This week I revisited a road that’s always a nice surprise out of the west side of Elgin: Highland Avenue.
It starts a few blocks east of the Fox River right downtown. Take it west across the river and through some of the city’s historic district. There’s a V intersection with Larkin Avenue; be sure to veer right to stay on Highland.
You’ll continue going through the city, but quickly it loses its city feel and looks more like a suburb, as space opens up and more trees emerge.
Before you know it, you’re seeing white picket fences bordering farmland or other spacious sites. There are also newer subdivisions out west.
A little trouble with Highland Avenue is it’s not exactly an official Elgin bike route. Downtown and across the Fox, it has a bike lane painted green, but by the end of the bridge going west, the lane ends and you’re on your own. Then there’s little to no shoulder the rest of the way.
So Highland Avenue is a good ride for serious cyclists. Traffic is moderate during the day, calming the more west you go, but I’d advise against riding Highland during rush hour.
The road runs about 8 miles in total. West of Randall Road it really opens up to pretty land. Once you reach Coombs Road, you could elect to turn right toward the Burnidge Forest Preserve.
Come back to Coombs to proceed to the small, self-contained suburb of Pingree Grove — a suburb in every sense of the word.
It’s basically a couple of subdivisions, but impressively there are wide bike paths along its main roads of Reinking Road and Wester Blvd. You can take a loop around the spacious town.
Then return to Highland Avenue and head back to Elgin. When you get into the city again, you’ll go down the hill you had to climb shortly off the Fox River.
I found Highland Avenue as an option into north Kane County’s country roads that was safer than the parallel Big Timber Road to the north or certainly Route 20 to the south. You could continue out of Pingree Grove to other remote locations like Gilberts, Hampshire or Huntley, or the Binnie Forest Preserve and the new Longmeadow Parkway bridge. That’s a subject for another time.
In the meantime, the somewhat hidden gem of Highland Avenue was worth pointing out. Here was my route to and on it this week.
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