cyclist from Quebec planning cross country trip

I got this message via the CCC mailbox. If any of you have helpful suggestions for Pascal, please respond to his e-mail address: pascal at sciencepresse dot qc dot ca
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Hello,

My name is Pascal Lapointe and I am a obsessive-compulsive-bike-lover in Montreal, Quebec. Starting the end of June, I will do a bicycle trip from San Diego to Montreal, by Chicago, in 5 weeks.

I know there is nothing original, a lot of people have done before me a trans-America ride. My goal is to write texts about the ride, but especially about the fact that if I can do it, any bike-lover can do it (I am not an athlete, and I will do it on an ordinary bike).

And this is one of the two reasons I am writing this to you. I know that
the difficulties to convince people to do more bicycle, and to convince policy-makers, are the same everywhere. I was wondering if Illinois had been the theatre of something different, some lessons to promote bicycle that we don't usually hear when we are Google-searching about bicycle in Illinois. Lessons that I would use in my texts.

The second reason is to ask for an advice: I will enter Illinois probably by Davenport, Iowa: does the road 92 to Mendota and then 34 to Oswego seems like the best way to enter the Chicago area? (I've noticed bike routes to Chicago downtown seems to begin in Oswego)

And who knows. The day I will be arriving from Mendota, or leaving Chicago, maybe some people
would like to join me? It would be a way to say: see this crazy guy? If he can do 3000 miles, surely you can do 50. And at the end of theday, they could say: hey, I've done 5% of the distance to Montreal,it's easier than I thought!

Or something like that... :-)

Regards,

Pascal Lapointe