The River Bend Trail Photos
Blackhawk Forest Preserve to Randall Rd

Continuing on the River Bend Trail heading west (from the Fox River Trail) you go alongside Route 31 for a short distance then wind through the Blackhawk County forest preserve before heading out to Route 31 again. The photo above shows one of the bridges along the Blackhawk FP part of the River Bend Trail.

I took this photo as I was crossing the bridge. I actually used to take a lot of photos while riding (and got pretty good at it) although I tend to stop and setup the photos much better these days. The photo above is from the April set of photos (the photos for this trail were taken in April and August).

 

The trail is crushed stone in this part and winds through the forest preserve out to where it crosses Route 31 and runs alongside of Silver Glen Road.

This is at the intersection of Route 31 and Silver Glen Road. As you can see in the photo above they have steps here rather than a ramp for the path so you need to walk or ride up the side of the steps to get back on the trail again. The path is paved from this point.

I have mentioned before that bike trail names are not an exact science and I have seen where people refer to different bike trails by different names in some cases. Technically, I believe that this part of the trail would more accurately be called the Silver Glen Trail here where it runs along Silver Glen Road (and like it says on the sign on the Fox River Trail).

The bike trail is fairly straight here and runs parallel to Silver Glen Road (to the left in the photo above).

After you ride west along Silver Glen Road for a short distance you get to the bridge that crosses Randall Road (at Silver Glen Road) as shown above. This is a pretty large bridge with long ramps on both sides. I actually really love when they have either bridges or tunnels that cross major highways so you don't have to stop, wait and in some cases risk your life crossing the highways.

This is where the River Bend / Silver Glen Trail intersects with the Randall Road Trail. The photo above shows the north end of the Randall Road Trail as seen from the bridge over Randall Road. The Randall Road Trail runs north and south and parallel to Randall Road then connects to the Great Western Trail.

The photo above shows the switchback is as you wind down the ramps from the top of the bridge.
Photo Compliments of Dale Kiffel