I was just informed a few days ago that there is a bridge out on the McHenry County Prairie Trail just north of where you cross the Fox River and Route 31 in Algonquin. This is kind of a bummer for those of us who like to ride the northern part of the Fox River Trail then connect to the Prairie Trail and continue north.
Bridge Out Sign on Prairie Trail with Expected Completion Date
It doesn’t look like it would be easy (or maybe not even possible) to cross the tributary where the bridge is out. I was looking at this area on Google Maps and it looks like there could be a way around this but it might be tricky for those of us who are not real familiar with the area and the local roads.
The bridge is supposed to be back around May 1st but there is a lot of good riding time between now and then so I may actually head up there to check this out and see if there is a way around the missing bridge (like the famous Led Zeppelin line “has anyone seen the bridge?!?”)
Anyway, if anyone out there already knows a way around this please post a reply or send me an email.
The photos on this blog post are compliments of Dale Kiffel.
Bridge Out on Prairie Trail
Just a quick update on the bridge that is out on the Prairie Trail. I drove out to Algonquin yesterday and rode the Prairie Trail north from 31 to where the bridge is out to see it first and and see if I could find anyway around this.
There is no easy way to get around this so I guess we will just have to ride the other parts of the trail until this construction is finished (expected to be around May 1st).
I actually went up the steep hill just before the bridge and tried to find a way around but there was nothing. Some people were cutting through a business and going out to Algonquin road but they now have a fence and no trespassing sign there and even if you got through at that point you would still have to ride on busy Algonquin Road (not my idea of fun).
I was thinking about all these little bridges that we cross all the time on these bike paths and thinking about that old Joni Mitchell song “you don’t know what you got till it’s gone”! One fairly insignificant bridge and it ends your ride in that direction.
My ride to Algonquin was not a complete bust though. After checking out the bridge situation we turned around and rode the Prairie and Fox River Trails south to Elgin and it was a pretty nice day for a ride.
That part of these 2 trails is completely clear and open (from Algonquin to Elgin).
I uploaded our ride from yesterday to the GarminConnect site and posted a link to it on the about-bicycles Facebook page here: http://www.facebook.com/AboutBicycles