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The Illinois State Beach Bike Path

Illionis State Beack Park Path at North Point Marina.
A nice part of the Illinois State Beach trail at the North Point Marina.		 Illinois State Beach Bike Path through Woods
Here's one of the winding trails that goes through some of the wooded parts of the park (still very close to the beach).		 Illinois State Beach along Lake Michigan
There's nothing like riding along side Lake Michigan! This is a common scene on the Illinois State Beach Bike Path.

The Illinois State Beach Bike Paths run right along side the Lake Michigan beaches and into the slightly wooded areas of the park. They are an absolutely beautiful and scenic place to ride! It's not the best place for a real long distance ride, but there are quite a few trails that you can take to keep you pretty busy for an afternoon.

We took a pretty long bike ride on the day that we rode the bike paths at the Illinois State Beach State Park but you could also take your bike with you, along with your swimming suit, for a day at the beach and a nice bike ride by Lake Michigan.

The photos in this artcle are intended to give you a feel for what the bike trails in the park are like from our first hand experience. Since this was a side trip for us we did not have a map for these trails. Although there are a few maps of the bike trails in the park online, I just found Google Maps to be the most helpful in this case. Here's a link to the Illinois State Beach Park Map via Google Maps. You'll need to zoom in to see the park roads and bike paths.

Our Illinois State Beach Bike Trip

The photos in the photo tour section for this trail are from July, 2008 where we started our trip on the Robert McClory Bike Path at the Lake Bluff train station (just off of route 176) and went north to the WIsconsin border, and the Kenosha trail, then came back south and branched off of the RM trail at 9th street where we headed east to the North Point Marina and the Illinois State Beach park. My favorite part of this trip was our side trip to the the park.

We also made our way to the Nuclear Power Plant, just south of the park. That is a pretty awesome and somewhat eerie place. It was a pretty nice area, but I had this strange glow when I went to bed that night . :-) (just kidding...)

After taking quite a long trip on the Illinois State Beach bike trails, we eventually headed west on Wadsworth Road back to the Robert McClory Trail.

 

Illinois State Beach Bike PathPhotos

Here's a photo tour of the Illinois State Beach Bike Path along side beautiful Lake Michigan!

Illinois State Beach Bike Path - Main Bike Path page. < You are here

The Illinois State Beach Bike Path Photo Tour - along Lake Michigan - July 2008.

Illinois State Beach Bike Path Photos

The Ride is the Destination