Great Lakes - Rockford, IL riders

hi,

So it looks like ill be in rockford this weekend, driving my crew team's boat to the head of the rock, and being that i have graduated college, and cant row collegiate, i would like to bike. i will be starting my bike from the whitman bridge and the river in town, and was hoping you guys could suggest some routes/safe roads out of town/group rides for sunday morning. 40-60 miles if the weather is nice, less if its crappy. thanks!

Drive to Freeport, IL to the west and head north on the Jane Addams trail http://www.janeaddamstrail.com/ to Wisconsin. The trail then turns into the Badger Trail http://www.badger-trail.com/ and you can easily get the miles you want. Cranes are starting to flock just to the south of Monticello. Great food in Monticello and New Glarus. Cool train tunnel halfway between Monticello and Belleville. An added bonus is the Sugar River Trail that crosses the Badger just south of Monticello.

thanks, thats a definite possibility. i would prefer not to drive however, so if anyone else has suggestions, please feel free to throw them out.

What you want to do is get out of town to ride. Biking in Rockford can at best be an exercise in frustration. The roads are bad and the drivers are worse. However with that being said, here is a map of recommended streets to get you out of town.
http://www.bikelib.org/rockford/index.htm
I would suggest either heading north on the bike paths and then west out toward Rockton road where there are some nice country roads continuing up to the northwest.
Alternatively ride out to the southeast corner of the map and down river road. From there you can ride out towards Belvidere, Kirkland, etc. There are a lot of decent roads out that way too.
What kind of club ride are you looking for? 16-19mph touring or 22-24mph training?

thanks for the map. i would prefer a more interesting club type ride but not kick me in the nuts hard, 18-22mph ish.