Lying amid the forest on the west edge of DuPage County are two roads that make good bike rides for serious road cyclists and maybe casual bicyclists: Powis Road and Munger Road.
The two run parallel to each other and are connected on the south by Smith Road. They’re good most of the week but especially on weekends.
Powis on the north end comes off Stearns Road and heads south through the southern half of Pratt’s Wayne Woods. Eventually it also goes through a nice, tree-lined residential area. It eventually reaches Smith Road, which you can take east through the edge of Wayne, a suburb with spacious lots and big homes; these are the directions seen on the video below.
You could continue south on Powis, but it’ll soon be part of an industrial area that gets busy on weekday afternoons.
Soon Smith reaches Munger Road, which you can then take back north toward Stearns. It goes through the edge of Pratt’s Wayne Woods; if you have a bike suitable for gravel, you could take a trail just to the west off the road.
Munger soon crosses railroad tracks — the site of local legends of ghosts and screams, one of which became the subject of a movie.
Munger Road eventually reaches Stearns Road into Bartlett and an industrial area to the north; a paved path runs along part of the west side of the road.
One big catch: With Powis and Munger near industrial areas to the south, you could run into a lot of traffic as soon as 3 p.m. That’s especially true on Munger, which could have a line of northbound cars before Stearns.
Here’s what my spring 2024 Powis-Smith-Munger trip looked like.
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