Friday, June 12: Man this rain thing is just getting to be a debbie downer. Rained last night, and then this morning it just rained like hell for 3 hrs. Did another long work session this morning and then was a doppler weather radar groupie for another hour just waiting for this big blog to more out of the Kankakee area. We finally left the motel about 30 min before check-out and drove back in the rain to where I left off yesterday - on this gravel road, 1200N. Then we sat in the van for another 45 min waiting for the rain to ease up. I finally got the bike out, only to have another cloud burst come through. So again, we just sat there watching the gravel road fill up with water for another 15 min. Finally the rain stopped, but the clouds overhead look totally threatening. HAD to at least get to the Wauponsee Glacial Trail today to feel as though we were making some kind, any kind of progress. 

Started riding amidst a light drizzle with Judy driving right behind me in the van in case the heavens burst forth again. The temp was in the high 50’s, but the humidity….well it was like 100%, so if the rain didn’t soak me my own sweat certainly would. Made great time riding in the big ring slamming down this awesome country gravel road, dodging massive puddles and trying to stay on a recent truck track to make sure I was on a good hard pack. Get off the line and suddenly you’re sinking in the saturated gravel. So we took 1200N, County Line Rd, to it’s end, then turned L on Symerton Rd and I rode on some nice gravel berm on that guy. Final approach to the rail trail was a R on W. Ballou Rd, where I again rode on some good berm all the way to the trailhead. Mission accomplished on bridging from the end of the North Judson rail trail in Indiana. 

Now at this time Judy was feeling pretty bad, having some nasty digestive issues, so she couldn't ride with me on the Wauponsee as we had planned. And quite honestly, the weather was still really foreboding and the trail was just soaking wet with massive puddling, so she definitely wouldn’t have like it. Anyway, we got her straight on where to go to meet me and I took off of the rail trail. Now this pup is about 23 miles long, and goes due north to just south of Joliet, IL. It nearly connects me with the 61-mile I & M Towpath trail that runs east-west, so it’s a nice line that keeps me on gravel for nearly 85 miles. 

As I said, the trail, which is all a fine limestone gravel, was just completely soaking wet with puddling everywhere. Got going at a pretty good clip, about 11-14mph, across this rain soaked trail. Despite having a nice rear clip-on fender, I was still catching all sorts of rooster tail along with a constant barrage of this fine gravel raining down on me from the front and rear tires. Within 20 min I had this gravel-mud everywhere. Yea, Judy would have detested this one! So I’m cruising along and begin to notice my effort increasing, kind of like my tires were really sinking in the lime-mud, and this gets me concerned - because that’s one of the signs of a flat. Stood up and bounded on the shocks to see if the tires were mushy and sure enough the front was looking deflated. Got off and checked the front - slow leaker. Now this is the same wheel that I had problems with back in Ohio when I had issues pulling the front wheel off to change the flat due to this new axel system where the whole axel pulls out. Problem was that I did not have a pair of pliers to help to twist off the axel because the twist-off slot was a bit mangled from the lock-up a week ago when I had to call my mechanic Steve. 

Had to ride it all the way to meet up with Judy in order to have all the tools necessary to get that damned wheel off. No other choice other than calling her and having her drive back to get me at the next available trailhead. So I just kept riding the son-of-a-gun until it was just about spent. Then I put 200 pumps of air back in and began counting the miles I’d get out of that air fill-up. At this point I was about 8 miles in and 10 miles from our designated support stop. Got the thing rock hard and began riding like nobody’s business. Hell, I was able to do about 13 mph riding it dang near flat, so when I got the air back in I was doing 15 mph and just trying to crush it. 

Ticked the miles off as it began raining again. Rode through these totally puddled out areas where I was throwing rooster tails 5 feet in the air trying to keep the speed up and get the miles in as fast as I could, not knowing if that slow leaker was going to morph into a full blown blow-out. Got one, two, three miles in and no problem. Put in another 3 miles and I was starting to feel the tire getting softer. Three more miles and it was a mushy doughnut with one mile to go. And I rode that turkey for the final mile at 14 mph doing all I could to make it to the van without doing the pumping routine again. Met up with Judy just as the heavens burst forth again. So we sat in the van as I ate lunch waiting for the rain to dissipate again. 

By this time I was just totally DONE with the rain. I had one gnarly bridge section to do to get myself on the I & M Towpath, and I really wanted to get this thing out of the way today and not have it hanging over my head for tomorrow - rain or no rain. Gave Judy directions to the I & M trailhead and had her take off and let me deal with the crapfest on my own. Again, the rain kind of backed off, so I put another top on after damn near ripping the thin, tight UnderArmor soaker off my back, put 70lbs of pressure in the front tire with the floor pump and got going on the gnarly section. Went R on the berm of this super busy Laraway Rd that goes by the Illinois Motor Speedway. I had a passable grass-gravel berm to ride on, and sometimes, with the traffic so freaking busy with big trucks, I rode way to the right on total grass just to be the hell out of the way. 

I mean what a difference, going from this little double track limestone trail out in the middle of IL farm country to this cluster*^&*%&$ of a road with truck traffic everywhere. Got to the Rt 53 intersection and Xed over to the other side of Laraway, and this is where it just got ugly. I mean there is this massive trucking depot just down the road a couple miles where trains bring in thousands of tractor trailers that get recouped back on semis. And all these bloody 18-wheelers are coming and going up and down this section of Laraway. Now I did have a gravel berm for 1/2 mile, and then there is an asphalt pedestrian trail alongside Laraway. But the grass berm on both sides of the pedestrian trail were super soaked. I mean just mudpits from all the rain. 

So I was churning through mud at times just about bending the crank arms to go 4 mph. It was pathetic as all these trucks were whizzing by me. They had to be shaking their heads at the fool out there riding in the muddy grass and through big puddles instead of riding on the day ped. trail. Passed Brandon Rd with just one more block to where I made my R turn onto Centerpoint Rd when I saw Judy coming back towards me, and I kind of did the both hands in the air thing where you’re saying: “Hey, what the hell?” She yelled at me to wait at the Centerpoint intersection. And that’s just what I did, fearing that something was up with my directions. Pulled in this construction entrance that was a pit of mud and gravel to wait for her. When she came back she informed me that Centerpoint was closed to the public and was now a private road. WTF????? I’d just reconned this a year ago and it was just fine. Today it’s closed off to public traffic. Now I knew that Brandon would still get us to the trailhead, so I loaded the bike in the van and we headed back up the road 2 miles to Brandon. This was indeed through, and we just applied what I’d already ridden to this and we were right back by the trailhead. No harm, no foul there. 

The eastern end of this I & M trail is in a really seedy part of town. It’s just an industrial hell on the south side of Joliet, and right along Rt 6 - GAR Highway. You have to X the Des Plains River to get to the trailhead, and of course it’s so high and turbulent from all the flooding that there was no chance in hell I could put in here with the canoe to X. So I take a penalty point on that one and rode across the drawbridge. I was hoping to get in another 10 miles, but with the drizzle, the puddling on this trail to, and with Judy not feeling well, I just decided to bag it and see what tomorrow brings. Couldn’t be a whole lot worse actually. Got in about 33 miles on a totally pissy day and we did see progress. I mean at least we’re seeing movement when we look at a map, so I guess that’s the “glass is half full” philosophy.  

Then there’s the age-old question: “Where to stay?” Now those of you who have not been to Joliet, IL….you ain’t missed nothin. It’s a dirty, nasty place, and where we were at, at the eastern-most trailhead of the I & M, it ranks right up there with the west side of Dayton, OH. So I got on my cell and began looking for a place to stay. And nearly every review I read of the local motel establishments was pretty negative. Some of the places sound downright scary based on those reviews. So today was a day where I opted to drive about 7 miles out the Heart of Darkness to find a suitable, more costly hotel where we’d feel safe. Ended up at a Best Western off of I-55. 

Got a room and then I spent another hour in the hotel parking lot changing that freaking front flat, and having the same amount of trouble getting the tire off the rim and then back on again as I had in Ohio. I swear I’ve NEVER had that much trouble getting a tire on and off a rim. Normally I can just use my thumbs to get a tire seated back on a rim. NOT this one. Hell, I have to use the tire irons like 4x to get that bugger back on - AND OFF! And each and every time I’m prying this tiny little bite of tire and nearly breaking the tire irons in half. Trouble with this is the potential to pinch the tube and then you’re *^*%$ yet again!! Anyway found this tiny piece of metal that had gone through the rim strip tube protector and gotten lodged in the tire. I THINK I got it out, and I’ll go back out to the van pretty soon here to check the tire just to feel good that it’s leak-free. I say I think, because I used a pair of tweezers to pull this little nothing out. Then I tried for 15 min to find if there was anything left in the tire or rim protector, but found nothing. With my run of luck as of late, there’s something still in there!

So that’s the scoop for today. Hopefully tomorrow will be a bit smoother with 61 miles of gravel trail ahead of us.