the standard is lake front path north to Sheridan Road north through Evanston, to Highland Park and further North as required. Great Lakes Naval acad is approx 65-75 round trip from the Path and Belmont, if you are downtown it is a further 5 each way giving you a grand total in the neighbourhood of 85-ish.

Riding in Chicago sucks period, it's dangerous and the roads are shite, on top of which it depends on the weather and how busy the lakefront path is, that said I doubt it will be very crowded at the moment.

Only other real option from downtown is Ravenswood north until it hits Sheridan, start at Ravenwood and Fullerton, keep going North until you hit Sheridan but bear in mind that traffic will not respect you regardless of how or where you ride in that city. If not used to it, it can be intimidating.

Stores, only real tri store is Mission Bay in the west loop, good lunch, brunch / dinner can be found close by at Wishbone.

Are you going to be in the city itself or the suburbs? If the burbs, you can head out (far) west where its only semi-dangerous.

I have to be in Skokie for 3 weeks staying at the doubletree. Any good places to run from there? I'll probably have no car since work will be in the conference center for 9 hrs a day. Thanks

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Brian Stover USAT LII
Accelerate3 Coaching
Insta

optons from downtown are limited. like other post said, riding in the city sucks....best bet from downtown is lakefront path north into Lake County, Highland park, etc. path gets very crowded, but this time of year, not too bad....Other option would be to drive north into lake County OR NW near Elgin/Barrington OR NW into McHenry or Kane Co OR far southwest into the country road areas of Will County, Grundy, LaSAlle County....

Tri Shops -- Mission BAY on Randolph in the west Loop area and in Elgin (Their Tri Club does group rides on Sat out of elgin, don't know if they started yet)

Bicycle Sport Chicago is in suburban Glen Ellyn (West of Chicago)

There also is a group from this forum who have tried to organize Chicago Rides on Saturdays -- wathc for their posts in the nexct few days. I think they ride up north somewhere.

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"We will either find a way, or make one." -- Hannibal, General of the Carthaginian Army

i would recommend the sheridan road route. there is a shopping center in wilmette (north of chicago) called plaza del lago that has a large parking lot and a grocery store right there. many cyclists use this as a starting point. from there you can get to wisconsin with no trouble. check out www.chicagotriclub.com under "helpful info." it has a good map of the route for about 25 miles one way (the map covers a few pages). the roads are in good shape and for the most part are wide. also, the folks out there are used to seeing bikes so they are usually pretty good. south of wilmette the road is pretty bad. hope the weather holds out for you! have fun.

geoff