Originally Posted by
Rutnick
I was in Chicago the exact same time you were. While bike paths are awesome for some, I don't like them. I did a 50 miler over in the Saint Charles area on Thursday. Let's just say going from the hills of Western KY to pancake flat was depressing. Tues, I rode from my FRONT DOOR in Western KY and did 62 miles and nearly 5k feet of climbing. Thursday in Saint Charles...50 miles and what? 1200 feet of climbing MAYBE. I heard the group say...here comes the hill and honestly, I'm still looking for it. Honestly, country road riding in Bowling Green is 10X better if you are a roadie. I used to live in BG and loved the climbing there.
If you were on a bike path it was most likely a rails-to-trails path, which means it was originally used for trains. Trains don't go up/down/up/down. They take the flattest and straightest path possible. That's why rails-to-trails may be great for a casual ride or walking the dog or jogging, but for a challenging bike ride, not so much.
There are hills in and around St. Charles, as the town straddles the Fox River, but this is not Kentucky. Kentucky has real hills. The Chicago area has the occassional river valley. The northern Chicagoland suburb of Wisconsin has hills if you go far enough west.
