Nice little trail: The one around the Bloomingdale Golf Club

On the north end of Bloomingdale are a few trails that more or less form the end of a meandering bike route system coming from neighboring Roselle and Medinah. I find one of those trails to be a nice surprise: the one around the Bloomingdale Golf Club.

It’s not one you may have heard of; in fact, it doesn’t really have a name except “the one around the Bloomingdale Golf Club.” That’s in contrast to the more widely known Meacham Grove Forest Preserve trail to the northwest. Or even the Spring Creek Reservoir trail just to the north.

But if you need one more little loop, the Bloomingdale Golf Club trail is a pretty, peaceful option good for casual bicyclists, serious cyclists and families all.

Starting on it

The trail comes off the corner of Route 20 and Glen Ellyn Road, just out of the Spring Creek Reservoir preserve, or Route 20 and Medinah Road if you prefer. In fact, the one glaring weakness about it is that you must cross Route 20 to get on it. But there are traffic lights and painted crossings.

Once you do get across, you have a smooth loop, almost uninterrupted, of about 2.3 miles.

And the surrounding village-owned golf course means you get some nice scenery — not even all artificially made. You’ll see the open greens but also real trees, ponds and prairie plant life.

Continuing along Glen Ellyn Road is the west side of the trail. Here you feel like you’re riding through a community. There are single-family and multi-family homes, or apartments, but also a community center, a church, a few businesses and parks in the area.

Yet you’re largely amid trees while on the trail.

To the east side

It’s a long stretch along Glen Ellyn Road, but then a “Bike Route” sign points you east. The trail curves and continues a bit until it’s sidewalk.

Eventually you’re forced onto a street, which is Carriage Way.

Only one part of the loop is on streets — within a contained multifamily-home neighborhood. Follow the signs, or basically weave your way to the farthest circular road, Willow Bridge Way, and get to Golfview Court.

Continue to the end of that little street, and you’ll find a sort of entrance to the east side of the trail.

This stretch on the east runs right by the course but also right by the backyards of the big, attractive homes in a subdivision off Medinah Road. Obviously the residents of the area have an advantage with this trail right in their neighborhood.

Here’s where you’ll see the natural variety — the trees and bushes, the prairie, a big pond.

Along Route 20

Eventually you turn left onto a little wooden bridge over more prairie and through trees. The subsequent trail heads toward Route 20. At the T, you can turn right toward the intersection with Medinah Road, or continue west.

The trail runs along the south side of Route 20, but you’re far enough away from that highway to still feel attached to the golf course. You can take in more views of the open space with some plant and tree life, too.

Then you get to Glen Ellyn Road again. The trail naturally curves left to that long west-side stretch, or you can take a ramp down to the intersection and cross Route 20.

In the video of my loop around the Bloomingdale Golf Club, I actually start at the southeast, the corner opposite of the more typical start at Glen Ellyn Road and Route 20 if you’re coming from the northwest.

Neighboring trails and routes

The Spring Creek Reservoir trail on the other side of Route 20 is a 1.2-mile loop. It’s almost just a little neighborhood trail, except it is part of the Forest Preserve District of DuPage County.

I skip this loop and instead ride a little more to the north through Medinah — in particular, Spring Valley Drive, which runs alongside the other side of the Spring Creek Reservoir preserve.

You can’t actually access the preserve from the Medinah side. But there’s a separate body of water, unnamed as far as I can tell, by which Spring Valley Drive runs. It’s the southern edge of another high-end and leafy neighborhood. In a winding way, you can then get to Medinah Road, which I take into Bloomingdale.

To the west of both the preserve and Medinah is the Meacham Grove Forest Preserve, a more significant preserve complete with a lake and two marshes (Meacham and Circle) — and actually two trails.

The Maple Lake trail is a 1.3-mile loop. Then 1.3 miles of the North Central DuPage Regional Trail runs through the preserve. (There’s another small trail not open to bicyclists.) It’s really the eastern end of the regional trail, which continues west to Wayne, if you can follow the signs through winding roads and trails.

Limits to travel

So these trails are ways to get to the Bloomingdale Golf Club trail. You could also find ways to weave southeast through Roselle, Medinah and Bloomingdale. (See my Strava map; I also get to Busse Woods about a half dozen miles northeast.)

But one thing you can’t do so well, unless you’re a serious road cyclist comfortable in heavy traffic, is go farther south into DuPage. That’s something that The Friends of the East Branch DuPage River Trail is trying to remedy, but solutions are years away.

For now, the Bloomingdale Golf Trail is a nice little option for those in the immediate area or from places northwest.

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