1,200 miles!

Although not nearly as warm as last weekend, the weather this weekend was satisfactory enough to get in two rides -- a ride through Schaumburg and Roselle on Saturday that was just shy of 20 miles, and a 17 mile ride through Bartlett on Sunday.

On the latter ride, I reached another seasonal milestone -- 1,200 miles for 2008!

My next goal is to ride another 26 miles before my riding season ends. If I reach that point, my Trek odometer will register 2,000 miles since purchasing it in the spring of 2007. [Note: I already surpassed my 2,000 mile mark for the combined 2007 and 2008 seasons on October 11th, but 112 of those miles were on a rented bike in Florida].

Trek's Breast Cancer Awareness Ride and surpassing the "2,000 miles in two-years" mark

On an abnormally beautiful Saturday morning for October, I drove to the Trek Bicycle Store on Ogden Avenue in Downers Grove and participated in the Breast Cancer Awareness Ride sponsored by Trek Bicycles. The ride passed through parts of Downers Grove, Westmont, Willowbrook, Burr Ridge, Darien, and Hinsdale. Major roads used in the ride were Chicago Avenue, Burlington Avenue, Clarendon Hills Road, 91st Street and Madison Street. The path hugged the frontage roads of I-55 and passed near Argonne Lab and Waterfall Glen Forest Preserve. The weather was perfect with no wind and temperatures near 70.

I reached an important milestone with this ride. About 5 miles into the ride, I passed the 2,000 mile mark for my combined 2007 and 2008 mileage (882.3 + 1,117.7). Today's ride (30.3 miles) was my longest ride since August. When the ride ended, my seasonal total stood at 1,143.1 miles, which is 375.9 miles ahead of my total mileage at this date last year.

A return to the Prairie Path

After nearly two weeks away from the bicycle, I eagerly awaited my first ride in October. I chose to ride what I call the Great Western Trail-Illinois Prairie Path triangle, which courses its way through Winfield, West Chicago, Carol Stream, Villa Park, Lombard, Glen Ellyn and Wheaton. After driving to Prairie Path Cycles (where I bought my bike 1,875 miles back), I followed the squashed triangle in a clockwise direction, first taking the Illinois Prairie Path to the western terminus of the Great Western Trail, then taking the GWT to its eastern terminus in Villa Park, then turning westward to follow the Main Branch of the IPP back to my starting point.

It was a chilly morning, even with the long sleeve t-shirt and tights that I layered upon my regular jersey and shorts. When I started my ride at about 10:52, it was 56 degrees. By the end of my ride at 1:10, it had warmed to 64.

Shortly before I concluded my ride, I surpassed the 1,100 mile mark for the season.

September retrospective

Well, September has come and gone. Although I exceeded my goal of 1,000 miles on the first day of the month, it was not a great month for cycling. One of my weekends was devoted to helping my Mom unpack in her beautiful new apartment. One of my weekends was spent watching the rain fall and worrying about the sump pump as the Chicago area endured three days of record-breaking rainfall. And I spent September's final weekend enjoying one of my other hobbies -- astronomy --- at the Prairie Skies Star Party near Kankakee, Illinois. Despite these factors, I was still able to come within 4.5 miles of my September, 2007 mileage.

In the end, my total mileage for September was 101.5 miles, bringing my 2008 seasonal total to 1,077.20. Hopefully, October will bring some nice weekend weather so that I can extend my record-breaking total and enjoy cycling for a little bit longer in 2008!