Elmhurst Bicycle Club Newsletter

On the weekend of March 10th and 11th, Marge Ricke graciously opened her Fairytale Cottage in Sawyer, Michigan to the EBC.

Our club riders assembled at Noon - the cry of "Is that Chicago Time or Michigan Time?" quickly became the catch phrase for the weekend. To make the situation even more interesting, Daylight Saving Time kicked in on Sunday morning.

With 9 club members in attendance, we split up into 2 rides and a hike each day. On Saturday afternoon I led "The Nancy's" (Ms. Shack and Ms. Rice) on an expedition to New Buffalo. We set out southwest, and soon encountered a minor hazard of Michigan bicycling - our route unexpectedly turned into gravel. A quick reroute got us going again, until another hazard of modern life halted us. This time, it was my bike shop on the cell phone, telling me the new rear wheel for my touring bike was in.

We continued meandering along the coastline, admiring the homes, cottages, and resorts, until we arrived at New Buffalo and stopped for lunch at a café fittingly named 'Michigan Thyme.' A third recurring hazard of bicycling appeared as we found ourselves facing the dreaded post-lunch flat. After pumping up Nancy S's soft front tire, we took the advice of a passing couple and headed east in search of the local bike shop. Unfortunately, despite the promising name, The Wheel Inn is a bar, not a bike shop.

The necessity of stopping frequently to reinflate Nancy's tire next found us stopped in front of a creatively decorated house featuring antique cars bursting through the walls, carved tree trunks, and a pair of dinosaur skeletons stalking the front yard. I just don't remember anything about Tyrannosaurus Rex sporting antlers?

We turned north and headed back to the cottage, but Nancy's front tire gave up completely on our final approach, necessitating a quick minivan rescue by Nancy R. Once we had access to a new tire and proper floor pump, I performed a replacement before we all settled down to the Chili Mixer.

The Fairytale Cottage echoed with conversation and games into the night - I think. I was flat out asleep by 7:30, and that's Michigan time, only 6:30 in Chicago.

Sunday morning, after breakfast, Nancy, Nancy, and I set out on a ride to Berrien Springs. Our route twisted and meandered to keep it interesting, while the hills resembled Glen Ellyn, Illinois - enough to add challenge without becoming an overwhelming grind. Upon arrival in Berrien Springs, I ditched the planned McDonalds break for snacks at the Sunrise Café.

Our only other encounter with the hazards of modern cycling came when I realized Google Maps couldn't tell the difference between a street and the driveway of the county fairgrounds, gated and locked this time of year. Another quick reroute got us back on the road to Sawyer, but not before we realized we had missed a chance for lunch at the Baguette De France (we'll have to go back).

A few more hills followed by a fast pedal west through the tiny towns of Glendora and New Troy brought us back to the Fairytale Cottage for Chili Mixer, Round 2, before we had to say farewell pack up and head to Illinois.

Thanks, Marge, for such great hospitality; and in closing, if you want an interesting cycling destination that's close to Chicago, and not too hilly, try southwest Michigan

Tuesdays with George (Single Track Lessons )

If you are bit nervous trying to learn single track in a group. I am again offering any Club member free single track instruction on Tuesday Evenings in June and July at 6pm at Palos by appointment only. This is not a Club Ride. No Club Miles. Class size limited to 2 members of same ability level, first come first serve. Mountain Bike Required. If you do not have one...I can loan you one of ours.

This is a promise I made when I accepted the Leadership position of Mountain Bike Coordinator back in October 2007 and I have announced it at meetings and the offer was included in the October 2007 Newsletter article announcing that I accepted the position.

Read article here: http://www.elmhurstbicycling.org/ pdf/10-07.pdf. It's page 3 of the Newsletter which also has a great article by Eric Peterson on Paris-Brest-Paris 2007. Eric's article has tons of great info and is worth a re-read. PBP will be held again in 2012.

As time goes by people forget that this instruction is available and we have many new members....hence this article. I have had extensive training and a lot of experience teaching single track which is detailed in the article and am confident I can help any member with a good attitude enjoy Single track mountain biking.

Assistant Mountain Bike Coordinator and internationally acclaimed Photonics Technician Chuck Gentile will assist this year as his time allows.

This is not limited to newbie’s; if you are a casual single track rider and want to improve your skills, this instruction will help you also. This picture taken of me, illustrates a common problem for casual single track riders, I am riding off an easy, less than 1 foot drop; I see many casual riders get off their bikes and walk...which is fine and I always encourage riders to walk if they don't like the looks of something, however....if you would like to ride over stuff like this, I can teach you to do it safely.

Please e-mail me for an appointment.

Thanks.....

George Pastorino
Mountain Bike Coordinator

Our New Stickers, Display With Pride!

We have a supply of redesigned stickers. Use them to show off your affiliation with the EBC and attract new members. They have adhesive on the back so you can use them on your car windows, bumpers, or anywhere.

The stickers will be available at all monthly meetings. Also, these members have stickers to hand out:

Mary Jo Bolan
Chuck Dean
Gerry Fekete
Art Frigo
Larry GItchell
Petra Hofmann
George Pastorino
Isaac Samayoa
Kären Schwartz
Nancy Shack
Jeff Wincentsen
Lew Worthem

Thank You’s – Recycling & GWT
Just a Little Bit of Help among Friends

Several EBCers distinguished themselves during April by stepping forward to volunteer time and energy at 2 community events.

Elmhurst Recycling Event – April 14th

It was cool and rain-threatened on a Saturday in April when the Elmhurst recycling event (including bicycles) was held. But fortunately, the rain never made an appearance. EBCers Tom Preston, Nancy Rice, Hans Weckerle, and Chuck Dean were on hand to receive proffered bicycles, wheel chairs, etc. Elmhurst Bike Task Force was present and represented by Don Whistler and Paul Peterson. A couple of young ladies from Elmhurst College were also present at our location and kept a written official count of the offerings. (There were 100's of Elmhurst College students working throughout the entire site.) Working Bikes, a not-for-profit, also had members in attendance; and they were the most important of all because of the work they did:

• in receiving the bikes,
• transportaing the bikes to their Chicago warehouse,
• maintaining (repair and refurbish) the bikes, and
• redistributing the bikes to those that need them.

From the Working Bikes website: "Working Bikes gives new life to old bikes and independence to those who ride them, in the underserved communities of Chicago, Africa and Central & South America ... "

For more on Working Bikes, please see http://workingbikes.org/.

The official 3 hour window (9 until noon) went by quickly enough. While the guys (Chuck, Hans, Tom) were content to await the arrival of the cars, Ms. Rice frequently went out hunting among the line of cars out on the road as they awaited their turn to enter the parking lot. Seems like we frequently saw Nancy carrying something too big or too heavy from too far of a distance, but she said she had to stay busy.

From the picture you can perhaps tell that David Grayson (Working Bikes) was doing the most work that morning because, despite the cool weather, he is in short sleeves. That is because he performed bicycle prep maintenance on most of the bikes received. You ask, what was that maintenance? Almost every bike had the handle bar stem and seat stem removed, wiped clean, lubed, and reinserted. The handlebars were turned 90 degrees when reinserted to allow a narrower bike width profile anticipating the eventual loading of the bikes on to a delivery truck at the end of the event. The pedals from each bike were removed and put on backwards (Instead of the pedals sticking out from the crank, they pointed in toward each other). This also narrowed the bike profile.

Shortly after the event Paul Peterson (Elmhurst Bike Task Force) told Bob Hoel, “Fifty-one bikes were collected, one of which the bike boys put on the side because it was old, in excellent shape, from England, and would be of value to a collector. We also had 4 sewing machines, 20 helmets, 1 trainer and 1 set of rollers, 3 car carriers, 2 child carriers on wheels, 2 pumps. By 9:30 the college said that 300 cars had come through. … All in all, a good day.”

Great Western Trail Cleanup – April 28th

I’m not sure how many years it has been that Mary Ann Badke has been taking the lead to coordinate and encourage EBC support for GWT cleanup effort, but this year again she was on the trail picking up trash from Gary Avenue on the west to Schmale Avenue on the east. She was assisted by Chuck Dean, Cheri O’Reardon, and Marge Ricke. Another cool day, but we only got sprinkled upon for about 5 minutes at the very beginning of the effort. No more rain after that. Given the physical effort involved, the temperature was just fine.

With only 4 of us (plus one good Samaritan named Jim – also a regular bicycle rider who routinely uses the trail) working that section of the trail, we worked from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m. In other years, with more EBCers in attendance, the effort has been completed in less than 3 hours.

Please thank these club members, especially Mary Ann, for their hard work and positive club representation the next time you see them.

Utah 2012

As edited by Chuck Dean;
Slide shows and pictures from George Pastorino;
Map from Laurel Salvador

If you have already reviewed the Google posts (various members) and pictures (mostly George and Pussanee) about the 2012 Utah trip (Laurel Salvador has done this multiple years), you know how wonderful that trip must have been. Guessing that some of you might not have had a chance to review the posts as they were being published, I have assembled most of the text and a few pictures down below as an enticement for you to look at the slideshow links in this article.

Simply put, George’s slide shows are beautiful – as noted by several members.

So here is an edited recap of the posts:

“I want to thank Laurel Salvador for organizing the Utah Bike Outing. We all had not only a wonderful bicycling experience, but also saw some of the most beautiful nature one can see. After seeing George Pastorino's slide shows, you know that the views were great. If we return to Utah in the future, I bet many of you will want to bike with us!”

Kären and Bill Schwartz – 4/26

And from George P.:

“Pussanee and I are joined here by Club members Kären and Bill Schwartz, Kevin Bailey and Laurel and Omar Salvador. Today was Day 1 of our Utah Trip, and it was a spectacular day. In the morning we headed to Zion National Park and hiked the Trail of Many Pools which was very scenic. Zion has unbelievable views in every direction.

In the afternoon we loaded up the bikes and headed up to Snow Canyon for some great road biking led by Bill Schwartz, including a nice climb up Snow Canyon followed by a spectacular descent on a bike path with great views.

Today, Kevin, Pussanee and I were out on a great desert mountain bike ride with Monte Lutz from Utah Mountain Biking Adventures. What an awesome day of Mountain Biking we had......some great single track, with some very rocky climbs and descents and unbelievable scenery around every turn, and some slick rock too.... This was day full of smiles and fun....the 3 of us were like 12 year olds :).

Wow, Utah is turning out to be one of the most beautiful places we have ever been. Day 3 put us on Road bikes in Zion National Park. Many of you know I am a mountain biker at heart, but there is really nothing like climbing and descending the switchbacks of a beautiful mountain road on a road bike......just exhilarating. Zion is special because it bans passenger vehicles, so you don't have that to worry about........come to Utah......it's tonic for the mind and soul....

Well, today I was completely stunned at the overwhelming beauty of Bryce Canyon National Park. This park has countless spires called Hoodoo's that have been carved by water and wind erosion over 60 million years give or take a few million. This is by far the most beautiful place Pussanee and I have ever visited. We were joined by Bill and Kären and Kevin Bailey for the day long adventure. We hiked down to the bottom of the Canyon and up along the rim as well. The views change dramatically as you move and also as the Sun moves in and out of the clouds. I did not caption these as I lack the words to describe the beauty and the pics can't bring you the magic............for that you have to come to Utah.”

Laurel Salvador created several maps that went along with the trip, an example is shown below. Laurel said:

“I first started out using Map My Ride to create the maps and cue sheets for the EBC Zion Trip, but found the cue sheets to be unusable on the bike, so I used Ride with GPS instead. So to give you an idea of the climbs out here around Zion, here are the maps I created on Ride with GPS for the trip. Check out the elevation profiles when you check out George's slide show in Zion, the elevation numbers to go along with the climb (but the pictures really tell the story!). I'll send a link to my photos at the end of the trip as I keep them together in one photo album on Picasa, but George has us covered for daily photos when we ride together on the road. I'll fill in for the other road rides and hikes.” Laurel 4-18

Going back to George, as editor, to thank him for the posts and slide shows, I thought I had to add his beer quotes. Here goes:

“Beer lights the way :)

Beer is health food for the mind.

You can't be out of hope while you still have beer........

Mountain Biking......Sanity not required :)”

Here are the links for these wonderful slideshows:

Bryce:

http://albums.phanfare.com/slideshow.aspx?i=1&db=1&pw=1KZDa001&a_id=5545595

Zion:

http://albums.phanfare.com/slideshow.aspx?i=1&db=1&pw=1Cg4HhRU&a_id=5542601

Mountain Biking:

http://albums.phanfare.com/slideshow.aspx?i=1&db=1&pw=fiaocRQ7&a_id=5541328

Home in Utah, Snow Canyon:

http://albums.phanfare.com/slideshow.aspx?i=1&db=1&pw=xqzuhIUS&a_id=5540098

Changes Are Coming for the Constitution and Bylaws

A group of club members has formed to review our constitution, bylaws and policies, and to propose amendments. The second meeting will be Tuesday, May 8, 6:00 p.m., at the Elmhurst Public Library. All members are welcome to attend, or to submit comments and suggestions by email to board@elmhurstbicycling.org. (Note this is an email address, not a link; if you would like to email a response, copy this address into the "to" window of your email program).

The proposed amendments will range from small grammatical corrections to substantive changes in the responsibilities of officers and committees.

In accordance with our amendment process, the proposed changes will be published to the list server as soon as possible, and presented at the June monthly meeting. The proposals will also be published in the June and July newsletters. The vote will be held at the July monthly meeting. Adoption requires a two-thirds vote of members present at the meeting.

We encourage an open discussion of the proposals at the meetings, on the list server, and on rides (but please, no “yakking”).

Share The Road License Plate Update

From Ed Barsotti, LIB (as posted by Bob Hoel and reformatted by Lew Worthem):

Dear Plate Reservees,

By now, most of you have received the Secretary of State's letter and form for completing your Share the Road plate orders. Be sure to return your form (with payment) by April 30, to have your plates sent to you shortly afterwards.

Unfortunately, the Secretary of State's letter did not make it clear that you should include a check to "Secretary of State" for the appropriate amount, when you mail back your form. Also, the quoted prices on the letter already take into account the $17 you paid earlier, so do not subtract $17 from the appropriate amount. For those of you opting for a random number (starting with 1001), that amount is $34 if your sticker does not expire within 90 days, $133 if it does.

Our license plate webpage

http://www.bikelib.org/other-advocacy/license-plates/license-plate-reservations/

might answer any other questions you have.

Thanks for your patience - we'll all soon have our plates to display proudly!

Sincerely,
Ed Barsotti, LIB