ROUT HELP! Chicago, IL to Hilliard, OH

[Mqures8]

Hey guys!
This is my first post on this website! I was wondering what a good route would be to take from Chicago,IL to Hilliard,OH. Doing a round trip to raise money for cancer research so help would be greatly appreciated!

Best regards,
Nabeel

[John Nettles]

While I am not overly familiar with this area, I do have a question that might help others.  Is this route just for you or for a "mass tour" like a MS150 tour?  If the latter, a much safer route may be required due to the wide variety and sheer number of riders.  Also, what requirements do you have, i.e. camping, hotels, restaurants, cooking own food, etc.?

Regardless, I wish you a successful fundraiser.

[Mqures8]

Thanks for the quick response John! This journey will involve me and a fellow biker only. Although hotels would be nice we are planning to camp out entirely for the first half of the trip until we get to a friends' house where we would restock our supplies and ride back to Chicago, again camping out the way back. We are aiming to ride about 170-200km per day with a couple of stops in between our riding times. We are ultimately newcomers to biking and will be doing a lot of trial and error come this summer to make sure we have everything ready for the major trip BUT any tips or advice on travel lengths vs. time for breaks and just anything in general would also be appreciated!

Thanks in advance,
Nabeel 

[CMajernik]

You can get in touch with the bicycle coordinators for the states in which you will be traveling through. Many states have online resources as well as printed materials. Nearly every state publishes a bicycle map of some sort that they will send out for free and the coordinators often have more information they can distribute for no charge as well. Here is a link to the contact information for all of the bicycle coordinators:

http://www.pedbikeinfo.org/data/state.cfm

For more tips and ideas on how to create your own route, see this blog post on the topic:

http://www.adventurecycling.org/resources/blog/how-to-create-your-own-route/

[indyfabz]

If you can drop south to Ashkum, IL you could pick up ACA's Northern Tier route to Monroeville, IN and then slice diagonally SE to Hilliard. There is an air conditioned community building in Monroeville, where cyclists can stay for free if it's not being used for a function.

When is this trip planned for? The reason I ask is that you say you are newcomers and are planning between 105 and 125 miles/day. That could be trying in the height of summer. When I did the Northern Tier with a group of people there were days over 100 degrees in IL and IN with very high humidity. That was around the end of July. Topped out at 107 in Huntingdon, IN. The low in Fletcher Lake, IN was 85 with incredibly high humidity and no breeze. To top it off, there was very little in the way of shade. Rode most of that stretch without my helmet. A couple of days some of us started out before sunrise to get in as many miles as possible before the sun burned off the morning fog and began roasting us.

As for restocking supplies, that likely won't be needed. There was never any real trouble finding food each day so there was no need to carry multiple days worth of food.