Saturday, February 19, 2011

Local Training Routes - Northern Illinois

Though I live in the thick of Chicago I typically drive about 60 miles northwest to the rural farmland roads to put on the miles without many intersections and very little traffic.  All the routes have a start and end point at Burlington, IL. 

Below I'm posting DeLorme Distance pics of my typical training routes.  Sadly, because it is Illinois there are literally no climbing routes.  But the open prairie makes for some significant winds.  Whatever the weather service predicts for wind I simply double it  (Confirmed by Paul Carpenter.)

This is my 14.5 mile route.  Sleepy, smooth roads with nothing but right turns, allowing me to not have to navigate crossing roads. 

This is my 25 mile route.  I have to ride for about 3 miles on a fairly heavily traveled road (Burlington Road) but the rest of the roads are smooth and very, very safe.  



















This is my 35 mile route
A few busy roads I have to cross but otherwise populated with cows and hay wagons. 


And this is the 36.22 mile route
It is the most dangerous of the four because I spend about a total of 10 miles on fairly heavily travelled roads.  I don't use it often because of that reason.