Lemont Bicycle Club (LBC) completes another successful year

The unofficial “Lemont Bicycle Club” hosted their last ride of 2019 on Sunday October 13th. Scheduled rides began in March and occurred approximately every four weeks. The scheduled rides began from the Centennial trail initiating from the trailhead located approximately a mile east of Lemont Road.

These rides were organized for a few main purposes according to the organizers. First, we wanted to allow for a fun and healthy outlet for socializing. Second, we wanted to make other folks around the community of Lemont aware of the great resource we have in our proximity in these paved bicycle trails. And last it was a way to bring awareness to what possibilities could exist for the downtown area of Lemont if a pedestrian/bicycle bridge could be built going north to south over the Canal from the Centennial trail to the north end of Stephen Street where it ends at the canal.

The riders would meet as a group at the aforementioned trailhead, and after the prerequisite picture for Facebook, ride east along the Centennial trail to the bridge along the east side of Route 83 and then take the I+M trail to Willow Springs Road. The Snooty Fox and Hound pub, usually a food truck and Imperial Oak Brewing are located less than a block off the trail. Folks would grab a bite to eat, re-hydrate with a cold beverage (or in the case of one ride, a hot chocolate) maybe play a game of cards or dice and catch up with old friends or meet some new ones.

The organizers did their best to make sure everyone arrived safely and efficiently, requiring simply that everyone have a bike and a helmet. While we would start and ride out as a group, folks would leave as their schedules and obligations required, and head back to Lemont. The riders never had to be on a road, so the route chosen was extremely safe and conducive to newer riders or perhaps those who haven’t been on a bike for years or in some cases decades. There were over 200 people that joined us on one of these nine organized rides in 2019 and similarly over 200 people took part in one of the rides in 2018. One person even referred to it as her "favorite thing of the summer".

While the rides are certainly open to anyone and everyone, we do maintain a closed Facebook group where folks would be made aware of the dates and times of the rides. We also had some apparel printed up (T-shirts, jerseys, bike shorts) that had ordering information passed along to the group.

In addition to the organized, social rides, smaller groups would occasionally get together for faster, training rides in preparation for longer biking events, like century rides or Gran Fondos. While this type of more ambitious cycling is not for everyone, it is almost always more fun and more efficient to train in a group rather than on your own.

If anyone is interested in finding out more, please feel free to reach out to Julie Mescher, Dan Ganzer or Dave Maher or by sending email to runlemont@gmail.com. As was mentioned earlier, most of the communications take place on Facebook, so it will be best if you have a Facebook account so we can add you to our Lemont Bicycle Club group. We would love to have you join us in 2020!