Mods, I'd appreciate if you didn't move this to the regional forum, as I am looking for info that perhaps someone might have who doesn't live there or frequent that forum.

I'll be traveling to Central Illinois during the first week of November (3-6 to be exact) for a family gathering. I am hoping that I'll be able to get away for at least part of a day to ride some miles.

The town I will be in is Lincoln, and I don't expect there to be any incredible bike shops around there (I've been a ton of times when I was a kid) but does anyone know of a shop within a decent drive where I could rent a bike and go for a ride?

Can you even ride in November there?

First of all....

it will be in the upper 30's maybe 40's (possibly upper 40's) and WET/WINDY. Forget riding. Use the time to rest up, or find a local gym or YMCA and bike inside to maintain fitness. I can't wait until I move from Minnesota to AZ in may.

As long as it's dry, I don't care if it is 30's or 40's. I ride in that here in the winter some days. If it's rainy I'd be pissed at any temperature.

google found these..
Bicycle Shops near Lincoln, IL
Nearby City

All (56)
Clinton (2)
Lane (1)
Bloomington (5)
Normal (6)
Pekin (2)
Washington (3)
Taylorville (1)

Lincoln (1)
Forsyth (1)
Springfield (14)
Decatur (6)
Morton (1)
Chatham (1)
Peoria (11)
Canton (1)

1Back Alley Bikes (1) -
Info
local.yahoo.com
(217) 735-9787 -
113 Willard Ave, Lincoln, IL
2Ace Bicycle Shop (1) -
Info
Http
(217) 523-0188 -
2500 S Macarthur Blvd, Springfield, IL
3Wheel Fast Bicycle Company -
Info
wheelfast.com
(217) 483-7807 -
20 Cottonwood Dr, Chatham, IL
4Decatur Bicycle Shoppe -
Info
decaturbicycle.com
(217) 875-3271 -
1230 E Pershing Rd, Decatur, IL
5Green Dragon Motorized... -
Info
greendragonmotorizedbicycles.com
(217) 853-6003 -
611 E Woodlawn St, Clinton,

My suggestion - look for a spinning class and go nuts.

For weather, you can check history graphs on weatherspark.com. Here's the Weatherspark Lincoln IL link.

The controls are a bit confusing. But you can drag the slider at the bottom back in time, and pull one end of the slider edge to compress the individual days down into week or month averages. There's a day-by-day averages section, then farther to the left, actual daily data going back years. Checking early November for the last few years, you could see highs of 75F or 38F, depending on the day.

It shows that the mean high in early November is 55F, and the mean low is 38F. Record lows are in the mid 20s and record highs near 75. Afternoons should be decent. But the temperatures can swing from warm to freezing in a day or two.

A link to last year's November graph. It's the red and blue graph in the middle of the page.

I like weatherspark. It has great radar maps, where you can play back the radar from hours ago, to see the direction of the rain. It has 4 sources for forecasts, which almost never agree with each other!