I&M trail vs Old Plank Trail

I'll ride the I&M trail occasionally - I found you can keep up a good pace and there's not breaks every mile or whatever, and I'm poking around on some maps and it looks like you can hook up with the Old Plank Trail to take you back east?

I&M trail so far as I'm concerned ends at Romeoville Rd. After that it's crushed limestone, and I don't want really want to ride that on my road bike.

So, looking at routes on the roads thru Joliet, and Google tells me take New Ave south to State St then Washington east to the Old Plank Road Trail.

Is this nuts? Are New and State rideable?

And then once you get to OPRT, is that good to ride, or are there breaks for intersections all the time?

Thanks for any info you've got - I don't have much time to go exploring lately, so I've been sticking to my routes I know. But if this connection works, I can make a pretty cool loop out of it.

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Permalink Reply by envane (69 furlongs) on May 14, 2012 at 11:14am

I've done this ride. We hopped onto State St. just south of Lockport. Yes, its ridable from there on at least. OPRT of course has way more intersections than I&M, that's purely a function of geography. Its not a completely useless trail, however.

If you are going to loop back into Chicago you'll have to ride through some crummy neighbourhoods. I just take the train.

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Permalink Reply by wigner on May 14, 2012 at 11:23am

I'm in Palos, so it would be a big ole loop for me.

Thanks for letting me know, I'm gonna give this a go

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Permalink Reply by Anne Alt on May 15, 2012 at 10:59am

Old Plank is a pleasant, well paved trail. In some areas, it has a fair number of intersections, but I've found most of them to be little or no hassle.