Louisville KY to Evansville IN

[novacat]

Hi all,

Looking for any tips/suggestions for running a route from Louisville KY to Evansville IN.

Has anyone done section 3 of the UGRR route and have any feedback--how is traffic; road conditions; sufficient places to refuel? Coming from Southern Indiana, I'm shocked to hear there is a decent east-west route in the area.

I had another friend who biked cross country and stayed mostly on IN SR 62, but he mentioned that the shoulder can get pretty narrow at times. Any better options?

Thanks in advance!

[John Nettles]

Welcome to the ACA Forums!

For the UGRR, you might check out CycleBlaze.com or CrazyGuyonaBike.com.  They are both free websites for cyclist's trip journals.  Just search on "Louisville" or something.

If that does not work, you could piece together your own by using the Indiana Dept. of Transportation's traffic count data https://indot.public.ms2soft.com/tcds/tsearch.asp?loc=Indot&mod= (be sure to open "Tools" in the upper right corner, then click on TCDS, then check the TCDS Locations box.  Once that is done, zoom in and you will see the AADT (average traffic count).  Counts less than 2k are OK, though less than 1000 is much better.  Avoid above 3k, if not full shoulder.

You can use Google Maps for locate campgrounds, grocery stores, etc. as you research your route. 

I personally would highly recommend to NOT try to ride across US-41 into Evansville.  The traffic count is 37k and there is minimal shoulder for over 1 mile on the bridge.  If you really want to do the UGRR, I would cross further west at Cave-In-Rock ferry and double back to Evansville.

Tailwinds, John