Some of the best lakeside places for overnight camping, weekend or week-long bike tours require creative ways for getting out of the city. All of our Lake Michigan sharing neighbors —Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan— offer more wild and picturesque places along the shore than does our own state, which is unfortunately dominated by the enormous city we inhabit (the notable exception being Illinois Beach State Park). This makes it difficult to get out to those more remote and quiet places in a safe and stress-free way. But not impossible. BIKE OUT Traveling south to Indiana, it is best to start d ..read more

We created this Chicago Summer Adventure Guide in order to dispel the notion that worthwhile life experiences must involve international travel, significant investment and considerable allotment of time. Summers often seem short, and sometimes wishing for conditions to fall into perfect alignment so that we feel we can get away from it all keeps many of us from embracing adventure right now. All you need is a pair of hiking shoes or a bicycle, a handful of well-designed, compact accessories, and your own power, to leave routine behind and enjoy exhilaration, freedom and nature within literally ..read more

When I need a break from routine, but can’t swing any time off, one of my favorite ways to mix things up is to cook breakfast outside. For a couple hours before the start of my regular workday, I can forget about my emails, my to-do list, and maybe even forget I’m still in the city. Those two hours can feel like a tiny little camping trip, but without actually having to go away. For this type of outing, I recommend actually cooking your food rather than consuming pre-made food, because the idea is to recreate the camping experience, and to break from routine by focusing on an unaccustomed task ..read more

Michigan’s Kal-Haven Trail stretches for 34 miles between the towns of Kalamazoo and South Haven, and is an unpaved, scenic and shaded rail-to-trail. It’s relatively flat and not terribly demanding, except in the brutal summer heat, which was precisely when I happened to carve out some time available for bike camping. My original plan was to ride the whole length of the trail starting in Kalamazoo, and travel to Covert Campground for two nights of camping before heading back, which would have made it a trip of just under 50 miles each way. The trip fell at the end of June, when daytime temps w ..read more

This was an eagerly anticipated trip, long planned, and executed on the spur of the moment, with untested but vital components of my minimalist set-up arriving the day before my planned departure. But I needed to go! Ever since we visited the lovely town of Port Washington a couple of years ago, and cruised on the Ozaukee Interurban Trail, I thought it would be a great idea to extend the ride by starting from Milwaukee, hitting some picturesque Wisconsin towns along the way, and setting up camp on the cooling shores of Lake Michigan at Harrington Beach SP, before heading back the next day. We ..read more

Look familiar? Yup. These are the iconic Chicago Schwinn cruiser frames stripped down, and outfitted for bike adventure on the trails in Marin County. This is what mountain bikes were, before the category was ever created. Don’t feel that you need to rush out and get the newest bikepacking or gravel bike if you’re just aching to indulge in some small, self-supported local adventure. There are many things you can do to modify your existing bike to make it more agile, more comfortable, more bike adventure worthy, and more fun. Then you can enjoy miles of trails instead of going on a wild goose c ..read more

The Ten Essentials List, originally developed by The Mountaineers, a Seattle-based organization for climbers and outdoor adventurers, included 10 actual items. Over the years, and as more modern gear became available, it had become more of a “system” approach. So, it is less about specific item recommendations, and more about the basics you really should have with you as a matter of habit whenever you disappear into the wilderness –even it it’s only for a day. I have been caught by surprise in enough seemingly innocent places to vouch for the fact that that in the great outdoors, safe is defin ..read more

I love occasional spontaneous adventures and outings, but some organized adventure planning will ensure that you optimize the time you have available. We often complain that summer isn’t long enough, and we don’t do a quarter of the things we wanted to. If we shift our thinking about what constitutes a great trip or an exhilarating outdoor experience, it’s quite possible to pack more of those things into all seasons of the year, without spending a lot of money, waiting for a long vacation, or ideal weather. Midwestern weather is notoriously unpredictable, and with a scaled view of adventure, a ..read more

The inspiration for our fall overnight bikepacking and camping trip last year came from this story on Bikepacking.com. We were heading “up North” to close up our summer cabin on an island on Lake Huron, so we knew that we wouldn’t be able to carve out the number of days necessary to do the entire journey. But we began exploring options for overnight riding and camping, ultimately settling on the scenic network of trails between two northern Michigan towns of Kalkaska and Traverse City. Although that region of Michigan attracts a fair number of off road cycling enthusiasts, and is in fact the l ..read more

Getting started with bike commuting is no different than making any other life change such as diet, exercise, or New Year resolution: we start with a lot of enthusiasm, only to find that it can be very hard to muster day after day as we yearn to settle back into comfortable habits. The secret is to set your biking goals to set yourself up for success from the get-go. We’ve been trained that to make progress we need to set goals, sometimes very big ones. This seems like a good thing, but not when you consider that goals place our focus on a picture of the future, causing us to feel inadequacy i ..read more