Brompton & Train 24-Hour Tour

My biggest pet peeve about some of the local bike trails is that most of them are point-to-point, and require you to retrace your route on the return trip if you prefer to avoid riding on streets. On a point-to-point trail, the return trip is always just a tad anticlimactic, whereas a loop trail sustains a sense of discovery throughout. If you only have a few hours to ride, it may not be possible to string a reasonable loop-shaped route using only trails. But if you can carve out 24 hours, this trip —combining the Prairie Trail, Fox River Trail, the Prairie Path, and both Metra and CTA trains— made a very satisfying loop, and a mid-week mini vacation.

We arrived at work that day with our Bromptons packed with all the necessities for an overnight trip, and departed at the end of our work day on a Metra Train from Jefferson Park to Pingree Road, one stop before Crystal Lake. You could take the morning train out there and complete the trip in one day, but we felt that turning it into an overnight would make it a bit more vacation-like. We dropped our bikes off at a hotel within two blocks of the train station, and walked across the nearby shopping mall to a restaurant for dinner.

This arrangement allowed us to get on the trail first thing in the morning. After a quick cup of coffee, we packed our bags and rode a few blocks through a business park adjacent to our hotel, crossed Main Street, and got on the Prairie Trail heading south. The southern third of this 26 mile trail (which begins near the Wisconsin-Illinois border) is paved and well maintained and mostly downhill, with a beautiful, newly redone scenic descent into the town of Algonquin, where we decided to have our breakfast.

Continuing south out of Algonquin, the trail merges into the better-known Fox River Trail.

This first leg of the journey —about 20 miles of it— was definitely the more scenic, and easier to ride, with trail and pavement conditions generally excellent, and plenty of opportunities to stop for refreshments, or to enjoy views along the river. However, in order to complete the planned loop, we parted ways with the Fox River in South Elgin, and joined one of the spurs of the Prairie Path for the remaining 30 miles of our journey. In the damp conditions, the crushed limestone surface of this trail proved to be a bit of a slog for the Bromptons’ small wheels. This got quite tedious over the 14 mile length of this portion of the trail, despite the bucolic scenery of the rural landscape. Chris was definitely feeling the weight of the T-Bag on the front of his bike, stuffed full of extra layers we brought because of unpredictable weather.

Despite the fact that the final stretch of our trip along the main branch of the Prairie Path is possibly the least interesting, traversing a series of suburban towns on Chicago’s west side, we were delighted to reach it so that we could resume biking on pavement. We made our final stop for refreshments at a coffee shop in Elmhurst before riding the rest of the way to the Blue Line transit center in Forest Park.

If you can believe it, in my almost 40 years in Chicago, I’d never ridden the section of the Blue Line south of downtown. At this point, it was nearing rush hour, so we folded the Bromptons and slipped covers over them, but we didn’t have any trouble boarding the train. We were back in Jefferson Park, completing the perfect loop, almost exactly 24 hours after we departed.

You might also like:

Quickie Brompton Trips
Brompton Buyer’s Guide

Or check Brompton availability at our shop, Cosmic Bikes.