In about two weeks I’ll be setting off from the NJ coast across the US to San Francisco. Originally I was doing this trip with a friend of mine and we figured we’d raise money for a charity while we were at it. Long story short, my friend was fined for shitting on a church and won’t be able to go. Also the charity we were working with hasn’t been cooperative. So I’ll be doing the trip solo and only loosely associated with the charity(The four diamonds fund).
Hopefully I’ll get to meet a bunch of tarckers on the way. If anyone has a place for me to spend a night it would be greatly appreciated or if you just want to ride, have lunch, drink beer, w/e that’s fine too. My email is alexanderthegracie at gmail.com send me an email with Tarck and your name in the subject line so I can get your address and number and tarck name.
My very general route will be this (idk wtf the embed did, click the view larger map at the bottom.)
Nothing on my end, but If you are coming through State College, PA as the map has you, I will def ride with you. Or if you need a place to crash while mid PA, I am game for that, too.
You are missing the best part of Iowa and SW Wisconsin taking that route. Instead you’ll be going across the hell hole known as Northern Illinois. It’s not really a hell hole, it’s just really boring. I got hit by a drunk farmer in Prophetstown Illinois and it was like Children of the Corn land. I had to stay in a motel there for 3 days waiting for a new rear wheel to come in the mail.
My suggestion, which won’t add distance to your route, is to modify your route to pass through Decorah, Iowa and continue into SW Wisconsin before turning South to head to Chicago. Plus you’ll be able to do a lot of that distance on well maintained dirt roads.
You are missing the best part of Iowa and SW Wisconsin taking that route. Instead you’ll be going across the hell hole known as Northern Illinois. It’s not really a hell hole, it’s just really boring. I got hit by a drunk farmer in Prophetstown Illinois and it was like Children of the Corn land. I had to stay in a motel there for 3 days waiting for a new rear wheel to come in the mail.
My suggestion, which won’t add distance to your route, is to modify your route to pass through Decorah, Iowa and continue into SW Wisconsin before turning South to head to Chicago. Plus you’ll be able to do a lot of that distance on well maintained dirt roads.[/quote]
I can second this.
SW Wisconsin is very nice.
Lots of rollers though.
Wisconsin is the promised land for cyclists, better than anywhere else I’ve been in terms of beauty, road quality, and traffic. I grew up there and went to undergrad in Iowa near the Wisconsin border, and didn’t know what I had until I moved to the east coast.
I’ll be sure to try and hit those spots in Wisconsin. I’m keeping the route malleable so I’ll make those changes as I come to them. As of know some equipment I ordered is on back order and should be here in a week. I missed my original launch and I’ll be leaving sometime within the next week or two; fortunately I don’t have any time commitments for the next 2-3 months so it’s not a big deal.
If you’re gonna be in Wisconsin and you’re gonna stop in Milwaukee, I might be able to help out/ride. My schedule is pretty damn full with work and work and running between both to let the dog out. TWAT goes N/S, but if you’re going EW you can take the Glacial Drumlin trail, which is an off street path that runs from Milwaukee to Madison. 85 totally chill miles.
Coming out of a bar he was close to blackout drunk and stumbled past a police car sitting with its headlights on and cop inside then continued down an ally. Popped a squat to take a shit against a building that turned out to be a church. Since the shit never actually came out he was just fined with public urination and something else which amounted to about $600 in fines.