West Lake County is a great place for peaceful scenic roads, as I’m sure serious road cyclists who live there or even close by know.
There’s a great pocket of road riding opportunities between Wauconda and Fox Lake, and Libertyville and the border with McHenry County (where you can find more great road riding). It’s a special treat for me, who’s lived in western Cook County all my adult life.
So when I get in good shape, I’ll ride from my Schaumburg home down Ela Road — my gateway into Lake County — to Lake Zurich and take the fabulous Old McHenry Road to Wauconda. In the summer it’s particularly fun to ride Main Street through downtown and by Phil’s Beach on Bangs Lake.
After that, I continue northwest on Old Rand Road, and soon I come upon a road that seems almost like a secret: Callahan Road.
Callahan takes me out of Wauconda’s village limits and into open country. It’s less than a 2-mile segment with slightly rolling hills, and there’s little traffic. Why would there be much traffic? I suppose this is a shortcut to Gilmer Road to the north.
Here’s a simple, soothing video of my Callahan Road ride last summer.
For cyclists, Callahan is a shortcut to a lot of interesting options. After finishing Callahan and riding northwest Gilmer Road a little bit — it’s newly paved with a decent shoulder — you’ll come upon the corner with Fish Lake Road. The Millennium Trail comes through because the Singing Hills Forest Preserve also is there.
If you have the tires for it, turn right to head east and south on the crushed-limestone Millennium Trail. You’ll wend your way around Wauconda and to the trail’s beginning in the Lakewood Forest Preserve. Or you could head north on the Millennium; it’s a bumpier section, but it goes through more open country and ultimately east to Fairfield Road. You’d have to ride roads to close the gap to the next section of the Millennium within the Round Lake suburbs.
Or you could ride roads all along. Fish Lake Road is not a bad little secret itself. It takes you by the Mari Flat Forest Preserve and Volo.
There are several two-lane country roads surrounding this area, but unfortunately a little more traffic finds them, too, and the roads aren’t generous with shoulders. You may or may not be comfortable on Nippersink Road, even though it’s a good east-west route between the Volo Bog area and Round Lake Park. Wilson Road is a north-south road just to the east that isn’t too bad for cycling.
On the ride I took from Schaumburg to see friends in Grayslake, I had time to kill, so I rolled west on Molidor Road, which becomes Sullivan Lake Road and then Lincoln Road. On a weekday, it was a little tight with traffic to be sure. I eventually turned up to Bay Road, which becomes Big Hollow Road — it’s a busier main throughway around Pistakee Lake and the village of Fox Lake. With its small but smooth shoulder after recent repaving, Bay/Big Hollow was more comfortable than what I remembered riding this road in the past. Heading east, it passes Long Lake on the south and also ends up in Round Lake Park — the street name changes to Round Lake Road. It gets busier there.
Anyway, sometimes you ride miles and miles only for the chance to ride a money road, and in this trip, quiet and pretty Callahan Road was it.
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