Fairweather Commuter

I will be the first to admit that I am a fairweather commuter. I would love to have the opportunity to ride everyday, but the 20+ mile commute, and not wanting to ride with lights, risking my life, I limit my bike commuting to mid Spring to mid fall. Today, I finally started turning the pedals to get to work. My commute in the morning is a simple route. I mostly follow the Burlington Northern train line, crossing back and forth to my final destination in Lisle. Most of the roads are lightly traveled, and allows me to get to work sans coffee.

In the evenings I try to do a longer ride, but my problem has always been finding a good route from Lisle to some of the nicer roads south of I-55. Last year one promising route was Clarendon Hills Road, unfortunately it was under construction and made for some tight riding in traffic. Today I found that as part of the construction they added a sweet 4' wide bike lane, with new, smooth asphalt. Needless to say I was super pumped. I can now ride south on Clarendon Hills Road to some of the nicer roads south of I-55. Today I rode Clarendon Hills all the way to 91st Street. From there I have a couple of choices for routes, today I decided to jump on the Waterfall Glen Trail for a couple of miles. The trails is a crushed limetone base and winds around Argonne National laboratory. On my cross/cummuter bike I ride these tires. The Select Invert is really are a great tire for this type of situatation. The tires roll nice on the roads, and the width is perfect for the crushed limestone. It was also really great getting out in the woods, hearing the frogs in the ponds, and carving some fast turns. From there I could jump back on some other roads on my way back to Berwyn. The ride ended up being right around two hours. A good ride for sure.