# bikepacking.com - Mid-westerners need to step the f up



## injected59 (Aug 14, 2016)

Can someone please contribute a route to this gaping hole on bikepacking.com? There are plenty of beautiful forests and things to see in the mid-west, is it really a prerequisite these routes must include mountain ranges?


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## Chippertheripper (Sep 10, 2014)

Coastal New Englanders too.


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## mikesee (Aug 25, 2003)

injected59 said:


> Can someone please contribute a route to this gaping hole on bikepacking.com? There are plenty of beautiful forests and things to see in the mid-west, is it really a prerequisite these routes must include mountain ranges?
> View attachment 1223018


Lots of decent riding in that hole, but folks there largely seem to have drifted toward gravel.


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## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

I know for certain that there's enough trail in at least a few spots inside that circle to post routes.


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## injected59 (Aug 14, 2016)

mikesee said:


> Lots of decent riding in that hole, but folks there largely seem to have drifted toward gravel.


Chequamegon up in northern Wisconsin was mostly ggravel and it was enjoyable. It doesn't need to be epic, speaking for myself at least, just have some good scenery with available camping.

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## injected59 (Aug 14, 2016)

Harold said:


> I know for certain that there's enough trail in at least a few spots inside that circle to post routes.


Agreed, and if we want to keep growing the bike packing community we need to tap into these areas. What is they're like 3 to 4 million people in Chicago?

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## mikesee (Aug 25, 2003)

injected59 said:


> Chequamegon up in northern Wisconsin was mostly ggravel and it was enjoyable. It doesn't need to be epic, speaking for myself at least, just have some good scenery with available camping.


Yeah, we're all different. I'd drive (and have) a few states over for a good singletrack loop -- and there's piles of it in the Chequemegon area. But I wouldn't ride gravel out my own front door, even if someone leaned a Moots against the doorframe and said 'go'. True story...


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## dbhammercycle (Nov 15, 2011)

I quote Atmosphere when I say Shhhh...

I know there are some routes in southern MN, but mostly gravel or even road. I'm sure there are opportunities around Duluth too, but it's been a while since I was up that way. That is a surprising gap, all the way from Paul Bunyon's hat to his boots!


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## Central Scrutinizer (Aug 30, 2005)

I'll try to find some time to contribute something.

Part of the problem (at least around the Kansas City area) is that there's plenty of singletrack [1], but it's not all connected together. And there aren't many camping options, unless you're willing to stealth camp.

Besides that, I just did a 3-day ride at Land Between The Lakes, KY along the North-South trail, which was great.

The Ozark Trail and/or Berryman Trail in MO are also really good.

[1] https://urbantrailco.com/the-trails


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## Crack Monkey (Sep 25, 2006)

Can the KC trails be linked with road or gravel? That's fine. I prefer a mix of terrain. All single-track on a loaded bike is exhausting.


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## injected59 (Aug 14, 2016)

Another good area would be the Kettle Moraine State Forest area in southern WI. That would be a good mix of terrain and could tap into some good single track here and there. I could work on that as I'm only about 1.5 hours away, but I am not real familiar with the surrounding roadways and camping. Would take some trial and error. There's a guy I follow on instagram that bikepacks that area all the time. He could probably whip something up off the top of his head.

Also it seems as though Dubuque/ Galena area could offer something along the Mississippi.


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## cjsb (Mar 4, 2009)

injected59 said:


> Agreed, and if we want to keep growing the bike packing community we need to tap into these areas. What is they're like 3 to 4 million people in Chicago?
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


Chicago has a lot of people but Illinois has little public land. Still some outstanding MTB trails in central Illinois in Pekin-Peoria area. Good riding in Southern part of state in Shawnee NF, but unless you live riding through endless acres of corn or soybean, not a great bike packing stop.

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## thmslilly (May 20, 2012)

Shhhh, some of us may be working on routes.

But, yeah, the more the merrier!


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## injected59 (Aug 14, 2016)

cjsb said:


> Chicago has a lot of people but Illinois has little public land. Still some outstanding MTB trails in central Illinois in Pekin-Peoria area. Good riding in Southern part of state in Shawnee NF, but unless you live riding through endless acres of corn or soybean, not a great bike packing stop.
> 
> Sent from my moto x4 using Tapatalk


I agree about your comments regarding few places to ride in IL. I only mentioned Chicago for the mere fact that it's such a large mass of people with no options for bikepacking. If I were a mayor of any given smallish town within 3-4 hours of Chicago I'd be planning a route myself to try and drive some of that money my way.


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## injected59 (Aug 14, 2016)

thmslilly said:


> Shhhh, some of us may be working on routes.
> 
> But, yeah, the more the merrier!


:thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::rockon::rockon::rockon::rockon::rockon::rockon:


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## cjsb (Mar 4, 2009)

injected59 said:


> I agree about your comments regarding few places to ride in IL. I only mentioned Chicago for the mere fact that it's such a large mass of people with no options for bikepacking. If I were a mayor of any given smallish town within 3-4 hours of Chicago I'd be planning a route myself to try and drive some of that money my way.


On your point, when I lived in IL over a decade ago, the rails to trails conversion was starting to take off in rural areas. Do not know to what extent long rides on those kinds of trails are available now.

IL and Chicago have a ton of rails.

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## sherpaxc (Aug 12, 2005)

Arkansas has some amazing riding that is easy to interconnect with gravel roads. Top notch singletrack too. I've been going there for years and connecting things. My favorite is essentially the old Womble Epic loop. Makes for a great long weekend trip.


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## leeboh (Aug 5, 2011)

injected59 said:


> Can someone please contribute a route to this gaping hole on bikepacking.com? There are plenty of beautiful forests and things to see in the mid-west, is it really a prerequisite these routes must include mountain ranges?
> View attachment 1223018


 So go. Or you are waiting for someone else to do your work? MA guy here. Plenty of places to ride around here. Want me to post up a pic of my topo map?


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## injected59 (Aug 14, 2016)

leeboh said:


> So go. Or you are waiting for someone else to do your work? MA guy here. Plenty of places to ride around here. Want me to post up a pic of my topo map?


Yah, actually I am waiting for someone to do the work for me, and apparently people are working on routes in their area. I offered and will try to work on one by me. I don't have the time nor resources to do trial and error rides 6 hours from my home


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## Reconnaissanceman (Oct 4, 2018)

I have hiked and ridden in southeast Missouri and in northern Minnesota. The state park maps are very detailed and are one of my go-to resources for ride planning. There's a fantastic series of trails linking tettegouche to gooseberry falls in the Arrowhead region of Minnesota. This is north of Duluth where I-35 ends and multiple trailhead entrances are available all along the way. Lots of snowmobile trails now run on old railways throughout the north central US. Most of these are published also.

For context, the OP should realize there's a difference between states with large tracts of land under BLM control, and those whose public land is under state control. BLM controlled land is literally wilderness area. Cataloguing an almost infinite number of trails isn't a priority of the federal government and this is why open sourcing of gpx files is popular there.

Contrasting that with state management of public land, there is much better development and marking of trails and readily available trail information in the state park systems. It's almost as if the BLM tacitly discourages use of the land that is ours, but states actively promote it's use.

Anyway that's my two cents.

Mike



mikesee said:


> Lots of decent riding in that hole, but folks there largely seem to have drifted toward gravel.


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## injected59 (Aug 14, 2016)

Reconnaissanceman said:


> I have hiked and ridden in southeast Missouri and in northern Minnesota. The state park maps are very detailed and are one of my go-to resources for ride planning. There's a fantastic series of trails linking tettegouche to gooseberry falls in the Arrowhead region of Minnesota. This is north of Duluth where I-35 ends and multiple trailhead entrances are available all along the way. Lots of snowmobile trails now run on old railways throughout the north central US. Most of these are published also.
> 
> For context, the OP should realize there's a difference between states with large tracts of land under BLM control, and those whose public land is under state control. BLM controlled land is literally wilderness area. Cataloguing an almost infinite number of trails isn't a priority of the federal government and this is why open sourcing of gpx files is popular there.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the info Mike, I spent some time last night with rwgps, gravel map, and Google maps looking for a decent area within an hour or two from me to start putting together a route. It's a lot harder than I expected. One thing especially is trying to locate places to camp.

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## mikesee (Aug 25, 2003)

Reconnaissanceman said:


> BLM controlled land is literally wilderness area.


I can agree with most of what you're written but the statement above is quite far off the mark. Or perhaps you have a different definition of wilderness than I do?

Oil drill rigs, motocross courses, off-road dune buggies, powerlines, airstrips, clandestine gun ranges, and illegal appliance/furniture dumping areas dominate my local BLM land.

There are also a few trails there, too. As well as burned out car husks.


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## Central Scrutinizer (Aug 30, 2005)

Crack Monkey said:


> Can the KC trails be linked with road or gravel? That's fine. I prefer a mix of terrain. All single-track on a loaded bike is exhausting.


Yes, somewhat. Although I totally spaced about another issue with bikepacking KC singletrack: many of our trail systems are quite technical - rooty & rocky. Not impossible to bikepack, but certainly challenging. But since all the trails are close to civilization, you don't need to carry days' worth of food & water.

Also - our soil is mostly clay, so our trails don't drain well and they take a long time to dry out. As little as a couple tenths of rain is enough to turn them into slop for a day or two.

Still, the riding's pretty good for a big metropolitan area. 160+ miles (and growing) of singletrack within an hour of downtown ain't too shabby.


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## Co-opski (Oct 24, 2013)

mikesee said:


> I can agree with most of what you're written but the statement above is quite far off the mark. Or perhaps you have a different definition of wilderness than I do?
> 
> Oil drill rigs, motocross courses, off-road dune buggies, powerlines, airstrips, clandestine gun ranges, and illegal appliance/furniture dumping areas dominate my local BLM land.
> 
> There are also a few trails there, too. As well as burned out car husks.


Nice just add some derelict vessels and you described Alaska in a nut shell.


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## squeakymcgillicuddy (Jan 28, 2016)

I bikepacked the Ozark Trail in southern Missouri last year...with a loop around Council Bluff Lake it came to ~115mi over 5 days, all but a mile or two singletrack. My pictures are crap and I didn't collect any stats/GPS track, but I'll see about getting a squiggle on the map.


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## Reconnaissanceman (Oct 4, 2018)

Wilderness = location where humans are not the top of the food chain. If something is out there that can eat you or kill you, you're not in Kansas anymore Dorothy. 
BLM = Wilderness except in CA, NV. And some spots in AZ 

Seriously, though I sympathize with Injected's comment and propose that the regional forums add a sticky for GPX files. Lots of gpx files out there in this forum and others. But hard to find.

My proposed format: Region or State folder/GPX files/location_name.gpx



injected59 said:


> Thanks for the info Mike, I spent some time last night with rwgps, gravel map, and Google maps looking for a decent area within an hour or two from me to start putting together a route. It's a lot harder than I expected. One thing especially is trying to locate places to camp.
> 
> Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## leeboh (Aug 5, 2011)

injected59 said:


> Yah, actually I am waiting for someone to do the work for me, and apparently people are working on routes in their area. I offered and will try to work on one by me. I don't have the time nor resources to do trial and error rides 6 hours from my home


 Don't have the time? Hmmm. Look at a topo map, ride with gps and map my ride routes. Trail forks or strava? I don't do trial rides, I just pedal. Usually some sort of plan, sometimes a plan on where to sleep for the first night. I call it a sense of adventure. Plan B. You going to do 40 miles in a day or 70? Headwinds and thunderstorms? My bikepacking plans are always flexible and changing. I always do a fair amount of research beforehand. Map and compass have not let me down. Google map is great too.


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## thmslilly (May 20, 2012)

leeboh said:


> Don't have the time? Hmmm. Look at a topo map, ride with gps and map my ride routes. Trail forks or strava? I don't do trial rides, I just pedal. Usually some sort of plan, sometimes a plan on where to sleep for the first night. I call it a sense of adventure. Plan B. You going to do 40 miles in a day or 70? Headwinds and thunderstorms? My bikepacking plans are always flexible and changing. I always do a fair amount of research beforehand. Map and compass have not let me down. Google map is great too.


I second this. I'm currently planning a route that I hope to publish that's 1500 miles from my home. I'm doing all the planning using publicly available map services, googlemaps, trailforks, etc. I plan to go ride the route when complete and then she's done! Route planning, especially in reasonably civilized areas like the eastern US, is easily done from afar.


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## bbudell (Jun 10, 2005)

injected59 said:


> I agree about your comments regarding few places to ride in IL. I only mentioned Chicago for the mere fact that it's such a large mass of people with no options for bikepacking. If I were a mayor of any given smallish town within 3-4 hours of Chicago I'd be planning a route myself to try and drive some of that money my way.


I have not had a chance to write this up but a loop that I can highly recommend that is about 3-4 hrs from Chicago is in the Manistee National Forest in Michigan. You can combine the North Country Trail from M20 north to Marilla with the Michigan Cross Country Cycle Trail (MCCCT). This forms an approximately 250 mile figure 8 loop but you can also cut it short and do the northern loop between M10 and Marilla (that is where the best riding is at too) of around 150 miles.

NCT has a couple sections that are closed to bikes but there are good ride arounds on gravel or two tracks. The MCCCT varies from very sandy to great loam depending on where you are at on it but it can be incredibly fun riding with tons of berms and whoops to ride. A fat bike is ideal but I have done it on a plus bike when the sandy spots are moist.

Almost all of the info you need is on National Geographic Trails Illustrated Map 758 and 759. I recommend getting the electronic Avenza map version for on-trail navigation. There are a few small communities and businesses along the way and/or a within a few miles of the route but in general the route is off the beaten track. Resupply points are pretty easy to figure out with a bit of time looking at the two maps and Google. This isn't an easy route with the vast majority of it on trails and I am guessing a lot of riders would have to work fairly hard to finish the 250 mile option in 5 days.

Here are strava files files for the northern 150ish mile loop: https://www.strava.com/activities/739303100 and https://www.strava.com/activities/739976596


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## Big Jim Mac (Sep 29, 2005)

I've done several bike packing trips on the Ozark Trail. Not sure the exact mileage open to bikes but it's hundreds of miles. There's some really sweet trail there. The sections that aren't open to bikes can be detoured by gravel road. It's pretty tough riding in the hot, humid, tick infested summer but fall is amazing on the OT. You can also put together a ride/float via Bass Resort and the Courtois and Huzzah creeks. Here's a link to a story I just did on bike packing in Missouri and some pics:

Rural Missouri - November 2018 - 32


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## injected59 (Aug 14, 2016)

bbudell said:


> I have not had a chance to write this up but a loop that I can highly recommend that is about 3-4 hrs from Chicago is in the Manistee National Forest in Michigan. You can combine the North Country Trail from M20 north to Marilla with the Michigan Cross Country Cycle Trail (MCCCT). This forms an approximately 250 mile figure 8 loop but you can also cut it short and do the northern loop between M10 and Marilla (that is where the best riding is at too) of around 150 miles.
> 
> NCT has a couple sections that are closed to bikes but there are good ride arounds on gravel or two tracks. The MCCCT varies from very sandy to great loam depending on where you are at on it but it can be incredibly fun riding with tons of berms and whoops to ride. A fat bike is ideal but I have done it on a plus bike when the sandy spots are moist.
> 
> ...


Dude, this sounds like fun, but am I reading those links correctly? 7500 ft of elevation, and on sandy ground? Yikes!

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## injected59 (Aug 14, 2016)

Big Jim Mac said:


> I've done several bike packing trips on the Ozark Trail. Not sure the exact mileage open to bikes but it's hundreds of miles. There's some really sweet trail there. The sections that aren't open to bikes can be detoured by gravel road. It's pretty tough riding in the hot, humid, tick infested summer but fall is amazing on the OT. You can also put together a ride/float via Bass Resort and the Courtois and Huzzah creeks. Here's a link to a story I just did on bike packing in Missouri and some pics:
> 
> Rural Missouri - November 2018 - 32
> 
> ...


What are your average winter temps? Seems like this would be a good trip in November/ December

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## Big Jim Mac (Sep 29, 2005)

It gets lots of use in the winter months. Temp is 30s mostly though it can get down to zero and below. Our biggest problem in winter is the freeze/thaw cycle. Often it warms above freezing in the day which melts the top couple of inches. It stays frozen below so the moisture has nowhere to go and the trail turns to muck. During these times you can do serious damage to our trails. The OT handles this better than many trails due to its rocky surface however. All you need to know about the OT can be found here: The Ozark Trail Association - Ozark Trail Association


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