TRI-STATE TOUR CHICAGO CENTURY
Updates

General Company Wide Updates

• Click Here for general company wide updates.

Tri-State Tour Chicago Century Specific Updates for the 2025 Season

12/23/24

• Bicycle Illinois and Bike Wisconsin Cycling Socks added to paper registration forms.

12/18/24

• Registration is now open for the 2024 Tri-State Tour Chicago Century #1 and #2. Click Here to register!
• New Bicycle Illinois and Bike Wisconsin socks are now available! Click Here for more information.
  • A free pair of Bicycle Illinois and Bike Wisconsin socks will be included with every registration!
    • A free Bicycle Illinois t-shirt will no longer be included with registration.
  • Click Here to order an extra pair of Bicycle Illinois and Bike Wisconsin socks to be delivered during the tour.
• The base price of the event has increased by $5.00. None of the prices of any transportation service has changed. Click Here for more information about our pricing schedule.
• The fee for registration transfers has increased by $5.00 from $75.00 to $80.00.
• We will no longer coordinate a group ride to the starting location from the 95th/Dan Ryan St. CTA L Train Station the morning of the event.
• Web site updated with 2025 dates.
  • The Tri-State Tour Chicago Century #1 will occur on Sun. July 15th, 2025.
  • The Tri-State Tour Chicago Century #2 will occur on Sat. August 25th, 2025.

Major Previous Tri-State Tour Chicago Century Specific Updates

Starting and Ending Locations

• The starting location has changed to Lakefront Park in Whiting from Forsythe Park in Hammond. All related information has been updated. Click Here for more information.
  • Free parking for the day will available at the Mascot Hall of Fame in Whiting, only 0.4 miles away!
  • The total length of the route and all related timing remained exactly the same!
• Our ending location has changed to be directly at the Kenosha supported hotel. Our new ending location features the following new additional amentities! Click Here for more information.
  • Included services
    • Showers
    • Swimming pool and whirlpool
    • Overnight parking
  • Extra services
    • A bar and restaurant directly at our ending location!
• The Whiting hotel has changed brands to Days Inn (previously Econolodge).
• The cut-off dates for the room block reservations at the Hammond hotel are also the the same as the regular registration deadlines for both events. Click Here for more information about the Hammond hotel.
• If you are planning on starting your ride from Chicago, parking for the day is now available directly at DuSable Harbor. Click Here for more information.
• Supported in town facilities and services added for Kenosha, WI. Click Here for more information.
• Supported in town facilities and services added for Chicago. Click Here for more information.

Rest Stops

• DuSable Harbor will now serve as Rest Stop 1, the Chicago starting location, the return transportation staging point, and the starting point if you are riding to the Hammond hotel the day before the event from Chicago. All related information has been updated.
  • On The Route bicycle shop will no longer serve as a supported location for any event services. Accordingly, it is very important that your bicycle is in great mechanical working order and ready to be ridden and you arrive with all the bike parts, tools, and cycling accessories you need since you will no longer be able to get anything there during the event.
  • We combined our previous first two rest stop locations in Chicago at 31st St. Beach and Foster Ave. Beach into a single rest stop location downtown. Combining these two rest stops into one has the following advantages:
    • You will have even more time to make it to Kenosha within our route cut-off times because you'll have one less stop to make
    • It eliminates the confusion at the 31st St. rest stop due to overlapping marks for participants travelling north on the Lakefront bike path on the Bicycle Illinois event
    • It makes the first ride overall ride segment shorter for participants who don't bother stopping at the 31st Street rest stop because it's so close to the start.
    • This change significantly improves our ability to ensure support service coverage along the entire route.
• Rest Stop 2 has changed to Skokie from Morton Grove. Click Here for more information.
• Rest Stop 4 in Waukegan is now at the Waukegan Harbor from Dugdale Park. Click Here for more information.
  • There is a deli, hot dog stand, and ice cream stand directly at Waukegan Harbor. You will easily be able to purchase lunch and ice cream there on your own during the ride!

Route

• The Kenosha century route will now follow the north part of the Kenosha County Bike Trail to Racine. In Racine it turns around and follows the Kenosha County Bike Trail south back into Kenosha, passing right past the Kenosha Velodrome back to the ending location.
• The route now follows a designated bike path along the "New Lake Shore Drive" from 93rd to 79th St. through the former U.S. Steel South Works.
• We now follow the North Shore Channel Trail and the Green Bay Trail before and after Rest Stop 2 instead of the North Branch Trail.
• We now follow the North Shore Channel Trail and Green Bay Trail through Lincolnwood, Skokie, Evanston, Wilmette, Kenilworth, and Winnetka instead of the North Branch Trail Place through Niles, Morton Grove, Glenview, and Northfield.
• The only option to follow the road or a bike path will be from Waukegan to Kenosha.
• The Robert McClory bike path into Kenosha has been paved beginning at the Wisconsin state line. As a result all routes will now follow it to the end of the ride (including the century option), making the route safer and easier to follow. Unfortunately the Robert McClory bike path still has a crushed limestone surface through Illinois, so we will continue to offer a fully paved on road alternative to this part of the bike path.

Ride Itinerary

• A closing time of 10:00 am and 12:45 pm has been added to Rest Stop 1 (Chicago) and Rest Stop 2 (Skokie). The closing time of Rest Stop 3 (Lake Forest) has been changed to 3:15 pm. The closing time for Rest Stop 3 (Waukegan) is still the same at 4:45 pm and the overall route closing time is still 6:30 pm. Click Here for more information.
• Information added about minimum average paces and latest departure times for specific routes. Click Here for more information.
• The route opening time from the Whiting, IN starting location has been moved back 15 minutes to 7:15 am in order to allow more time for riders to ride to the starting location from the 95th/Dan Ryan CTA L Train Station. This will also allow some more time for breakfast for participants staying at the Hammond hotel.

Arriving at the Start of the Event

• We are extremely excited to now offer transportation service to the Hammond hotel from both Kenosha and downtown Chicago for you, your bicycle, and your baggage the day before the start of the event! Click Here for more information!
• You can now start your ride directly from Rest Stop 1 in downtown Chicago instead of just from Whiting, IN. Click Here for more information.
• If you do not have a car or another way to get to the start of the event, you can now ride there
  • On the morning of the event, you can ride to the Whiting, IN starting location from the 95th/Dan Ryan CTA L Train Station. We will be coordinating a group ride from there to the Whiting, IN starting location at 6:00 am. Click Here for more information.
  • The day before the event, you can ride to the Hammond hotel from the 95th/Dan Ryan CTA L Train Station or rest stop 1 in downtown Chicago. Click Here for more information.
• We will not be offering baggage pick up or delivery service to any of our supported hotels for any participant who is not continuing from Bicycle Illinois. If you are riding to the start of the event you will to carry your personal bag with you on your bike while riding. Click Here for more information.
• The route from the supported hotel to the starting location now follows many bike paths, reducing busier highway riding and making it much safer and more scenic.

Departing from the End of the Event

• You can now end your ride early in Waukegan by taking the Metra train back to Chicago from Rest Stop 4. You can also still complete a century ride by riding back to Waukegan from Kenosha. Click Here for more information.
• You can also easily take a Metra Train back into downtown Chicago. The Lake Forest Metra train station is a very short ride from rest stop 3 in Lake Forest and cue sheets and maps there are available. Click Here for more information.

Transportation Services

• In order to assist capacity planning, we now charge a $30.00 late fee for all transportation services since we may need to charter an additional bus after the regular registration deadline.
• We have added "e-bike" as an additional option for the type of bike you will be transporting.
• There will be an additional $30.00 fee to transport bicycles that require special handing and care (recumbents, e-bikes, tandems, etc.) on any transportation service. However a tandem bicycle will not incur an additional fee if both people riding it register for the same transportation service.
• We are extremely excited to now offer transportation service to the Hammond hotel from both Kenosha and downtown Chicago for you, your bicycle, and your baggage the day before the start of the event! Click Here for more information!
• Our transportation staging point in Chicago will now be at the supported hotel. Click Here for more information.
  • If you parked your car for the day at Dusable Harbor for the day, you will need to walk or bike there from the hotel yourself. To do so you will follow the fully lighted and paved Chicago Riverwalk bike path and you will not need to bike on any downtown street at all. Directions and a map will be provided.

Event Schedule

• In order to accommodate our new Bike Wisconsin events, the Tri-State Tour Chicago Century #2 will now always occur on the fourth Saturday in August, the day after the new Bicycle Illinois recurring schedule. The Tri-State Tour Chicago Century #1 will now occur on a Sunday in order to give people who normally work on Saturdays the chance to participate in one of the events. Click Here for more information about the future event dates.
• Tri-State Tour Chicago Century #1 will be held on a Sunday to give people who normally work on Saturdays a better chance to participate. Tri-State Tour Chicago Century #2 will occur on the Saturday the day after Bicycle Illinois.

Other Event Services

• We now directly accept credit card payments but will charge a 3.6% surcharge to cover credit card processing fees. If you do not want to pay this surcharge you may submit your payment to us through Zelle or check or money order instead.
• If you register using a paper registration form:
  • You can now submit your payment through Zelle.
  • We no longer have incoming fax service so you can't send us a copy of your completed form this way any more.
• If you sign up for the Mechanical Support Plan, you will need to specifically request the pre-ride inspection yourself as we will not be able to search out each participant individually to provide it.
• Registration procedures for postponed 2020 participants posted. Unfortunately, we can only allow postponed 2020 participants to register for an event at the original 2020 pricing schedule one time. Click Here for more information.
• No refunds will be issued in the event we are unable to run an event due to circumstances beyond our control. These circumstances include but are not limited to disasters (natural and/or manmade), pandemics, war, acts of terrorism, government regulations, strikes, civil disorder, curtailment of transportation facilities, or acts of God. (Force Majure)
• The new official name of the event is now the Tri-State Tour Chicago Century!
• Only online registration will be available four weeks before the start of the event in order to assure that we receive all of your information and payment in a timely manner due to laspes in mail service. Click Here for more information.
• WE NO LONGER ISSUE ANY REFUNDS AT ANY TIME FOR ANY REASON. If you do not participate and would like a refund you MUST purchase an individual travel insurance plan, which will reimburse you according to the plan coverage. Click Here for more information about our refund policy.
• The regular registration deadline for both the Tri-State Tour Chicago Century #1 and #2 is now only one week before the start of each event.
• We now allow trikes (any bicycle with three or more wheels) to participate in our events. However, all participants riding trikes must provide their own on road support for them at all times because we cannot guarantee that we will be able to easily or quickly transport them off the road in any support vehicle in case of mechanical breakdown. In addition, we still cannot accomodate any trikes on any of our transportation services. Click Here for more information.
• A personalized Certificate of Completion will no longer be available.
• Based on participant feedback we will no longer offer the same box lunches we had previously offered for any of our events and currently will not serve any type of lunch on the road.