Matthew Supert

So last year I rode the Illinois River Byway down by Peoria. I had an OK time with it, but I sort of expected more river. After reflecting upon it for a while I actually realized that I enjoyed the ride quite a bit, despite getting lost. I wanted to do this ride again this fall with a group of people, so I headed out today to scope the ride out and plan my approached. 

I decided to to take the route down in the opposite direction this time, on the west side of the river. This proved to be a much more enjoyable ride overall. I was able to take highway 29 down to Peoria quickly and then I ended up with a beautiful drive into the marshlands and wildlife refuge just outside of Havanna. Riding north back on the east side of the river also made for some easier transitions to some side roads and highway 26 on the way back up is a nice long stretch of almost uninterrupted highway, which makes for a nice ride at the end of the day. 

Overall it was very productive. I ran into a couple of construction detours that threw me for a loop on one-way streets in Peoria, but I think I have a plan worked out on how to bypass those. 

So this past Sunday I rode up to the Harley-Davidson Museum  up in Milwaukee. This one isn't so much a ridelog as it is just a collection of photos from the museum. I basically just I-94 straight up from Chicago, but I used this as an excuse to have some more fun with my Olympus OM-1. On the whole most of the photos turned out pretty good. A few even turned out really well I dare say. 

Last week I had the opportunity to head up to the East Troy electric railroad museum. At first I wasn't quite sure if I was going to enjoy this ride, but in the end it was a really fund day. East Troy appears to have several little historical things in their downtown area focused around an old railway. We took an electric trolley over to a farm house for some lunch, where I had Wisconsin grilled cheese along with some apple pie. We then took the train back to East Troy where we finished off the day with some ice cream at an old fashioned ice cream shop. 

It has taken me forever to get this stuff uploaded. This week has been a nightmare, but last weekend I had a wonderful time doing my first Slimy Crud in Wisconsin. It was a blast......Well it was once we got past our first hiccup. The day started out with us all meeting at the Belvidere Oasis off of I-90. Not more than five minutes into our ride one of our riders crashed on an off ramp. What turned out to be an annoying inconvenience turned into something much worse when a state trooper showed up and immediately was a jack-ass right out the gate. 

The crash also unfortunately resulted in our group getting split up at first, since about half of us didn't see the crash and kept on riding. This led to one of our other riders (Hans) and I getting split up from the group and partially getting lost. We saw some people double back to try and meet up, but it was a divided highway. Hans and I ended up continuing to ride for a while, but we were not sure what the turn off was. This ended up in a rather funny incident with us trying to find out where people were and us following a random guy who was headed towards Galena. 

In the end though we found our group, literally as we were about to turn around and the ride ended up being one of the better ones I have been on for a while. Great roads up in Wisconsin, some good people and a fun bite to eat at the end. 

Went for a nice ride today and decided to just sort of head south on 55 and then turn off to head west somewhere. I sort of randomly found myself ambling just south of the Des Plaines river. There is a nice bit of scenic riding through here and i was pleasantly surprised.

After a few hours of riding i came upon route 23 and thought to myself that looked awfully familiar. After taking a pit stop and then checking my phone, I found that I was right near Starved Rock. Who would have thought.

Apparently there are two nuclear power stations in this area and i even happened upon a wind farm on my way back that I had to check out. Riding through the wind farm was actually really cool, despite the roads just being straight. You can see in my map that I zigzagged through that for about 20 minutes.

The Dresden Cooling Lake also had a really interesting covered bridge going over it that at first had me thinking that I stumbled onto some sort of private access road or something.

So yesterday I was supposed to do another group ride up to C9Y in Iowa. Unfortunately that ride was canceled due to scheduling conflicts. I opted instead to do a long ride myself to checkout the Illinois River Road Scenic Byway. 

I knew from the outset that this was going to be a long ride, and it was. It was probably 500 miles. So instead of getting a nice start on Saturday morning, I ended up sleeping in until about 11:00 am. I didn'tget out the door until noon. I was determined to get his ride in so out I went. Overall I have to say the ride was just "so-so". There were nice bursts of some scenic areas, but I was surprised at how much of the road didn't follow the river and was just on farmland back roads. I was pleasantly surprised by how nice Peoria was by the river though. I want a nice little residential road up above the town on a ridge that offered a good photo. Now, I don't take a lot of photos on my rides, and I really should probably take more. You can see from the photo above however, that my photo obviously did not turn out. When I took the photo my phone said "processing" and I had thought it taken the picture. Clearly it looks like it took the photo after I lowered my camera down. Not a bad shot of the asphalt though, if I do say so myself. 

So as I was traveling down I made it to the southern most point in about four hours. Remember I left at noon, so that means that I wasn't going to get back until 8:00 that night. Yesterday's high temperature was about 53 degrees as well. So after getting lost a little bit I was trying to make a high tail back north to get on the highway before dark hit. Of course, to add to my woe, I got pulled over for speeding and received a ticket. 

Ultimately I did not get home until about 8:15 last night. I was freezing and tired and apparently I do not know how to take a photo. I did learn however that the seat on my new BMW is comfortable enough to go all day in. I road basically eight hours straight and did not have a sore butt. 

View Ride Log: 09-30-12 in a larger map

Nothing spectacular for a ride this afternoon. Just a quick two hour jaunt near the Shipping and Sanitary Canal west of Chicago. While scoping this one out I notice a road that ran parallel to the canal and though that it might have offered a good view. Unfortunately it ended up being mostly industrial areas which at one point road right through the middle of an oil refinery. I even managed to skirt around the outside of a forest preserve. 

View Ride Log: 09-23-12 - Starved Rock in a larger map

A little over a week ago I bought myself a new motorcycle. A lightly used 2012 BMW R 1200R Classic. The bike is gorgeous and is black with white racing stripes, spoked wheels and of course the great BMW boxer engine. I am turning 30 this year and starting to feel a little old, so I figured I would treat myself. 

To christen the new bike I decided to do an afternoon run down to Starved Rock. I am slightly ashamed to say this, but I have never been to Starved Rock before. I was in for a treat, for the ride was not only a nice one, but the state park is beautiful. I will have to make sure and go back there this fall to go hiking with the changing leaves. 

Read more »

View Ridelog: 07-21-12: C9Y Iowa in a larger map

Yesterday I went on a very long trip with the RTRC group and a few others. We rode our way out to highway C9Y in Iowa. Approximately 543 miles round trip. The trip was a blast and everyone in the group was great.

No motorcyle issues with anyone, but I did have a spin out myself when we stopped on an uphill piece of road that was going to be chip and sealed and only had the chip down. It was basically gravel. It's trips like this one that really make me wish I had a GoPro for my bike as some of the views along the Mississippi River were quite nice.

View Ride Log: 07-15-12 in a larger map

This GPS track unfortunately is only about half of my ride today. I found out that my GPS died about half way through the ride. I am left now not knowing exactly were we rode.

This was another breakfast ride up to Full Moon and then northwest into the Kettle Moraine area of Wisconsin. Overall we had some excellent riding and the roads were great with some fun twisties. Unfortunately, about two thirds of the way into our ride one person in our group crashed in a turn. I didn't see the crash but it was pretty bad. Her bike is likely totaled and she may have a broken leg. Unsure at this point, but it appears she is OK. She was lucky that she did not hit any trees where we were, so count our blessings on that.