Any of you Illinois guys have route ideas? I'd like to ride across the central portion of the state, if possible.

Have you considered the Route 66 trail? https://www.bikelib.org/route66/booklet.pdf
Duppie

If you're wanting to go E-W across the central part of the state, take a look at the old Route 36 pavement. We have driven on that road from Decatur, IL over to Indianapolis, and there is very little traffic. It also goes west of tehre through Springfield, Jacksonville and beyond. The traffic picks up around the small towns, but not by much. There is also some great scenery (and hefty hills) at the Illinois/Indiana border.

There are some bike maps at the www.illinois.gov site under Agencies, IL Department of Transportation. Bicycling. You can order printed copies free of charge or check out the maps online.

How about US 136 to IL 119? Anybody familiar with it? It would be 215 miles and looks like this:



At the IL/IN border IL 119 becomes IN 28. It probably doesn't mean much, but I know for a fact that IN 28 is a good route across IN. 136 doesn't seem to go through any major towns. What do you guys think?

Well, I settled on this route: https://www.mapmyride.com/route/us/ia/keokuk/263958621

It's basically the route above with a couple shortcuts added to cut out 2 miles of pain.

Tomorrow's the day. The weather is looking good so far, but I just cleaned my bike, so it is bound to rain (which will feel good if it hits 90 degrees). I'm hoping to finish under 13 hours. Stay tuned for a ride report.

Bring your iPod. I hope you like staring at corn and soybeans.

That route looks BORING in the extreme.

edit.... ahh, it appears you're going for it. Good luck!

DX, how did this go? The weather was pretty dicey across the state on Saturday.