Ride Across Illinois (Mississippi River to Lake Michigan)

So I am doing RAIN (Ride Across INdiana) in a couple weeks and have been thinking about trying to do the same thing in Illinois later this year. To the best of my knowledge there are no organized rides that go W-E that I could find.

Similar to RAGBRAI, I want to dip my tire in the Mississippi and then Lake Michigan to end the day. While the reverse order is likely safer when it comes to fatigue and heavy traffic in the Chicagoland area, I'd rather not fight the prevailing winds for 150+ miles.

At this point, my plan is to drop off a one-way rental car in Clinton, IA, spend the night and head west to Chicago at sunrise. Unfortunately, it looks like most of the bike paths that might fit the route (e.g. Great Western Trail, Illinois Prairie Path) are mostly crushed stone which won't help me. At this point, I am just (arbitrarily) dragging markers over Google maps which is a surefire way to find myself on shitty roads.

Anyway, has anyone tried something like this? Any advice? Thoughts on the best route? 

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Permalink Reply by Duppie on June 30, 2012 at 5:21am
Take the northern route of the Grand Iillinois Trail. While not entirely limestone free, it has a variant that takes you down the North Shore, which is a largely paved path.
Permalink Reply by ilter on June 30, 2012 at 9:04am

Have you seen UMCA`s across-state ride records ?

   http://www.ultracycling.com/old/records/illinois.html

I was going to propose searching for these riders` routes (in their blogs, etc), but noticed that their E & W points are very different than yours:

End Points for Cross-Illinois Cycling Records
To challenge a record a cyclist must start and finish at the same end-points, although the bicycle rider may choose a different route between the end points.
North IL/WI border on IL Hwy 78 just north of Warren IL
South Just off US 51 in Cairo IL at Fort Defiance State Park; end of boat ramp leading into river
East US 40 at IL/IN state line in State Line, IL
West IL/MO state line on US 67 bridge over Mississippi River at Alton, IL
Permalink Reply by ilter on June 30, 2012 at 9:13am

On second thought, UMCA rider routes won`t be ideal for you anyways, as they must prefer shorter routes, rather than safer or more scenic.

Permalink Reply by mark stetson on June 30, 2012 at 9:32am

Do you know where you want to enter the Chicago metro area on the way home?  I could scout some roads in the middle of the route, but since you're going to want a pretty direct route  it would make sense to know where you want to enter the suburbs. 

Generally speaking, it's flatter and there are more long stretches of straight roads south of I-88.  You also need to think about where to cross the Rock and Fox rivers.  If I were doing the ride, I'd work my way SE from Clinton and cross the Rock on US30 at Rock Falls.  Traffic is not too bad there,  I've ridden through RF on US30.    There are some good east-west roads south of US30 that you'd take to cross the Fox at Oswego, then some more open country before you get into solid suburbia in the Naperville/Woodridge area.  I don't know whether there's a good route into the city from there, so my proposed route would hinge on that point.

Permalink Reply by Phil Fox on June 30, 2012 at 11:28am

Mark - I live in near downtown Chicago so I figured I would dip my tire at Oak Street Beach. How I get through the west side of Chicago is a big question mark for me. I always ride N/S using LFP as a starting point for my long rides and am unfamiliar with E/W routes. I saw in another post to stick to Washington instead of Lake... I imagine I'll be losing daylight by the time I finish so safety will certainly be a concern there. 

Here's what I've got thus far... https://maps.google.com/maps?saddr=U.S.+30+W%2FClinton+Rd&daddr...

iliter - I've never seen the UMCA's records but those will be good to research. As you can imagine, I am a bit inflexible on the end town due to logistics. :-)

Permalink Reply by mark stetson on June 30, 2012 at 5:28pm

The route in the link is close to what I was thinking.  I don't know as I'd like to ride that much of US30 in a day, even though it's as direct a route as you're likely to come up with.   I'd probably ride some of the tertiary roads to the south.  I know Chicago Road between I-39 and the Kendall County line would be nicer to ride than US30, and I'd expect Galena Road on to Oswego to be a good choice as well.  These roads will add  a few miles to the trip but will have less traffic and probably be smoother than US30. 

I hope someone with some insight into the practicality of riding into the city from this general direction will chime in.   You might take a look at Mapmyride.com to get some idea where people ride in the SW suburbs.  I think you will have to join, but it's free.  You can then enter any city along the route and look at maps from others' rides.  You might not find an exact path mapped that fits your needs, but the ones available may help in finding a good route into the city.

 

Permalink Reply by Mike Schwab on June 30, 2012 at 10:46pm
Permalink Reply by David on July 1, 2012 at 4:38am

Amtrak doesn't actually go to Rock Island or Davenport.   The Zephyr goes to Galesburg and you can take a bus from there to either Rock Island or Davenport.

But even if the train lets you roll the bike on, I'm pretty sure you couldn't do that on the transfer bus.  But I've never looked into it.   On the other hand, I also don't think the train to Galesburg is one of the routes that allows roll-on bikes.  I've never actually tried, but I called once and was told that bikes had to be checked as baggage.  And it's still not listed on the Amtrak web as a route that allows roll-on bikes.

If this policy has changed, that would be really good news. 

Mike Schwab said:

Permalink Reply by Larry Mysz on July 1, 2012 at 10:07am

You have to be careful which trains you take.

The routes in Illinois that allow roll on bikes are collectively known as Illinois Service.  They are Chicago to Quincy, Chicago to St. Louis,  and Chicago to Carbondale.  You can roll a bike on the Illinois Service trains to Galesburg ( the Carl Sandburg and Illinois Zephyer)

 

Cross country trains, like the California Zephyer and Texas Eagle serve some of the same cities as the Illinois Service trains, but do not allow roll on bikes.  E.g., you cannot roll a bike onto the California Zephyer to Galersburg.  Bikes on the cross country trains have to be boxed and checked as baggage.  And the boxes can only be loaded or unloaded at stations that have baggage service.

 

The busses that are part of the Amtrak service do not carry baggage, so no bikes. 

 

An additional complexity between Chicago and St Louis right now is that there is track construction between  Champaign-Urbana and St. Louis.  They transfer passengers to busses for the C-U to St. Louis leg.  You can takes bikes to C-U, but not on the bus from C-U to St.Louis.


David said:

Amtrak doesn't actually go to Rock Island or Davenport.   The Zephyr goes to Galesburg and you can take a bus from there to either Rock Island or Davenport.

But even if the train lets you roll the bike on, I'm pretty sure you couldn't do that on the transfer bus.  But I've never looked into it.   On the other hand, I also don't think the train to Galesburg is one of the routes that allows roll-on bikes.  I've never actually tried, but I called once and was told that bikes had to be checked as baggage.  And it's still not listed on the Amtrak web as a route that allows roll-on bikes.

If this policy has changed, that would be really good news. 

Permalink Reply by mark stetson on July 1, 2012 at 12:48pm

It's too bad Amtrak makes things so difficult.

 

I think Phil's choice of Clinton makes sense.  It's close to the same latitude as Chicago, and the state is narrower at that point.  It's going to be a pretty long day on the bike, and starting at Clinton will be less mileage compared to Rock Island.  For someone doing the same trip in two days, the option of doing some miles on the Hennepin and/ or Canal paths makes Rock Island a good place to start.  Add an afternoon messing around at Starved Rock and you might make it a 3 day trip.

 

Speaking of the Quad Cities area: Anyone interested in a ticket to Wilco Tuesday night in Davenport?  I have an extra.

Permalink Reply by Phil Fox on July 3, 2012 at 2:19am

Doing it in one day is a big part of the appeal. We'll see if my enthusiasm wains after RAIN later this month though.

I did find another similar ride nearby called "One Day Bike Ride Across Michigan." Dip your tire in Lake Michigan at the start and Lake Huron at the end. Total route is about 150 miles.

Has anyone done either of these rides? Thumbs up? Down?

Permalink Reply by Chris Hainey on July 3, 2012 at 2:37am

Not a one day ride, but connecting adventurecycling.org's route from Muscatine, IA

http://adventurecycling.org/routes/northerntier.cfm?pg=detail&s=8

to the Route 66 bikeway to Chicago

http://www.bikelib.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/segments.pdf

is a ride on my to-do list.

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