Tom and Marna's Bike Blog (Posts about Illinois)

Leg 2, Ride 2: Chicago to Hobart

Tom Walsh — Wed, 13 May 2026 23:58:32 GMT

State #3! Indiana!

Today was a great day of riding. A little chilly, but we dressed for it. Clear skies all day, and generally very good bike infrastructure almost all of the way.

A wise philosopher on the internet once told me "There is no such thing as a day with a tailwind. There are days with headwinds, and then there are days where it's easy riding and you're going fast because you're in good shape and you're doing a really good job". Today was the latter.

Leg 2, Ride 1: Chicago (northside) to Chicago (southside)

Tom Walsh — Tue, 12 May 2026 22:27:05 GMT

A quick easy day today, just 17 miles across the city from the north side to the south side. This is the second of hopefully three very short rides (next one is Detroit to Windsor). This generally has the do with the spacing of acceptable places to stay -- in this case, we preferred to do a short day then a medium day, rather than a long day.

Thunderstorms are moving through the area from the northwest today. So, we were watching the radar map, and we tried to time our ride so that we arrived at our hotel after checkin time, but before the storms caught up to us. We just barely succeeded -- rain started a few minutes after we checked in.

Leg 1 Epilogue: Chicago

Tom Walsh — Tue, 12 May 2026 02:34:09 GMT

We took a couple of days off here in Chicago to visit family and explore the city. We're staying with Peter (Marna's brother), Jill, and Malcolm.

On Saturday, Peter and Malcolm met us partway along our route, and we rode together for the last bit. We mostly spent the evening catching up with P&J, and being taught (by Malcolm) how to play various board games.

Leg 1, Ride 7: Lake Bluff to Chicago

Tom Walsh — Sun, 10 May 2026 02:29:40 GMT

We made it to Chicago, and to the end of the first leg! We are still in good spirits and we're feeling pretty good. I think we made the right call by keeping the mileages low early in the trip, to try to work ourselves into shape gradually.

Today's ride was smooth and uneventful. Beautiful weather all day, and for a change, we were not fighting a headwind today.

Leg 1, Ride 6: Kenosha to Lake Bluff

Tom Walsh — Sat, 09 May 2026 01:16:37 GMT

State #2! A short ride today: just 26 miles to Lake Bluff, Illinois.

There's not much at all in Lake Bluff, at least not near our motel, so we spent the entire morning lingering in Kenosha.

Transport/Assembly Day

Tom Walsh — Thu, 30 Apr 2026 01:08:51 GMT

We're in Madison! (Thanks to the help of 1 trolley, 1 subway train, 1 shuttle bus, 1 airplane, 1 people mover, 1 coach bus, and 2 cars)

Today, our first and only priority was to re-assemble our bikes -- if there were any damage in shipping (or if we forgot to include a part or two), we wanted to make sure we took care of that immediately.