DPRT underpass at Route 60

I am finally catching up on the Trail Condition updates here and since I rode on the Des Plaines River Trail (DPRT) yesterday I thought I would do an update right away this time. 

A friend and I rode the DPRT from Route 45 in Half Day north to Route 60 the underpass at Route 60 which was flooded and closed. We also rode a little in Wright Woods so our total ride was a little over 12 miles.

The trail was a little damp on our ride but it was all passable except the underpass at Route 60 as I mentioned. You can go up the hill and cross Route 60 on the road and get back on the trail but we were not going to ride much further on that ride anyway so we just turned around there.

DPRT near Wright Woods

This is a nice shady trail where we rode and very few people were on the trail at the time. The trail is crushed stone but is fairly good condition althought overgrown in places and there are some gravel patches in places. Very easily rideable even with my road bike.

Here is the GPS Map of this ride on the Garmin website.

For a lot more information, photos and ride stories  on the DPRT or many other trails in the area see the Bike Trails pages on this website.

Trail Closed at Central and Roselle Roads

There are a couple of things to be aware of if you are planning a ride on the Paul Douglas Trail this year (2019).

First, let me mention that I am referring to the trail in north Hoffman Estates that goes around the Paul Douglas Forest Preserve and also connects to the Crabtree Trail. I have this trail listed as the Algonquin Road Trail on this site  because some of the trail goes along Algonquin Road and that is wat it was referred to before they completed the part that goes all the way around PD Forest Preserve.

The things that you need to be aware of on this trail is that there is a part of the trail, that runs next to Huntington Freeman Road (just north of Lakewood Blvd) that floods quite a bit. and that the trail is closed (June 29, 2019 update) near the intersection of Central Road and Roselle Road.

Paul Douglas Flood section, June 29, 2019

The good news is that the flood area (along Freeman Road on the west side of the park) is not flooded at this time. This area was flooded up until a week or 2 ago (early June) but was not flooded on my last ride on June 29, 2019. The photo here shows where the flood area is a little wet and muddy but not flooded.

I don’t know if this just dried up on its own or if they pumped it out like I saw them doing last year around this time (it was much worse last year though). Anyway, it is easily passable now. Even if it is flooded it is just a short (my 1/4 mile) detour on Huntington Freeman Road that does not have a lot of traffic anyway.

The other obstacle is that the trail is closed down near Central and Roselle roads. The reason for this is that they are actually building a bike path bridge over Central Road here. If you look at the first photo that I included here (with the trail closed sign) you can see the bike path bridge in the background.

I think that the bike trail bridge over Central Road may be nice when it is done but then you still have to cross over Interstate 90 (there is a pedestrian path over the bridge) and cross a bunch of lanes of traffic (where traffic is getting off of I90) after that. Once you get past all of that there are some trails but I’m not sure if it is the best riding area right there.

Anyway, the trail around Paul Douglas Forest Preserve is still a pretty nice trail and much less crowded than other longer trails in the area (like Busse Woods). The PD trail is all paved but it is a little hilly in places.

If you want to extend your ride on this trail you can follow the bikepath northwest (right next to Algonquin Road) to the Crabtree Trail through the Crabtree Nature area or preserve. I don’t care for that route that much (since so much of it is along Algonquin Road). Instead I like to take a little side trip down Lakewood Blvd. and back which is a really nice, on a barely used 4 lane road and is a nice 2 mile extension which you can see on my Garmin GPS Map of one of recent my rides.

Here is one of my latest rides on the Paul Douglas Trail with the Lakewood Blvd. extension to the ride. Map of my Paul Douglas Ride on the Garmin website.

If you are looking for more details on these trails or many other trails in the area, you can search this blog or  just go to the Bike Trails Page on this website for a lot of details and photos of the trails.

I am continuing my Bike Trail Conditions updates for 2019 with the Fox River Trail conditions between Crystal Lake and Elgin. Technically, the northern part of this ride is on the McHenry County Prairie Trail (from Algonquin to Crystal Lake)  but the majority of this ride is on the Fox River Trail (FRT) so that is how I am referring to this ride as the Fox River Trail ride in this post.

First of all, at the time of my ride(s), June of 2019, there are no problems on this part of the trail. The only minor issue is that is a very short detour just south of Algonquin at Botz Road where they are building a new bridge over the river.

I am not familiar with what they are doing with the bridge in this area, it looks like maybe Botz Road will cross the river here, but there is a short jog-jog detour of the FRT here. It is not a problem at all and the detour is a paved trail but it is worth mentioning.

It is also good to know that the rest of the trail in this area is in good condition since the Fox River Trail does have floods at times – but the this section is fine now (and a really nice ride).

I rode a 50 miles on this section of the trail(s) but this part of the trail is actually about 14 miles one way. This is from Crystal Lake at Rankow and Pyott roads (across from the airport) to the park and library area just before the busy roads in Elgin (I did not go through Elgin). I went back and forth on this part of the trail to get the 50 miles.

Here is the GPS Map of my ride on the Garmin website. My Fox River Trail Ride on the Garmin website.

If you are looking for more details on these trails or many other trails in the area, you can search this blog or  just go to the Bike Trails Page on this website for a lot of details and photos of the trails.

It’s been a while since I have updated this blog with bike trail conditions and recently I became more aware of how important that is since I have not found a centralized website with really good and up to date bike trail conditions (preferably from riders).

I am going to post an update here for the 3 trails mentioned in the Blog Title: The Busse Woods Trail, the Old Plank Road Trail and the Green Bay Trail. I have ridden all of these trails in June of this year (2019). So these updates are pretty recent and I am getting the trail conditions updates in before the July 4th weekend :-).

OK, first of all the reason that I am including these 3 trails together in one post because these are the easiest trails to update! Why? Well because there are no problems or detours on any of these trails (in the sections that I have ridden) and these trails do not typically have too many issues anyway.

As for the sections of these trails that I have ridden (this year, 2019), I am including links to my Garmin GPS maps of each my rides, in addition to a brief description of the sections that I have ridden.

On the Busse Woods Trail, I have ridden the entire 7.3 mile Red Loop (BTW: this is a really beautiful ride (but it gets really crowded so it is best to go at off times)). The Purple section (including a side trip to the bridge over 53/290) and the Black section that goes out to Golf Road. My ride was a little over 15 miles and this is all paved. Here is the Garmin GPS map of my latest ride there: My Busse Woods Ride on Garmin  website. As I mentioned above there are no issues with this trail.

As for the Old Plank Road Trail, I have ridden from New Lenox to Chicago Heights (36 miles both ways and all paved). Here is the Garmin GPS map of my latest ride: My Old Plank Road Trail Ride on Garmin website.  Also no issues with this trail.

And finally (for this post), The Green Bay Trail. I have ridden this trail from Highland Park to Wilmette and then out to Gillson Beach on Lake Michigan back in early June (22 miles and mostly crushed stone). There were some puddles and wet spots on parts of this trail but nothing that would be a problem. Here is my Garmin GPS map of this ride: My Green Bay Trail Ride on Garmin website.

I realized that even the updates that I post here are helpful since it can be difficult to get trail condition updates on the internet. I have not found a centralized source (website) that has really good up to date conditions. I was recently looking for updates for a website visitor that sent me an email looking for updates on the Jane Adams Trail and the Badger State Trail. I have ridden both of these trails but not recently so I could not help a lot.

I was also looking for updates on the Military Ridge Trail in Wisconsin and I did find that the State of Wisconsin had some pretty good updates on their state trails but I was not sure exactly how current they were.

Coming up next: I will be posting trail condition updates for the Fox River Trail and the Paul Douglas Trail. I should probably do these blog posts periodically, as I ride the trails, rather than all at once but I got a little behind and still wanted to get this information out here.

By the way, if you are looking for more details on any of the trails mentioned in this post, you can search this blog or  just go to the Bike Trails Page on this website for a lot of details and photos of the trails.

Well spring is here and it feels great to get out on 2 wheels and ride again! Now that I have been out to my main trail (the Paul Douglas Trail) a few times this year I have come across a number of obstacles that I wanted to mention.

Flooding again on Paul Douglas Trail

The first obstacle that I wanted to mention is the flooding in the usual place on the Paul Douglas Trail. This is on the west side of the trail along Huntington/Freeman road.

You can get around this pretty easily by going out on the road for about 1/4 mile then back to the trail again but it is getting a little old and I don’t know why they are not able to resolve the problem.

Normally if the water is not too deep I just ride through it. In this case there is also a lot of debris like branches and piles of sticks and I did not want to try to ride over the debris or take the chance of running into something in the water and end up having to stop and get soaked.

The road – Hunting/Freeman – is not all that busy so I don’t mind too much but I would rather be able to just stay on the trail.

The next obstacle on the Paul Douglas Trail is that it is still closed east of Ela on the south side of the trail where they are doing construction on the new tollway ramp at Central. There is no practical way around this. You could go north on Ela to get to the other side of the trail to do a loop of this part of the trail but I usually just turn around because I prefer trails to roads and Ela is 2 lanes and has more traffic than I like to deal with.

One interesting thing is that there are a few signs that say that this part of the trail will be “Closed Until Summer 2018“.  Well that is nice to know but a little vague. Does this mean until the start of the summer, some time during the summer or their deadline is by the end of summer? I guess we’ll just have to wait and see when that part of the trail opens up again.

Those are the main obstacles on the Paul Douglas Trail that I am aware of (I don’t usually ride the northwest extension of the trail that goes into Crabtree Nature Preserve so I don’t have an update on that part of the trail at this time).

I also have some additional construction related obstacles just getting to the trail myself from my neighborhood but I have found ways around those. The only other thing about this trail that I wanted to mention is that they burned down the brush on the northwest part of the mail loop (near Algonquin and Huntington/Freeman) and that looks pretty crappy at this time.

I’m sure that will grow back fairly soon and I think the idea is that it will be healthier and come in better than it was before but I guess we will just have to wait for that to happen.

Well that’s it for the Paul Douglas Trail updates for now (and I thought that this was going to be a quick update!).

Enjoy the great riding weather that we have coming!