underpass I encountered was wet, but with maybe a quarter-inch of standing water in it, so perfectly passable (tho making me thankful once again for fenders).

If I had any doubt as to whether the standing water was a common occurrence (I did not), it was cast away by the cyclist I encountered along the way who asked if the trail was open at … (I didn’t catch the location name). I couldn't help him - I’d turned around to make my way back just a few hundred yards before I encountered him, so it was clear what he was asking about was a spot I hadn’t reached. I hope his way was clear.

All in all, tho, a nice way to spend a bit of time in the middle of the day. The canal trails - I&M and Hennepin - really are a gift to northern Illinois that just keeps on giving.

Rut Revisited

Rut Revisited

I hit a point last summer where I realized I was in a riding rut. I’d done what turned out to be an uncomfortable analysis that showed that all but two of my rides for the past month had been essentially to the same location.

I’m not quite there this year - I’m riding a handful of routes instead of the same one over and over again - but the feeling is similar. I’m covering similar territory in slightly different ways. I love cycling - it’s essentially truism that a bad day riding is still better than a good day at work. But there are points at which it becomes pat and repetitive - the same scenery, the same roads, etc. When you ride down a road and realize that you’ve seen the same bolt in the same part of the road multiple times - and you realize that wondering exactly what type of farm equipment it must have come off of and whether or not it was important is now a part of what you are thinking about on your ride - maybe things have gotten a little too routine

So it’s time to sit down with Google Maps and begin to identify some alternate routes and areas to explore. One of the challenges in my area is first finding potential routes and second scouting them out to make sure they include no - or at least minimal - gravel. Roads in our region are mostly paved, but as I’ve learned through exploration, it’s very possible to suddenly discover, after eight to ten miles of pavement, that a road commissioner decided that the next three miles needed to be of the rocky sort.

Seriously tho - what is up with that guy?

Gobbling Up the Chain

Ask any regular rider of a tadpole-style (two wheels in front, one in back) recumbent trike and they will be happy to tell you about the many advantages that their ride of choice has over traditional, upright or “diamond frame” (DF for short) bikes. They are more comfortable in pretty much every way, less fatiguing to ride over long distances, present a lower profile to the wind, and wherever you go, you have a chair when you arrive…

Yes - maybe a little too happy to discuss it.

But then ask that person if you can ride their recumbent trike - take it out for a spin to experience that enjoyment for yourself - and you will likely see a bit of a pained look on their face, and you will then undoubtedly experience them seeming to size you up, looking you up and down.

In this moment you will wonder:

Do they not trust me? Are they trying to sort out my moral character before they let me try their expensive toy? Do they think I might ride off with it and never come back? I’ve known this person for years - how could they think that I’d do something like that to them…?

And it’s possible that there is a little of that in there - recumbent trikes are certainly a larger investment than those DF bikes at the big box store. But you feel like they are sizing you up mostly because they are literally sizing you up - trying to decide if your height and theirs is close enough for you to fit on the machine.

This is because most of the models of tadpole recumbent trikes are sized to the rider, and changing the size requires the rather tedious process of adding or removing sections of chain. That’s why you got the pained look - the simple question of “can I ride your trike” isn’t really a simple question - it’s a request for a modification to their machine that is messy, time consuming, requires special equipment and material, and may or may not be within the capabilities of the trike’s owner. And because of the physical layout of a trike, anything beyond a minor variation in size and shape between you and the trike’s owner is really going to prevent you from being able to comfortably be able to operate the machine.

On a DF bike, it’s mostly just a matter of raising or lowering a seat. And in this case, yes: Advantage DF.

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In a lot of ways, through the routine ownership of a trike, this is a minor issue. If it’s your trike, and you are the only one who will be riding it, once the machine is sized for you it’s really all good. It really only comes up as an issue if you want to share the machine with or between others.

But what if you do find yourself wanting to share a trike? There is a solution - TerraCycle makes chain-tensioners - sometimes referred to as chain “gobblers” - which allow you to install an extra length of chain and lets out or takes up the slack so you can resize the machine for different people.

Getting one of these for has been on my list for quite some time now - since getting my Expedition back in 2019 we are a two-trike household, and I wanted to set up MLW’s Catrike Pocket so that it could be shared with others on occasion. By “others” I mostly mean me - I’ve reached the point where riding my beloved Cannondale SR400 as a backup when the trike is in the shop is fine in theory, but honestly just looking at it hanging on the wall starts to make my neck and backside ache, so…

The chain tensioners have been marked as being sold out on the TerraCycle website for a very long time (and still are as I check them today). For a while my approach was just to check in on the website once or twice a week, and I did email in a request to be notified when they came in stock as well (which was cheerfully acknowledged). I’m assuming that this item is another victim of supply shortages due to the pandemic, which is understandable. Still, as we rolled closer to the warm weather months, I got a little more anxious - I resized MLW’s chain so I could ride the Pocket the last time the Expedition was in for repairs, and it’s remotely possible that I hadn’t gotten around to putting it back yet… I’d been waiting on the task, rationalizing that it would be better to wait until I had the tensioner. So it finally occurred to me that some of the trike shop sites might have them available. I checked all the usual haunts, and most of them were in the same boat - out of stock. Most were out, but The Hostel Shoppe turned out to have a couple in stock. I did not wait - I immediately ordered one up and waited impatiently for it to arrive.

Pocket and Gobbler

It arrived just before Memorial Day weekend, which was about perfect, the long weekend offering up time to work on the Pocket. I set up the workbench and got out my chain tools.

Instructions are supplied with the tensioner, and they are pretty straightforward, but rather brief:

Instructions

Fortunately, there are also more detailed instructions on TerraCycle’s product page, which I found helpful. The one missing item in the instructions - whether to add length to the chain, and by how much - is answered in the FAQ above the instructions (spoiler alert: it’s about a foot of chain you need to add).

TerraCycle designed these specifically for Catrike (there are also versions for other models), so it really does bolt right on. The upper bracket attaches right to the quick releases on the boom adjustment:

Getting Prepped

Bolts right on

The the lower bracket hooks on to the boom itself. I mounted it about as close to the largest front ring as I was comfortable with, like the instructions indicated.

Boom Bracket

There are pictures of it mounted to a trike (they cleverly chose the best color trike for the pics) on the TerraCycle product page as well, which is handy when you are eyeballing where it sits on the boom. Once I sited it on the boom it fit perfectly.

All that was left was to add a length of chain. I took the FAQ at its word and measured out about 12” of chain and went about adding it in. This was the hardest part of the project for me, relatively speaking, simply because while I’m getting better at working on the trike myself, everything still just takes me longer due to lack of practice.

And once I had the additional length on I needed to cycle through the gears at different boom lengths (I’ve marked the boom for both MLW and myself). Since I’m working at a makeshift workbench (wood on sawhorses) I’ve had folks ask me, on occasion, what I do when I need to spin the wheels. The answer is that I position the bench under the ceiling hoists that I use to store the trikes, and hook one up to the end of the trike that I’m working on. Usually this is the rear:

Slightly elevated

That gives me enough lift off of the table for the wheel to spin free. You do want to lock both front brakes when you do this though, or things will wobble a bit (or more than a bit). This puts everything at a comfortable standing height for me when working on the trike, and the whole thing can be easily disassembled and put aside when not in use. Some day I hope to have enough workshop space where I have room for a specialized trike stand (they are very cool), but that’s not now.

Once it was all together I took it out for a ride, and aside from initially not tightening the boom enough, everything worked almost perfectly. I needed to do a bit of derailleaur adjustment, but not much - “about a foot” of chain seems to have been the right amount. And it’s hard to find enough complimentary words to describe the build quality of TerraCycle’s products. Like the Adjustomatic Bottle Mount, this product is a real work of craftsmanship. Honestly, I think it looks like it comes with the trike:

Fully installed

In fact, there is a part of me that thinks maybe these should come as stock items on trikes - letting you easily adjust the boom for anyone who wants to try it out. And Catrike sells their own version of it, with their name on it (tho I imagine it is built by TerraCycle, and it is also on back order). But they are not inexpensive, and I suppose that would add more to the bottom line cost of a trike.

In any case, it’s on the Pocket now. Going forward, MLW can enjoy her trike and, on the rare occasion that my Expedition is down for the count, if I ask really nice and MLW takes pity on me, I can borrow the Pocket without dragging out my chain tools.

I&M Canal Trail - LaSalle to Ottawa

Last weekend I found myself on the horns of a dilemma:

I wasn’t sure where I wanted to ride.

Okay - admittedly a very minor dilemma, but a dilemma nonetheless. The overwhelming majority of my rides begin and end at my driveway. This is one of the perks of country life here in northern Illinois - there is an abundance of relatively inviting, low traffic roadways easily accessed.

Usually what this means is that I just pick one of my well-established routes based on how far I want to ride, how much time I have and - particularly in the spring - which direction the wind is blowing (I try to arrange to have the wind at my back towards the end of the ride if I can).

But on this day I found myself procrastinating, being unsure of which frequently ridden path I wanted to take… and I began to realize that “well-established” and “frequently ridden” was maybe part of the problem. Maybe I needed to venture out and do something that didn’t start and end at the driveway. And then I found myself contemplating the Illinois and Michigan Canal Trail.

I’ve ridden this trail a couple of times before, both times starting at LaSalle, Illinois, and venturing out past Utica towards Buffalo Rock State Park. I have had a personal goal of making that ride to Ottawa and back, perhaps with a stop at Tangled Roots Brewery to get a growler full of Kip Kupfer, their amber ale (a personal favorite). It’s almost a 30-mile round trip - slower going because of the nature of the trail surfaces, but well within my capabilities.

Portions of the trail are pretty… rustic, and the nature of a canal trail is that it is a low-lying area, susceptible to flooding. In particular, there is a section of clay surface between Utica and Buffalo Rock that can become a virtually impassable, soupy mess, so I wanted to see if I could get some information on trail conditions before I headed out. Official sites weren’t terribly helpful on that front, but a question posted on the Illinois Recumbent Riders group on FB turned around an answer (with pictures!) very quickly (Thank you to the kind sir who provided the info) - the trail was dry.

This meant that Ottawa (and that growler of amber ale) was a very real possibility. So I loaded up the trike, packed in the growler, and rolled up a couple of ice packs into a blanket, and headed down to LaSalle.

It was a beautiful 80° (F) Sunday, so the trail head in LaSalle was as busy as you would expect - I was fortunate that there was exactly one open parking space when I arrived. Lots of bikes and bike racks were in evidence, so I expected to see a lot of activity on the trail. Fortunately - and surprisingly - this wasn’t really the case. I came across perhaps a half-dozen cyclists over the space between LaSalle and Utica, as well as occasional walkers. That was by far the busiest portion of the trail before I got to Ottawa, so I ended up having a lot of the ride to myself.

The early portion of the trail is among the most scenic, with actual open water in the canal (much of the later portions have long since silted in), rock formations that remind you that you aren’t far from Starved Rock State Park…

…And periodic bouts of botanical glory:

Botanical glory

Utica is the first stop along the way.

Me and Utica

Valencia and Utica

It’s a lovely little town, with several things to offer, include an Illinois history museum, winery shops, and a handful of restaurants and taverns. Before I’d gotten the information on the trail conditions I had begun to reason through to the idea of just going, dammit, and if the trail conditions didn’t cooperate, turning around and consoling myself with a drink or two at the Lodi Tap - my ultimate solution the last time I’d encountered the clay soup.

I will also note, for those curious about the trail, that Utica shows up quickly - it’s a little less that five miles from the LaSalle trail head, and the trail is in relatively good condition and easy to ride between these two points. For people looking for a casual ride with perhaps some food and drink at the halfway point, LaSalle to Utica and back is a pretty good proposition.

For myself, though, I had other plans. From the marker in Utica you move across the roadway and on to the next section of trail. The entry to the trail here is marked with a sign, which is good, because the surface itself really just hints at being a pathway, like maybe it’s embarrassed and doesn’t want to stand out. And it quickly empties out on to a road.

Trail and road

So you might think to yourself “I don’t want to ride on the road - I thought the canal trail followed the old canal towpath”. Well, let me speak to the second item first by noting that the road you empty out on to is called “towpath road” - so this is still the towpath. And: while there are a couple of houses on it, it is not heavily traveled, and the surface is too poor for anyone in a motor vehicle to travel quickly without risking significant damage. In any case, it’s less than a half-mile of distance before things return to a much more rustic scene…

Grass and single-track

As you can see in the picture, much of the trail in this area is single track in two directions. However, folks like myself rolling on three wheels will find that the surface under the grass is more or less even with the exposed dirt. This portion of the trail may look a little intimidating, but it’s easily rideable on a trike. My Expedition is running Schwalbe Marathon Racers - essentially a touring tire - and I wasn’t having any trouble getting along.

As usual, shortly after you leave Towpath Road for the actual towpath, you reach the most rustic portion of the trail, in which you must ford a stream. Or at least that was what I expected, but someone had moved the bridge into position this year.

Bridging the gap

The bridge, such as it is, is a small, handmade affair. I have no idea whether this is something put into place by the park, or whether it is something that an enterprising soul just decided should be there. What I do know is that it’s location and utility do tend to vary from one season to the next. When I went through here in April of 2018 it was a little further downstream, and held in place against the current by tethers:

Bridge in 2018

This year it is at a better crossing place, and in a spot where someone on a two-wheeled machine could easily walk their bike across (and some capable souls might even manage to ride across). It is not designed with a recumbent trike in mind:

Compatibility issues…

However, what it does offer is the option of carrying the trike across - a sort of reverse portage, if you will - without having to walk through the stream. I still count that as a win. And walking the trike up and down the stream banks makes me very much appreciate the waist-level handle that my Power-On Cycling neck rest offers me.

Getting a handle on things

The following section of the trail is probably the most isolated feeling portion of the path that I’ve ridden. On other sections of the path you can routinely see off to the sides, getting snippets of waterways and other things through the brush. But here, the prairie and water plants grow very tall on either side, feeling a little like a wall, and giving the impression that you are riding through a corridor of sorts, albeit one provided by nature.

Natural corridor

It’s in this section, more than any other, where I start imagining this as a path being used in some alternate, maybe post-apocalyptic version of our world; a world where for some reason we don’t have motorized transportation or traditional roads, and this is now how we move about.

I mostly like that world, at least for the short period of time that I’m there. And as long as zombies don’t come shambling out of the brush…

It’s also this territory - between fording the stream and Buffalo Rock moving eastward - that contains the section of trail I was concerned about - the dreaded clay soup. Arriving at this point shook me out of my musings about the presence or absence of the undead. But, fortunately, reports received turned out to be very accurate. This is that section, on this ride more of a clay… bread? Toast?

No soup for you!

I’m going for another food analogy there, looking for something dry but still a little soft, but I seem to be starving for the right idea. At any rate, this section begins right about mile 86 (counting down, heading eastward), as can be seen in the picture. You can see the multitude of tread marks and tracks signifying people who have encountered it during its softer states.

The tracks of my fears

I realized as I started going through it that it wasn’t perfectly dry…

Besmirchment

Given that it’s spring and all, that wasn’t terribly surprising. But it was more than firm enough to allow for passage without any significant difficulties.

It’s not far after that point that you reach the marker and entrance for Buffalo Rock State Park.

Ignore the goofy guy in the picture - look at the trike.

As the sign says, it’s only three miles from here to Ottawa, and I’d made it past the feared impediment (the clay, not the zombies. Or at least, not as far as I know…), so it seemed like the goal was finally in sight. After taking the picture of the sign I headed onward.

The first portion of the trail after Buffalo Rock heads through a wooded area, where there is at least one open field of spring flowers:

Explosion of yellow

And through this section you will also find a couple of surviving remnants of the old canal lock system:

Hundreds of years on display

This is, I believe, the first surviving lock you come across after leaving the trail head in LaSalle (which has a more intact lock preserved there). It’s presence, here in the woods, reminds one of just how rural this canal was, despite its importance in the early days of the state. Canal tenders would have had to work here - and probably lived here, on the canal as well. It would have been a very solitary life, and one assumes they very much looked forward to the barges coming through, giving an opportunity to see and maybe even talk with others.

It was in these woods that I came across the only unexpected impediment:

It fell in the forest, but did it make a sound?

It’s worth noting that this sort of blockage is something that you should be prepared to encounter on the rural portion of the canal trails, at least here in Illinois. I think I’ve come across tree blockades on some portion of virtually every canal trail ride I’ve taken - on both this canal and the Hennepin Canal Trail. Most of the time it’s simply a matter of hopping off the machine and carrying it over the tree (as was the case here), though on at least one occasion at Hennepin the pile was so high and covered so much of the trail that it effectively marked the end point of my ride. I think for the most part, this is simply part of the deal. These parks are so big (long), and cover so much territory that there is simply no way for the park staff to be aware of every time a tree falls across the path.

A little way past this point, and it begins to give hints of civilization again. The trail is more clearly established, and you will actually arrive at a railroad crossing (this surprised me)…

Make sure to look both ways…

…shortly before coming into Ottawa proper.

At this point I’d achieved most of my goal, but not all. I still had to find my way to the brewery to get my prize. I have been there several times by car, but it’s situated on a multi-lane, one-way street, so I wasn’t sure what the best way would be to get there on the trike. For this, I fired up google maps on the phone. Google maps offers cycling directions, which do a fairly good job of identifying low-traffic routes to a given destination. This worked a treat, taking me down a couple of fairly lightly traveled side-streets to get to Tangled Roots.

Once there, I locked the trike up, got out my growler, and went inside:

Finally! And - I’m pretty sure the mask only improves my appearance

Guidelines here in Illinois still want a mask indoors unless and until you are eating or drinking. Speaking of which, I decided to order up a glass of Belgian Wit to tamp down my thirst while I was waiting for the growler to be filled. This is when I learned that the pandemic guidelines did not allow them to fill growlers.

This was somewhat distressing - after all, that was part of the purpose of the trip. I mean, yes, I did have a wonderful ride through beautiful territory, and would get to repeat it on the trip back, and I would have a couple of hours worth of exercise in, and nearly 30 miles of ride under my belt on a beautiful Illinois spring day and… what was my point again? Yeah - kind of a first world problem here, isn’t it?

And it was even less than that, because while they couldn't fill my growler, they could fill “crowlers” for me - big aluminum cans, two of which equal the volume of the jug I’d brought in.

Ladies and gentlemen, we have achieved beer!

(Very minor) crisis averted! In fact, as I sipped my Belgian Wit and waited for the rest of my order to be filled, it occurred to me that the “crowlers” (this is supposed to be a portmanteau of “can” and “growler”, I think - I don’t love it, but here it is anyway) were really a better option than a glass jug for transport on the trike anyway. The only downside was that I now had to transport the cans and the (empty) glass jug both back with me.

I unrolled my blanket, and was pleasantly surprised to find that the ice packs were still cold. I mean, that was my plan, but I honestly hadn’t been super-confident that it was going to actually work. I packed the crowlers in with the ice packs and rolled the whole thing back up and put it in the pannier bag.

Packing for coldness

The return trip was essentially a reverse of the ride up, as one would expect. I was heavier on the way back by about four pounds of beer, plus the mass of the Belgian Wit inside of me. The trike handles weight very well - there’s a reason it’s named “Expedition”, after all - so it was only really noticeable when I had to pick the trike up and carry it back over the tree and over the stream. But it was noticeable then - mostly because it significantly altered the balance of the trike, making it tail heavy. I hadn’t thought about that ahead of time, and it honestly surprised me just a bit the first time I picked the machine up. But I suppose this is something that one would have to consider for things like trike packing over longer distances and/or for multiple day trips.

This ride took me most of the afternoon, but that was mostly because of frequent stops for pictures and to get beer. To offer a gauge of what to expect: I was able to average just under 11 MPH (10.92 to be precise) for the ride, which is pretty good for a trike on these trails. My actual travel time for the ride without stops - helpfully provided by Cyclemeter - was about 2 hours and 40 minutes. I’d add a few more minutes to that to account for the reverse-portages over the stream and the tree, since that is also travel (but I suspect Cyclemeter doesn’t include it as such because it’s very slow).

So - if you are looking for a trail ride with a mixture of environments - solitude punctuated by small and medium-sized towns - and enjoy (or at least don’t mind) the potential challenge of carrying your machine over things from time to time, this may be a ride for you. Folks looking for something a little more settled, and who don’t have the completist need to start at the beginning (or end, depending on your perspective) of the trail might want to consider beginning at Buffalo Rock or even Ottawa as starting points and heading eastward from there.

Oh - I almost forgot the most important part: the beer was still cold when I got home!

DIY Trike Air Horn Mount

I’m spending a little time today getting catching a couple of things up on the trike in preparation for the summer.

I typically carry an air horn on the trike to ward off overly ambitious canines and, on occasion, to make drivers aware of my existence. Last year I had set up the horn so that it mounted via Velcro to my left fender strut. This worked… ok, but the position was somewhat awkward to get to, and the air cans that I had just barely fit into the space.

Awkward, yes, but to be honest I would have put the new ones in the same space except that an errant click on Amazon resulted in my ordering a size larger of horn than I did last year.

I’m really not sure how it happened, but it happened nonetheless, and so I found myself needing to find a different - possibly better? - solution for the horn placement.

On the boom of the trike I have the both very useful and delightfully named Adjustomatic Bottle Mount by Terracycle. I have it set up with two drink holders, but I almost always just carry one water bottle, so that seemed to be a good candidate for a place for the air horn. It is also central to the trike, so it seemed likely to be a better option for sounding it off when needed.

If I had been very lucky, the larger size air cans I bought would have just fit snuggly into the bottle holder, but we know without even checking that the fates would not have things work out that easily. Too big for the fender, but not quite big enough to sit securely in the bottle holder.

So I went looking for something that would fit in the holder and be able to contain the air horn. I had originally considered raiding the beer cozy drawer to see if one of those could be repurposed (don’t tell MLW), but then I realized that a drink can itself was just about exactly the right size, and we have an abundance of those (out where we are they don’t take recycling, but the salvage yard in town takes aluminum, so we lean towards aluminum cans). I pulled a likely candidate out of the pre-crushing pile.

I went with a fizzy-water can, mostly because I knew the former contents wouldn’t have left it sticky or stinky. The fact that the can itself happens to be orange had absolutely nothing to do with my selection process. I swear!

I liked up the air horn and the can to make sure it looked like it would all go together okay…

Can and air Horn

Can and air horn

…and then I set about opening up the top of the can so the horn would be able to slide in.

Can opener

I used a utility knife for this and worked gingerly in order to avoid tearing the aluminum (the LaCroix cans seem to be thinner than other aluminum cans for some reason). Then I put several short notches in the top of the now open can and folded it over and covered that with duct take to cover the sharp edges:

Can do

The air horn fit inside, but it fit loosely, which meant that it would rattle and bounce around in the can. I’d expected that this would be an issue, and my first attempt to address it was to cut up several strips of styrofoam that I had laying around from packaging. This had multiple effects, mostly related to bits of styrofoam going everywhere and not at all related to working the way that I’d hoped. So I looked around for a plan B, and realized that I had some clean shop rags available. I cut one in half and wrapped the can part of the air horn up in the rag, attaching and closing it with another helpful application of the duct tape (thanks again, Red Green…).

Wrap it up

This appeared to do the trick, making the air horn fit snugly into the can. I tucked some of the shop rag into the can around the top to secure it better, and then fit the whole thing into the bottle holder.

In place, but not quite right yet

The whole thing fit ok, but was a little loose in the bottle holder, so I marked off where the holder wraps around the can with a sharpie, and wrapped a layer of duct tape around that part of the can so it would fit more tightly:

That’s better

And there you have it - centrally located air horn mounted for an approximate cost of nothing (or - to be fair, maybe 12 cents worth of duct tape and a shop rag) and maybe half an hour of actual work outside of sorting things out. We’ll see over the next ride how it handles with respect to being secure and quiet in the holder. If I’m lucky I won’t have to use it, but I’ll report back as to how it works if I do (and, for better or worse, I always have to use it eventually).

Now - time to ride…

Smack dab in the middle

Bluff and Bluster

I’m fond of remarking on this site that there are very few weather conditions that will keep me from riding. This is mostly true - I tend to draw the line primarily on situations that impair visibility, both for myself and, more importantly, for the motor vehicle operators with which a share the road. This means fog, heavy rain, and heavy or blowing and drifting snow. And given that I’m sitting on a fairly sizeable conductor on the open roadway, I tend to shy away from lightening as well. But I realized over the past couple of weeks that there is another weather condition that sometimes keeps me out of the trike seat:

The wind.

To be clear, it’s not just any wind. I live in Northern Illinois, on the open prairie. I’d simply never ride if a windy day were enough to keep me home all by itself. But there are days, particularly in the spring, where we have winds that run steadily over twenty miles per hour, with gusts another 10-15mph above that.

The wind hasn’t been on my list because, in my head at least, it doesn’t keep me home. Looking through Cyclemeter for the past year (the premium version records weather conditions for rides) I can find outings with winds up to 25mph. What I will do is try to “front load” the portion that is against the wind - ride into the wind for the first half of the trip, as much as possible, so that I’m getting a boost for the latter half. And you can get quite a boost indeed.

That all being the case, as I said, the wind just hasn’t been on that list. But this past week I hit the end of the day, and I had an opportunity to ride. However, it was a very blustery day - winds probably gusting up to 30-35mph against a steady backdrop over 20mph. Just walking out to the mailbox was unpleasant, and as I was making that walk I began to debate as to whether to get out the trike.

I did not get it out.

The fact that it was the end of a workday - so I was already more fatigued than I would be, say, early in the afternoon on a Saturday - probably contributed to that decision. Being a little worn out already, the idea of pushing my way through the the gusts just wasn’t something that seemed attractive. It was definitely a combined effect.

And I realize now, looking back over the site here, that I’ve had the debate in the past about how windy is too windy. But on that occasion, I did go ahead and ride (and that was in February). But this time I let the wind beat me.

---

So yesterday I was planning to go into town for the afternoon to help the ‘rents sort out their annual tithe to the federal government. It’s just over five miles into town, so it’s not a long trip by any stretch of the imagination. The sun was shining, and the temperature was working it’s way up to a high in the low 80’s (F). By most markers it was almost the perfect scenario for a ride.

Almost. But the winds in the morning had already tipped up into the 20mph range, and it seemed like each time I checked it was going up - now 21… now 23… all coming in from south by southwest. And town, for the record, is directly to the south.

This left me frequently looking out the window at the swaying tree branches and waves in the grass and mentally debating. But, ultimately, wind is a part of spring. If I continue to let it beat me, to keep me home, I might as well just take the season off, and that I’m not willing to do.

So I grabbed my gear (and my big-boy pants) and set up the trike.

I actually had a couple of things to take in to my folks that would not fit in the pannier bags or on top of the rack, so I hooked up my trailer, and headed out.

Immediately after I rolled out the driveway and headed to the south I could feel it - that wind, pushing back against me. This is a feeling everyone who does cycling becomes familiar with. It’s the realization that everything that you normally do on the machine - the spinning of the pedals, the breathing, the forward progress - just works less. It’s a little like working at a job for years, but now suddenly you are getting half the pay.

My average speed over the ride into town came in at 9.5mph. By way of comparison, my average speed for the month of April was 13.7mph. I’m sure that the trailer slowed me down a little bit too, but I made better time on a very similar ride with the trailer and two five gallon gas cans, so most of the impact was from the wind.

But I arrived intact. Well - mostly. When I parked and got up off the trike and turned around I was dismayed to see that only the bottom half of my flag pole - the part without, you know, the flag on it - was still attached. It appears that, at some point in the ride, the wind caught it just right and separated the two halves. I’d actually had this happen once before, but under very different circumstances, but it’s still disconcerting.

In what felt a little bit like cheating, I asked my Dad to drive back over the route with me to find it. Maybe I should have ridden back to look for it, but:

A) I was there to help them with something, and riding back to look would have taken quite a while; and 2) I didn’t want to.

We found the flag in the middle of the road about a mile and a half or so out of town. It was still intact, light on it still flashing. So that was a relief.

As one might imagine, the return trip was… better. I had been a little concerned that it would be one of those days when Mother Nature decided she would have a little fun and, say, flip the wind direction completely around partway through the afternoon. But she was uncharacteristically kind this time around, and that southwest wind abetted my return trip - at least somewhat. It doesn’t seem like that oblique wind angle was nearly as helpful from behind as it was a hindrance working against me, but it was still better.

And the flag stayed on all the way home. I’d thank the fates for that too, but I taped it together before I started back…

According to Cyclemeter, the wind speed during my trip was 32mph. I’m not sure exactly when in a trip the weather info represents - e.g. beginning, end, or somewhere in-between - but I’d believe that wind speed as a beginning point.

And all in all tho, I got to ride. And in the end, isn’t that the important part?

Spontaneity on a spring ride

Yesterday presented with almost perfect weather here in Northern Illinois for a Saturday ride - a high temperature in the low 60° (F) range. While I do ride year round, for various reasons the winter months lend themselves to shorter distances, so it seemed only reasonable to celebrate this fine day with a longer ride.

I have probably three dozen routes laid out on the country roads around my home. While I truly admire people who can just go out and be spontaneous, I am, for better or worse, a person who feels spontaneity has its time and it’s place. I like to know where I’m going so I know what type of workout I’m going to get, and approximately how long I’ll be away for. So, unable to escape my own nature, I picked a 28.7-mile route that follows a long loop out and around and headed out.

I realized after I started out that the weather might have different designs. For as beautiful as the temperatures were, the clouds looked fairly heavy with moisture...

Gray skies

Still, it was warm enough that anything shy of a deluge would be pretty manageable, so I continued on and hoped that I’d avoid anything too rainy. I continued on along my pre-determined route right up to the point where I found... this:

But is it really closed?

I hit this point about six miles into my ride. And seeing it, of course, I did what any red-blooded American male would do:

I went down the road anyway.

I actually sort of figured that whatever was going on probably wasn’t happening on a Saturday afternoon. And I ride this way semi-regularly, so I know this is a fairly new thing, so they couldn't be too far into any road construction.

I was half right.

As I proceeded down the roadway I found that there had been some resurfacing done - this is a tar and chip road, as is the case for most of the paved byways out here.

Just a little resurfacing

And I took heart in this, because if that was all that had been done I should be able to make my way through it without any significant issue. But remember how no one would be doing road work on a Saturday? Apparently that doesn’t apply to this guy:

Working hard

What he appeared to be doing was cutting a trench in the middle of the road, and laying tile in it. I’ve never seen this before. Maybe it’s a common thing that the roads here have tile under them - my expertise with respect to roadways is almost entirely limited to using them - and it is the case that our prairie lands have extensive drainage systems to make them habitable for humans and amenable to agriculture. It in this case mostly what it meant was that he was kind of in the way of my forward progress. I mean geez - at least you could put up a sign or something to warn a guy that he’s not going to be able to make it down the road.

...oh yeah, right...

Since I’d never seen it before I watched for a bit from a safe distance, and sort of hoped that he might take a coffee or smoke break that would allow me to ride around him. It was neat to see, but it became clear that he was far more diligent than I was patient, so I turned around, forced to pursue a bit of variety in rounding out my ride.

Fortunately the roadways out here are laid out mostly on a grid pattern. It makes for riding maps that look a little like Tetris pieces, but it does mean that one can sort out how to approximate the distance one was seeking without too much additional effort. I returned to the road closed barrier and rode a mile to the south to take the next road westward.

Most of the rest of the ride was exactly what you expect out of a springtime cycling adventure in my little part of paradise - mostly quiet roadways where you are accompanied by the song of red-wing blackbirds and the smell of freshly turned earth and manure. Other people were out working on Saturday as well:

Working the fields

And that was all true until the last section of the ride, where a brief pause and a bit of mental math made it clear that I was going to fall a few miles shy of my target if I didn’t further modify the route. Mostly this just meant again going over a mile and back, and I thought I’d gotten pretty close. But as I approached the turn towards the last half mile up to the house, it was clear I was still a little under two miles shy. (It’s possible that the seat of a trike on the open road is not an ideal location for doing mathematics. Or that I’m dumb.).

So I rode past the turn for another three-quarters of a mile or so and turned around.

I always feel a little dumb doing that. I’m not sure why - the entire point of the ride is to get out and enjoy nature, get some exercise, and this contributes to it. I wasn’t technically going anywhere. But somehow that additional distance, when it’s just a stub off to the side like that, feels less... genuine to me than the rest of the ride. Like I’ve sold out in some way.

Maybe that’s why I feel like spontaneity has its time and it’s place. Or maybe I’m just a dork and need to get over it. After all, it was still a spring afternoon well spent.

Spring Cleaning; or: Time to Wash the Cat(trike)

The weather here in Northern Illinois has been touching above the half-century mark on the Fahrenheit scale for the past week or so, and this past Sunday we started to see temps in the honest-to-goodness 70 degree range. It seemed like a good day to wash the Expedition.

Well - to be honest, it mostly seemed like a good day to go for a ride. But I knew trike cleaning needed to be in my future. Besides the general need to do cleanup following three months of winter cycling, there was also a somewhat more acute need.

A couple of weeks ago I tackled a short segment of the Rock Island Trail. In the rain.

In response to the picture that accompanied the post one person very familiar with the trail commented that he was surprised that I was so clean. This because the trail is mostly crushed stone, at least in the area that I was riding. As is often the case, “crushed stone” can be a euphemism for “dirt”. And, of course, we all know what dirt becomes in the rain.

My very clever system for coming off the trail not covered in mud? Umm, well, I didn’t. I took the picture at the beginning of the ride, before I encountered said mud. Which is to say that we exited the trail, both the trike and myself, covered in a non-zero amount of mud.

Now, before you think that I am a monster who simply left my beloved Catrike Expedition coated in mud and dirt for the following two weeks, let me reassure you that I did wipe things off initially, and later hit some of the more troubled areas with a broom as well. But even with these efforts applied, it was clear that the trike was going to need more attention - a deeper cleaning, if you will.

With that in mind, I did the responsible thing with the 70° day: I washed my trike. ...But, you know, after I went for a ride. See, I really wanted that ride, and I knew the seat mesh was going to take a while to dry, and nobody wants a wet tush when cycling, so that just seemed like the right order for things to happen in.

I got out the hose and bucket and enlisted the help of a washing buddy...

Catrike and Dog, living together…

If we’re being honest, Calamity isn’t really much help in the washing department, but she’s pretty good company otherwise.

Given that I didn’t know where all of the dirt/mud might be I pulled the seat off of the frame. I am always surprised at just how different our machines look without them - positively naked:

Look away!

My trike washing technique is nothing special - essentially soapy water and a wash mitt in the same top-down approach that I’d use with a car. Maybe the biggest difference is the amount of grease and tar on the paint, which seems like more per square inch than on a car - but then the trike is exposed to an open chain, it’s inches off of the asphalt, and I probably (definitely) wash it less often than I do my car, so I suppose all of that makes sense.

Then I dry it off with an old towel. Somewhere, in the depths of my stuff I swear I have an actual chamois. Still, I’ve been thinking that for probably the past decade with no evidence to support it, so maybe I should just accept that it’s probably gone...

The nice thing about doing the wash with the seat off is that it gives a chance to look at the usually hidden parts of the frame - make sure there isn’t anything cracked, damaged, or otherwise out of sorts (all looked good this time). Even my formerly frozen front brake is back to working now that the weather is reliably above freezing.

For the seat I used the straps that go over the top bar on the frame to hang it from my clothesline pole.

Take a seat

This put it in a good position for both washing and drying. Washing, in this case, consists of a high-pressure spray with the garden hose, followed by a wash down with the mitt (with a more detailed focus on the plastic snaps), and then a rinse.

Then I put the trike inside and left the seat out to dry. I thought I was clever by doing so overnight - giving it plenty of time out there in the prairie wind to blow the moisture clear. However, the prairie had its own ideas, dumping rain on us - and my seat - in the wee hours. Fortunately we had enough sunshine the following day to dry it all up so I could get her back out on the road.

So, for all of my back and forth between riding and washing, it worked out ok to ride first and then wash the trike. In fact, it went so well, maybe I’ll do it again next year...