Singlespeed & Fixed Gear - chicago to milwaukee route

I'm riding (fixed) up to milwaukee this weekend with a friend. I know the Ides went up there this spring. Did anyone do it or know the route? We don't mind hitting the streets and would actually like to avoid any trails that may be 1. overrun with swerving riders, wandering kids and/or annoying rollerbladers and 2. are 'paved' with huge chunks of gravel and rocks.

cheers!

crustedfish did this. Check for some old crustedfish posts on the route he took up north.

Old BikeForums thread:
http://www.bikeforums.net/archive/index.php/t-57432

Bike route one (95.8 miles):
http://www.bfw.org/new_bfw/articles/bikingon.php

And the book that's mentioned (find in Borders?):
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/trailresources/b042.html

I'm riding (fixed) up to milwaukee this weekend with a friend. I know the Ides went up there this spring. Did anyone do it or know the route? We don't mind hitting the streets and would actually like to avoid any trails that may be 1. overrun with swerving riders, wandering kids and/or annoying rollerbladers and 2. are 'paved' with huge chunks of gravel and rocks.

cheers!

okay. the FASTEST and EASIEST way to get up there is as follows...

Take Clark all the way north through Chicago and into Evanston. What EVER you do, don't go east, dont go west, just go NORTH! (duh).

When you get to Evanston, there will be Amtrak/Metra/el tracks on your left. North of Howard, I believe Clark turns into Chicago. Keep on Chicago north until it intersects with Sheridan, just south of Northwestern University.

Take Sheridan North until it hits (turns into, actually) 137. Once you hit the Wisconsin border, 137 turns into Route 32. Take that all the way into Milwaukee. There are long stretches of nothing, but, you will not be too far from water, food, green grass to piss in, blah blah blah.

The route is pretty track bike friendly. You might be tempted to take the bike paths on the sides of the road, especiallly in southern WI and the few suburbs just south of the border. Dont!!! I do believe there is one stretch of road where it is illegal for you to ride on, and there is a nice path on the left side of the road. You most likely will have some rich SUV driving soccer mom ***** yell at you if you are on the road.

check out www.333m.com for directions to Kenosha Velodrome. Super close to Route 32, you should definitely stop by.

When are you making the trip?

Ive been training for a re-ride up there, with a goal of 6 hours and thirty minutes. You should be able to accomplish the trip in less than 9 hours, but you need to leave at least by 9-10AM, preferably sooner.

lemme know if you have any questions. If you are going soon, like, this weekend, there MAY be a chance that I would wanna ride up there with ya, for my weekend training ride.

lemme know,
randy

okay. the FASTEST and EASIEST way to get up there is as follows...

Take Clark all the way north through Chicago and into Evanston. What EVER you do, don't go east, dont go west, just go NORTH! (duh).

When you get to Evanston, there will be Amtrak/Metra/el tracks on your left. North of Howard, I believe Clark turns into Chicago. Keep on Chicago north until it intersects with Sheridan, just south of Northwestern University.

Take Sheridan North until it hits (turns into, actually) 137. Once you hit the Wisconsin border, 137 turns into Route 32. Take that all the way into Milwaukee. There are long stretches of nothing, but, you will not be too far from water, food, green grass to piss in, blah blah blah.

The route is pretty track bike friendly. You might be tempted to take the bike paths on the sides of the road, especiallly in southern WI and the few suburbs just south of the border. Dont!!! I do believe there is one stretch of road where it is illegal for you to ride on, and there is a nice path on the left side of the road. You most likely will have some rich SUV driving soccer mom ***** yell at you if you are on the road.

check out www.333m.com for directions to Kenosha Velodrome. Super close to Route 32, you should definitely stop by.

When are you making the trip?

Ive been training for a re-ride up there, with a goal of 6 hours and thirty minutes. You should be able to accomplish the trip in less than 9 hours, but you need to leave at least by 9-10AM, preferably sooner.

lemme know if you have any questions. If you are going soon, like, this weekend, there MAY be a chance that I would wanna ride up there with ya, for my weekend training ride.

lemme know,
randy

I don't know about fastest and easiest, but alternatively, you could just jump Sheridan at about 1900 North and just stick with Sheridan and head north. It's a pretty route, especially at times when it runs alongside the lakefront. There's one dicey part to Sheridan just as you approach Howard... do NOT get on the sidewalk because the police are ready and waiting to issue tickets and they will also take your bike away in extreme circumstances, so stick to the road. Sheridan will just bend to the left and the cars just like to rip around that bend like no one's business, but if you keep your cool and take the lane if cars try to crowd you out of Sheridan, you should be fine. I like Clark, but the street is real TORE UP once you pass Diversey, and it can be a terrible ride. Plus, the buses drive me crazy! So I've just done the Sheridan Road thing. Then you don't have to worry about getting on or off the road. As I said before, it's just easier on the eyes than Clark, since you stick more to the lakefront, and then you hit Northwestern and get the nice neighborhoods too. And if you take Sheridan, and it will run into the 137 just like Crusted stated. It's pretty easy this way.

Wisconsin is a nice ride- good stuff and it's so nice once you get up north. You may even run into quite a few cyclists from Higher Gear, and they're real nice too. I sometimes would latch onto them and they never said a word to me.

Just an alternative....

Koffee

I like Clark, but the street is real TORE UP once you pass Diversey, and it can be a terrible ride. Plus, the buses drive me crazy!
Koffee

that's strange...if you wanna talk about bad streets, how about hubbard, 900-1400 west... and Milkwaukee, the whole damn thing, and Augusta, and Chicago heading west bound past the first bridge.

Awww.. mah... gawd... let's not get me started. How about Ogden? I almost lose my teeth every time I ride it! That road is teeth-rattling!

Koffee

Milwaukee, Chicago Augusta and Ogden have to be the worst kept streets in the city in that Wicker Park/Logan Square stretch. I avoid them like the plague if I have to. Division, and Armitage are the streets I use to get around those two. I have to pass those streets every other day...

Where's the tax money going to?

Milwaukee, Chicago Augusta and Ogden have to be the worst kept streets in the city in that Wicker Park/Logan Square stretch. I avoid them like the plague if I have to. Division, and Armitage are the streets I use to get around those two. I have to pass those streets every other day...

Where's the tax money going to?


Nope, I take Ogden into the southside, and it's horrifying. Take that ride on Ogden sometime, and you will be scared too. ;)

The money goes to Millennium Park, haven't you figured out where that half billion dollars came from that took the last 6 years of the millennium to build? ;) Awesome park, though.

Koffee

True - but I was impressed with the bike station - and the park is nice indeed. Though I find Crown Fountain a little creepy.

Creepy with all those kids? How so?

I liked Crown Fountain for the kids, but not if I was by myself fersheezy.

Koffee

If anyone wants to join the two of us on our journey north, you're more than welcome to. Hopefully we'll be heading out no later than 10am (hopefully sooner). We're starting from hyde park, so figure by the time we hit civilization in chicago it will be 20 minutes later. I think the route suggested by crusted sounds like the one we'll take, if there are any changes I'll let you know. I think we will be going at a decent clip, the goal is to get there in 6-7 hrs. My friend is a freak and training for an Ironman in Wisconsin so he's in pretty decent shape. We're going to stay with my parents who live about 20 miles west of milwaukee (so maybe 7-8hrs?), which means they will feed us alot and give us nice cozy beds. We plan on coming back on Sunday so that means another 100+ ride the next day. It should be fun...??

Anyway, thanks all for the advice. Milwaukee is by far one of the worst roads in Chicago. And it just gets worse as you head north through Logan Square. Although perhaps the worst case is when you're on a pretty decent road, and even thinking that, and then out of nowhere comes this 10ft. trench that you either just manage to swerve around or take a header into.

Creepy with all those kids? How so?

I liked Crown Fountain for the kids, but not if I was by myself fersheezy.

Koffee

The kids were cool and the fountain itself is cool, it's the faces that change and have those strange looks that make me feel a little odd, not to mention the strangeness or hilarious nature of this:

If anyone wants to join the two of us on our journey north, you're more than welcome to. Hopefully we'll be heading out no later than 10am (hopefully sooner). We're starting from hyde park, so figure by the time we hit civilization in chicago it will be 20 minutes later. I think the route suggested by crusted sounds like the one we'll take, if there are any changes I'll let you know. I think we will be going at a decent clip, the goal is to get there in 6-7 hrs. My friend is a freak and training for an Ironman in Wisconsin so he's in pretty decent shape. We're going to stay with my parents who live about 20 miles west of milwaukee (so maybe 7-8hrs?), which means they will feed us alot and give us nice cozy beds. We plan on coming back on Sunday so that means another 100+ ride the next day. It should be fun...??

Anyway, thanks all for the advice. Milwaukee is by far one of the worst roads in Chicago. And it just gets worse as you head north through Logan Square. Although perhaps the worst case is when you're on a pretty decent road, and even thinking that, and then out of nowhere comes this 10ft. trench that you either just manage to swerve around or take a header into.

good luck Salome. Keep us posted, will ya?

Thanks for the offer, wish I could join ya, but, unfortunately a couple little things popped up that Ive gotta takecare of. Like school. oh well.

good luck!

So I just got back from Milwaukee...

The trip back was really great. (Thank you tailwind!). We got back in under 6 hrs. about 5:40, averaged a little over 18mph. On the way up we were plaqued by flats, I had a steady leaker which I didn't change but would pump up every time my friend had a flat. He ended up with four(!) which made us think that his tires needed to be replaced. So when we cruised into milwaukee about 7 hours (ouch!) later we picked up some new tires.

Other than that .... nothing spectacular. I took a few pictures which I will post once I get them developed and scanned. We followed sheridan-137-32 which was a decent route minus the chicago suburbs which seem to go on forever. At one point on the way up we weren't sure if we were still on sheridan and I flagged over a giant SUV with two north shore women in it. I swear I must have scared the s*** out of them by the looks on their faces. It was rather entertaining!

I would consider doing this again if anyone ever wants to. Another possibility, I've heard the trip over to Michigan is much less suburban. Also we could get a decent group together and head down to the dunes and have a night filled with drunken debauchery and come back the next day. Just a few ideas now that I've got the distance bug...

cheers
Val

Nice. Four flats! That's horrible. Looking forward to the photos.

I've been wanting to do a Dunes ride. That could be cool indeed.

I would consider doing this again if anyone ever wants to. Another possibility, I've heard the trip over to Michigan is much less suburban. Also we could get a decent group together and head down to the dunes and have a night filled with drunken debauchery and come back the next day. Just a few ideas now that I've got the distance bug...

cheers
Val

I just posted about this... on another thread. I would totally come down to Chicago and ride up to MI > back to Chicago with y'all. Do you have a route I can look over? I've been trying to find a good route for some time now...

I've been wanting to do a Dunes ride. That could be cool indeed.

another nice overnight is at the illiois beach state park - 70+ miles north, on the border

another nice overnight is at the illiois beach state park - 70+ miles north, on the border

Ah, nice one. What do you take up there? Camping grounds?

Ah, nice one. What do you take up there? Camping grounds?

yea, its camping

Did the Chicago to Milwaukee ride a few weeks ago and since this thread came up close to the top of my search when checking for route advice, I figured I'd update in case anyone else looks at this thing...

We rode the Sheridan to 137 to 32 route and I don't think it's the best. Constuction through North Chicago is really bad. In general once we got North of Great Lakes there were a lot of stretches that were heavy on fast moving car traffic without much of a shoulder to ride on.

Since then, we've tried a different route to Kenosha that I like much more. At Lake Cook Rd. cut west to the Skokie Valley Trail that runs next to 41. Take that north Old Elm and go west to St. Mary's Rd. - I guess you could choose the 176trail as your route west to St Mary's. St Mary's to O'Plaine. O'Plaine to Delany. Delany to highway H. We took H to 95th to get to Kenosha, but it looks like H is decent for a good portion of the ride from Kenosha to Milwaukee.

There were a couple of very short sections on this ride that I felt like we were fighting the cars for some space, but not even comparable to 137/32. It's also much more scenic. Now that I've tried this route, there is zero chance that I could be persuaded to ride the other again.

Hopefully helps

that's strange...if you wanna talk about bad streets, how about hubbard, 900-1400 west... and Milkwaukee, the whole damn thing, and Augusta, and Chicago heading west bound past the first bridge.

I used to live off of Chicago & Oakley. Wasn't too bad to just take Division. But yeah, Chicago Ave was so tore up. I really wish I could do this ride with you guys. One of my best friends out here is from Green Bay and we're planning on doing a two day ride next year from my parent's house to his parent's house.