Riding Plans For the Summer

Grand Illinois Trail.

 What is GIT? That would be the Grand Illinois Trail .  I will be planning two to four day weekends of riding all summer until I finish the 550-650 miles of trail. The blue marks on the map are checkpoints from the Trailblazer program sponsored by the DNR. As I had mentioned in an earlier post , some of the indicated paths and directions in these GIT maps and cue sheets, instructions, etc, should not be blindly trusted. Much research will be needed in order to have my ducks in a row for each weekend that I plan.

Pecatonica Prairie Path

     The next sketchy area that I need to check out will be the Pecatonica Prairie Path. It is 18 miles of what I am calling "Rails to Utility Company to Trails". Apparently after a railroad had handed off the rights to some utility company, the new owners have allowed a trail to be placed alongside of their power lines. But while all this transpired the trail has become purportedly overgrown and unfeasible to many riders in the past as part of their GIT experience. Over this last winter I had run into some kind of postings on the net of progress being made to renovate that trail, possibly with state funding. The trail runs from Freeport to Rockford Illinois. My Illinois Bicycle Trails book lists the trail condition as ballast, grass and dirt. Gonna have to drive up there soon and make a small round trip of it. Am thinking I will recon this area with the mountain bike instead of the hybrid folding bike. Google Maps approximates the trail to be like 22+ miles.