Great Lakes - Milwaukee Area Trails, where are they?

Road parkside yesterday morning and had a ball, looking for something more. I road down near 7 Bridges on Lake Michigan ( Oak Creek area ) last week, and most of that trail has eroded away. Where do you guys ride in the Milwaukee area, and does anyone want to get together and have a bi weekly ride anywhere?

I assume we're talking road bikes?

Here's (http://www.city.milwaukee.gov/maps4460.htm) the official maps (downloadable).

I had a bunch of 'fave routes posted on Routeslip, but alas, that webpage is gone (RIP). I'll have to repost them somewhere.

The Oakcreek/Cudahy/BayView part of the Oak Leaf trail will run from Grant Park north to the Coast Guard station next to the high speed ferry. Take the trail or just ride on Lake Drive ... that trail needs to be updated, but even on Lake Drive that's a good loop.

South of Grant Park you can ride a little further to Bender Park which has an excellent view of the lake before you drop the 100 ft down the switch back road to the beach/boat launch.

If the wind is out of the north east (when isn't it?), take 1st street north to downtown, then over to the lake front and there is a bike path from downtown to Silver Spring Drive along the old railroad right of way. For some speed, just take Lake Drive (different that the one on the south side) back to downtown. That's a very popular cycling route.

If we're talking MTBs, then that's a whole different ballgame. :)

(PS: Be careful when you say "parkside" because that's a real place on the north end of Kenosha. They used to race at "Parkside" and that may throw some people off. :D )

I'm talking the College Campus called Parkside, I rode the MTB trails through the woods by the river there :) That is on the north side of Kenosha, possibly thinking of the same place?

Thanks for the info on the road bike stuff, I have one of those too. I'm having more trouble finding the MTB trails though.

Ahh ... Parkside (capital P!)

Check this out: Petrifying Springs_Park_Trails (http://www.trailville.com/wiki/index.php?title=WI_Kenosha_Petrifying_Springs_Park_Trails)

There are two 'legal' MTB trails in Milwaukee County: LINK (http://www.county.milwaukee.gov/router.asp?docid=8288)

and also plenty of underground MTB riding: LINK (http://www.metromountainbikers.com/)

:ride:

Thanks for the link, I'm going to check out Crystal Ridge tomorrow :)

Here's a map I modified:

http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc54/biffbradford/cycling/CRTrails.jpg

C.R. is Crystal Ridge with the 'legal' Alpha trail. If you follow that to the north west and veer to the
right, you'll find a shallow area where you can cross the river and enter a picnic area. Ride through there, cross the road and by the river is an old bridal trail from the 1950's that very few people know about. It's double track for about a mile. Pretty cool. Some other 'unofficial' trails are marked on the map, and if you're sly about it, you can ride at Potters Forest. DONT ride on the other hiking trails, but Potter's Forest you can get away with. Also check out the Jolt Trail which is paved but still a pretty cool ride to the south and there are some 'unofficial' trails that sprout off of that as well if you look closely. :)

The city of Greendale has lots of sidewalks and paths that you can explore and from Whitnall you can ride over to Scout Lake which isn't supposed to be ridden by bike, but you can do one lap then split. It has some STEEP climbs!

When you get bored with those, I'll tell you some more ... I've only been riding this area for the past 30 years. :D:roflmao2:

I rode the Crystal Ridge trails today, didn't even make it to the Alpha trail as I ended up doing 3 laps through CR before running into another MTBer, chatted with him for a good 15 minutes and split. I can't want to hit the Alpha and then onto where you described. Hopefully it will be as nice next week as it was today. Sadly I work weekends and wont be back on the bike till Monday.

Thanks much for all the info, can't wait to get back there and see what I can find.

Getting pretty familiar with the CR trails, haven't found the spot to cross the river yet. Any better details you could supply?

I can try.

http://i219.photobucket.com/albums/cc54/biffbradford/cycling/ScreenShot011.jpg

On this map, Crystal Ridge is just below the bottom edge where it says "2008". The white line is the bike trail, the dark line next to it is the river. As you ride away from C.R. along the flat there is a sharp left hand turn. Crossing 1 is right there, on your right. I haven't back there this year yet, but it used to look like a bridal trail crossing with double track on both sides, a small rapids in the river there and it was never any deeper than one foot. If you continue on with the trail, to the left, about 50 yards up, on your right, is a small hiking trail. If you don't look for it, you'll probably miss it, you'll have to walk through the brush, but that leads to a secondary stream that feeds the river and is very shallow. You will probably have to jump down a 3 foot high embankment but the crossing is easy and leads to the soccer field/volley ball court/parking lot on the other side. From there go to the road, back to the river, and on the other side of the road is the old bridal trail again. That goes all the way to Grange Ave.

On the other side of the parkway, there is a small trail that you can ride - I marked that with a fine white line. Catch that next to and behind that grove of pine trees. PRetty narrow, but it's a fun ride through the brush once you find it.

Hope that helps. :)

Oh, did you look for "Potters Woods" yet? Its on the other side of the Botanical Gardens and are some cool trails to ride.

Haven't yet, that will be next. Google maps is awesome, what the heck would I do without the internet?

Thanks a lot, hoping to go out bombing around tomorrow. Hopefully the new gloves are warmer then the last pair.