Chicago, IL–On a beautiful sunny Chicago weekend, lots of people bike parts of the 18.5 mile Chicago Lakefront Trail. If you want to avoid the crowds that jam the north end of the trail, head south from Museum Campus. The trail winds through trees and prairie to the South Shore Cultural Center at Jackson Park. You can extend your ride along a bike path almost to the 
Indiana border. At the Adler Planetarium, a gorgeous skyline view awaits–the spot that most of the TV stations broadcast the weather. Just south of the planetarium, the 12th Street Beach offers warm sand, gentle water, restrooms and an inexpensive taco stand where you can fuel up for the ride.
If the 12th Street Beach is crowded, a bigger and newer sandy beach awaits at 31st St. Beach and harbor. There, a green roof atop the parking garage offers picnic tables and sunscreens that look like sails, with an ample view to Navy Pier’s fireworks. Further south, the trail cuts through Burnham Centennial Prairie, a birding nature preserve shaded by trees and chirring red-winged blackbirds that will make you feel you’re off in a rural area.
Keep pedaling on to 57th Street Beach, and veer off to visit Hyde Park and the stately elegance of the University of Chicago’s buildings, or continue on to the historic South Shore Cultural Center, built in 1905 for the South Shore Country Club and designated a Chicago landmark in 2004.
If you’re really ambitious, the road continues on US41 South/Lake Shore Drive through the former grounds of U.S. Steel’s South Works, 470 acres of property that has yet to be developed, though the old steel mill is gone. When the road ends at US 12/20, turn left and tiny Calumet Fisheries at 3259 E. 95th is on your right just at the bridge. Family owned and operated since 1948, Calumet Fisheries offers real oak-smoked salmon, trout, eel, sable, catfish, sturgeon, and whitefish, as well as fried shrimp, fish, crab cakes, and other goodies–enough to earn this simple stand with only a couple of outdoor picnic tables a James Beard Foundation “American Classic” award in 2010. Mmmm. Now that’s a perfect end to a beautiful ride
