Now our date nights aren't typically adventurous or even very active (I cannot tell you how often we end up cruising around Barnes and Noble after dinner), but I was excited this weekend to try out my new bicycle and so we decided to find a local trail that would allow us to ride for an hour or so and be easy enough for a newbie like me.
Confession: I enjoy biking, but I'm a total weakling. Seriously. Any self-respecting third-grader could lap me within minutes.
We first did a bit of research and realized that there are two good options for riding locally. The first is to hop on to a section of the Illinois Prairie Path, an old railroad line that has been converted in to hiking and biking trails. The second option is to look into the many trails maintained by the DuPage Forest Preserve. My neighbor suggested Waterfall Glen, a trail maintained by the DuPage Forest Preserve, in Darien.
So we loaded up the bikes, left the kids to play and stuff themselves with frozen yogurt with our babysitter, and took off.
The trail entrance was very easy to find and parking was plentiful. Lots of other folks had the same idea we did so it was easy to follow them onto the crushed limestone path and get going.
It provided a good mix of hills and forest areas and two scenic views where bikers can stop and sit and take it all in.
All in all, we biked 9.5 miles and it took us around 1.5 hours. It was fantastic. I won't lie, it was hard for me to make it up a few of the hills, but people were zooming past me and I know this is a "me" issue, not a difficult path issue. It's been years since I went biking and my weakness shows. Mike loves to bike and rides to the train each day and will zoom around on his own occasionally on a Saturday morning. He's a lot stronger than me and definitely used to biking every day.
We both agreed that this would be fun to explore together, the paths around here and biking in general. Bikes are a serious investment so we want to make the most out of this purchase. Our kids are very wary bikers. Both still use training wheels and both still get very nervous riding in general. This will not be the summer of family biking. However, it could be the summer of date night biking.
Do you have any tips or tricks you want to share with us? I'm interested to hear from the experiences of others.
2 comments:
That sounds fun! Good for you for making date night a priority! I biked with my friend thru the park in San Francisco and she realllly struggled. I think she wasn't using the gears correctly. She kept wanting to put it down into a low gear, but then I could see her legs pedaling SO much more with little payoff. Yes, if you put the gears up, the resistance feels harder, but each pedal pushes you further....so in the end it's a lot less work. All that to say....that may not be your problem, but maybe play around with your gears some?
neat! sounds fun.
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