Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on April 6, 2010 at 6:07am

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=RrzKj&page_id=114856... get you about half-way, to Burlington.

If you find a nicer, more direct route to Madison please post it here. Thanks.

Permalink Reply by millenial removing Bernie tattoo on April 6, 2010 at 9:03am

I've come up with a 82 mile route from the Harvard Metra to Madison, but I've yet to ride it. The route I plan to take though is Harvard Metra to Freeport, Il on the Grand Illinois Trail, then north on various rail-to-trails, which is not very direct.

Bob Kastigar said:

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=RrzKj&page_id=114856... get you about half-way, to Burlington.

If you find a nicer, more direct route to Madison please post it here. Thanks.

Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on April 6, 2010 at 9:50am

envane x said:

I've come up with a 82 mile route from the Harvard Metra to Madison, but I've yet to ride it. The route I plan to take though is Harvard Metra to Freeport, Il on the Grand Illinois Trail, then north on various rail-to-trails, which is not very direct.

If you thinking about that Pecatonica trail, west from Rockford to Freeport, check it out first. I road hear there a few years ago and it was NO invitation to bicycling! Lots of grass. I don't see how it could be ridden on.

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/page/?o=RrzKj&page_id=38041&...

Google maps does show trails north of there, almost all the was to Madison. This might be worth investigating!

Permalink Reply by Tomas Lopez-Betanzos on July 26, 2010 at 6:34pm

Hoping to start a Circle Tour in the second week of August. All ye of ample vacation time should join. I'd like to ride 60-90 miles per day for about 10 days. Clockwise.

Preferably we'd camp, and occasionally hit up a couchsurfer/warmshowerser. Know any great hosts along the lakefront?

I've considered other thoughts before, but does anybody have any additional insight?

Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on July 27, 2010 at 1:22am

Tomas Lopez-Betanzos said:

Hoping to start a Circle Tour in the second week of August. All ye of ample vacation time should join. I'd like to ride 60-90 miles per day for about 10 days. Clockwise.
Preferably we'd camp, and occasionally hit up a couchsurfer/warmshowerser. Know any great hosts along the lakefront?

I've considered other thoughts before, but does anybody have any additional insight?

I did this a few years ago, counter-clockwise though. It's a great trip and it's really flat - no mountains!

http://www.crazyguyonabike.com/doc/LakeMichigan2007

Permalink Reply by BalloonBiker on July 27, 2010 at 3:13am

Oh, and I guess that I'll put my tour in here as well. I'm doing an Oddity Tour of Wisconsin next week and can't wait.

I'll be hitting up Madison, Barrabo, the Wisconsin Dells, Spring Green, Whitewater, Delavan and New Glarus.

The mileage isn't too bad, about 50 miles a day (some less). Since it's a little hilly up there, I'm trying to keep myself from biting off more than I can chew. I'm doing a combination of camping, hosteling, and couchsurfing.

Permalink Reply by Annette on July 27, 2010 at 2:20pm

Hi Tomas,
If you plan on staying in Milwaukee, I can recommend you someone on Warmshowers - just stayed with him and his girlfriend about a week ago on my tour - they are about 2 miles from the lakefront - very cool people. Email me at nutters13 at hotmail dot com if you're interested and I can give you his name and contact.

Tomas Lopez-Betanzos said:

Hoping to start a Circle Tour in the second week of August. All ye of ample vacation time should join. I'd like to ride 60-90 miles per day for about 10 days. Clockwise.

Preferably we'd camp, and occasionally hit up a couchsurfer/warmshowerser. Know any great hosts along the lakefront?

I've considered other thoughts before, but does anybody have any additional insight?

Permalink Reply by Annette on July 27, 2010 at 2:58pm

Just got back from a 7-day trip - Racine to Milwaukee - ferry over to Muskegon, MI - end in Ann Arbor. Rode through Manistee National Forest, hit some state trails (Hart Montague = very nice; White Pines = barely a trail until about 20 miles from Grand Rapids), visits to Grand Rapids and Ann Arbor and their fantastic breweries, some nice state parks (Newaygo) and some crappy (Pinckney = felt like some sort of refugee camp) and some overall pleasant, beautiful and somewhat hilly country roads. And the people of Michigan, I found, were some of the most gracious, welcoming, curious people I've met on the road! Ended in Ann Arbor for the Michigan Beer Fest in Ypsilanti - a wonderful end to a week of hot sun and torrential storms!

Frustrations? We had to RENT A CAR to get back to Chicago when we found out that Amtrak doesn't allow bikes on any train through Michigan! Megabus = no bikes. No Van Galder bus. And Greyhound wanted to charge an arm and a leg for the bikes + boxes + extra baggage. At the end of a week-long bike trip that takes you almost 400 miles, the idea of renting a car and rolling home in 5 hours was stupid. More reason to lobby Amtrak and their backwards ways.

The other frustration involved some of the Michigan bike maps I ordered. Not correctly identifying some of the roads, even leaving out roads, not labeling all the state parks, trails, etc. I actually found county maps purchased at gas stations and even one free Michigan highway map to be more useful at times! I also printed out some Google "bike there" maps beforehand but did not use any of them due to their over complexity. Anyone have any luck with Google bike maps on tour? I've found they give way too many turns and often many twists!

All in all, a wonderful tour of Michigan!

Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on July 27, 2010 at 3:07pm

Annette said:

Frustrations? We had to RENT A CAR to get back to Chicago when we found out that Amtrak doesn't allow bikes on any train through Michigan!
It's been a number of years, but I did take Amtrak once, to Ann Arbor. I had to pack the bike in a box, pay $20, but it could be done. Amtrak must have dropped it, because my daughter just looked it up try to take a bike to a union meeting in Ann Arbor.

Anyone have any luck with Google bike maps on tour? I've found they give way too many turns and often many twists!

Google gets too detailed. Use the pull-thing to simplify the route. Then, print only small parts of the map at a time. I don't use the route lists at all, just the maps. I usually start out with several sheets of paper, and throw them away as I got along.

The only alternative is to get a netbook and take it along :)

Permalink Reply by Annette on July 27, 2010 at 3:42pm

That's very interesting, Bob. So now I'm interested in learning why they did allow bikes on at MI stops at one point. The most I was able to gather from three separate phone calls with three very unhelpful Amtrak representatives was that no train in Michigan allows you to bring a bike - in a box or as a roll-on. And it sounded like there is no checked baggage at all allowed at MI stops.

Bob Kastigar said:

Annette said:

Frustrations? We had to RENT A CAR to get back to Chicago when we found out that Amtrak doesn't allow bikes on any train through Michigan!
It's been a number of years, but I did take Amtrak once, to Ann Arbor. I had to pack the bike in a box, pay $20, but it could be done. Amtrak must have dropped it, because my daughter just looked it up try to take a bike to a union meeting in Ann Arbor.

Anyone have any luck with Google bike maps on tour? I've found they give way too many turns and often many twists!

Google gets too detailed. Use the pull-thing to simplify the route. Then, print only small parts of the map at a time. I don't use the route lists at all, just the maps. I usually start out with several sheets of paper, and throw them away as I got along.

The only alternative is to get a netbook and take it along :)

Permalink Reply by Bob Kastigar on July 28, 2010 at 1:27am

Annette said:

... And it sounded like there is no checked baggage at all allowed at MI stops.

You got me interested enough to do a little mousing to Amtrak....

First, it was 10-15 years ago, I think, when I took my bike-in-a-box to Ann Arbor. I'm not sure really when.

Looking up mid-west routes there are at least three routes between Chicago and various cities in Michigan. Even Detroit does not have checked baggage! None of the Michigan cities have checked baggage!

By contrast: There are three routes in Illinois that allow (for $10) carry-on bicycles. No box packing necessary. Quincy, Carbondale, and St. Louis. There is one train in Missouri, between Kansas City and St. Louis. I think the states subsidize these routes, I know that then Gov. Blagoevich wanted to kill the Illinois subsidy.

Checked baggage needs some labor at the stations, and the carry-on bikes depends on the type of railroad car. The cars on the Illinois route are a step above CTA/Metra but below a full-sized Amtrak train. Getting on-and-off and storing the bike is a little bit harder than Metra trains. Doing it with packed panniers and camping gear is even harder but it can be done.

But this doesn't tell us why Michigan trains can't handle it. Amtrak can limit the amount of bikes on the train, and advanced reservations are usually required. No extra work is involved in allowing the carry-on bikes.

But the fact that even Detroit doesn't have checked luggage gives you some idea of how much Amtrak has scaled back in the Michigan operation side. There is no way to take a bike on Amtrak to anyplace in Michigan, which is too bad because it would open up a lot of options for bike touring.

Permalink Reply by Liz on August 2, 2010 at 11:19am

I really do wish that amtrak would allow you to roll on bikes with a reservation the way they allow you to in IL when traveling to destinations that do not check baggage. There are several WI or MI trips I would bring my bike on the train for. I think Amtrak focuses too much on the long distance trains, at the cost of providing better regional service. Amtrak makes a great regional transportation resource and it would take very little modification to their system to allow bikes on more routes. Really MI should be lobbying for Amtrak to allow it as well.

We took our bikes on the Lincoln Service to Alton, IL earlier this year and followed trails 20 mi north to pierre marquette state park. Getting the bikes on the train meant taking off the panniers, lifting the bikes onto the train and then bringing up our bags. Some conductors are more helpful than others, but the process wasn't much different than getting a bike on the metra.
Bob Kastigar said:

Annette said:

... And it sounded like there is no checked baggage at all allowed at MI stops.

You got me interested enough to do a little mousing to Amtrak....

First, it was 10-15 years ago, I think, when I took my bike-in-a-box to Ann Arbor. I'm not sure really when.

Looking up mid-west routes there are at least three routes between Chicago and various cities in Michigan. Even Detroit does not have checked baggage! None of the Michigan cities have checked baggage!

By contrast: There are three routes in Illinois that allow (for $10) carry-on bicycles. No box packing necessary. Quincy, Carbondale, and St. Louis. There is one train in Missouri, between Kansas City and St. Louis. I think the states subsidize these routes, I know that then Gov. Blagoevich wanted to kill the Illinois subsidy.

Checked baggage needs some labor at the stations, and the carry-on bikes depends on the type of railroad car. The cars on the Illinois route are a step above CTA/Metra but below a full-sized Amtrak train. Getting on-and-off and storing the bike is a little bit harder than Metra trains. Doing it with packed panniers and camping gear is even harder but it can be done.

But this doesn't tell us why Michigan trains can't handle it. Amtrak can limit the amount of bikes on the train, and advanced reservations are usually required. No extra work is involved in allowing the carry-on bikes.

But the fact that even Detroit doesn't have checked luggage gives you some idea of how much Amtrak has scaled back in the Michigan operation side. There is no way to take a bike on Amtrak to anyplace in Michigan, which is too bad because it would open up a lot of options for bike touring.

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