If you are looking to go ride, especially if you own a BMW of any kind, we are always riding some place. Saturday Breakfast Rides, Sunday Breakfast rides. Usually we start around 8:00AM on either day, sometimes both days and off we go. Sometimes 50 miles to a decent Restaurant for Breakfast, sometimes we do all day routes of up to 400 miles and anything inbetween. We usually leave from Elburn, Pinegree Grove, Huntley. We go into North Central IL, Western IL out to Galena and Duluth, up into Wisconsin Lake Geneva, Madison Area, LaCrosse, New Glarus etc. We ride because we love to. Getting there is nice but is is about the journey. Use lots of backroads, find as many twists as we can from Chicago on out. We post our rides under NIBMWR on facebook. Beginning March we have rides for every weekend of the year. Contact me if you want to know more.

One more thing - I ride any chance I get, but as a Club we ride whenever the weather allows (Ice and Thunderstorm we don't), so if we get warmer days before March, we will be out there.

I've been thru Galena a couple of times on Hwy 20. It's my favorite part of our annual trip to Chicago. This year our riding group (not really a club) is plannig a trip to J&P Cycle's Open House in June which is in Anamosa, Iowa. Last year, J&P Cycle had around 30,000 people show up. Then we plan to head over to the Mississippi River and up to Prairie du Chen, WI. Maybe if your club is in the area the same weekend we could meet up and ride.

I only have one thing to say, "I freakin' love BMW riders; some of the craziest fkrs I've ever had the privilege of meeting".
Oh, one more thing. I wouldn't ride anywhere near Chicago. Lived there and hate the place, the traffic, and I'll leave it at that.

Peace

Next time when you guys come through Galena look for Scenic Ridge. Here is how you get there - when you cross over the river on 20 in Galena going East, hang a right at Blackjack, Take that to Hanover, then CR10 and then Scenic Ridge towards Zion - you will love it if you like turns and twists in the road. Or if you are going East go through Galena and use Old Stagecoach also nice road out of Galena. On some of the turns be careful they are easy to underestimate but if you ride it a few times, you can really enjoy them if you like leaning your bike.


You would be surprised how many roads around Chicago have twists and turns and almost no traffic, but we dont use main roads we find side roads as much as possible, main roads suckand yes we BMW people are Cyclenuts.

 Here is Stagecoach - will take you out of Galena - follow it to the end - check it out on a map - takes you back to IL 20 further down but you bypass all the traffic on 20 for a while - a lot more fun then 20 toward Chicago and you can of course also take it back West going towards and into Galena starting at Lena. Get on Stagecoach at Lena towards Galena or end up in Lena coming from Galena.

Thanks for the suggestions. It looks like from Anamosa we can take hwy 64 to Sabula, cross the river, then head up 84 til we get to Hanover then take blackjack rd. Looks like a fun run. We don't have many hills and twisty were we live, so when we find them we really enjoy it.

When you cross in Sebula you are on 52 - follow 52 over to 84 - turn south - see map - get to Scenic Ridge - follow that all the way and Scenic Ridge will turn into Derinda, take that to Hanover, take Hanover Rd. to Hanover (the Village basically you end back up on 84) go North on 84 to Blackjack and that will take you "straight" into Galena.

I put the purple line into the map so you know where to follow - plenty of twists and turns

 Once you get to Galena on Blackjack - since you said you are heading to Chicago - you can go through Galena to Stagecoach instead taking RT20 from Galena - follow Stagecoach to Lena as in the first maps posted

And then you can run it in reverse on the way back - once you run it let me know what you thought

 The whole route is 77.5 Miles starting at Sebula RT52 / RT84 to Lena RT20 towards Chicago

We post rides on our facebook site, we go for breakfast rides every weekend check out NIBMWR on facebook and illinoisbmwriders.com on the web - we post routes there and rides too - around the chicago area.

We just posted new routes this week IL and WI. Road routes. As a Club we are planning about 15,000 Miles this year. We do Breakfast Rides every weekend and post details on our Facebook site facebook.com/NIBMWR and illinoisbmwriders.com We ride every weekend starting at several places along IL RT47 from Elburn to Huntley and Woodstock, then we head out from there. We use back roads, I try to find every bend in a road I can, harder in IL easier in WI. Rides from about 80 miles round trip to about 500 miles for Saturday or Sunday. Come Ride with Us!

Y'all should take a ride up to Rosemont. The Oreillys World Of Wheels Auto/CycleRama.

we will be vending there.

http://www.autorama.com/?page_id=241