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If you're down for a longer drive, you might try Bloomington, IN (where IU is located). It's probably ~4ish hours to get there, depending on where you are in Chicago. There's some great roads down there generally, especially between Nashville, IN and Bloomington. There's also some decent hills, and the fall trees (once they change) are awesome.
We go a couple time a year and stay at a B&B. Highly recommend visiting this area, great views and amazing roads! We've found wineries, food and shopping for the ladies that were off the beaten path. All great and places we make sure to visit again while in the area.
I've been thinking about setting up a small sort of "group drive". There's also a "996 Revival" group run by a local guy, he does occasional short afternoon group drives and has some OK routes.
I'm out in McHenry County and have a couple "loops" that take 1-3 hours depending on the route. I've loaded a couple of them in the Porsche Roads app, and have intent of recreating them in the Calimoto app since Porsche Roads seems to have changed a bit (and it's only for Apple devices). Of course none of these are like what you'd find "down south" (or rather, if they are, they only last a few minutes.) But it's something.
For a "simple" one - Illinois SR 2 is pretty. Runs along the Rock River. Pick it up just south of Rockford, take it all the way to Dixon. Just did this one this past Sunday. Again, certainly not a canyon road but it's scenic and winds a bit.
Maybe you, me, and @IL_Pete get together one of these fall weekends and compare notes?
I see the OP is from Chicago, but was asking about roads south of St. Louis. I am from STL, picked up a BGTS on Oct 8, and have put about 900 miles on it on roads south of St. Louis since then. I am having an amazing time. If you are willing to drive south of St. Louis, here is what has worked for me:
It's only $15. I found them via Rennlist, actually, they were at one time a sponsor here. It's nice to have the physical map for the overview, I think. I always assume St. Louis is lacking in everything, but it turns out we have a ton of great roads just to the south.
2. Purchase the REVER App (I think like $50/year, they have periodic sales though). That has the Butler Motorcycle maps integrated into a trip planning app. To plan, you go to a.rever.com in a web browser. It has roads overlaid with butler ratings. You can draw your route, and see a real time trip-time as you build the route. So far, I have a 3.5 hour round trip out of St. Louis that I am very happy with (its the shortest path to G1 roads from St. Louis), and a 6.5-7 hour trip that is full of amazing roads, but I am still refining.
My experience with the roads is: Butler G1 roads (yellow, the best) are worth multi-hour drives to get to, in my opinion. Butler G2 roads (red, second best) are sometimes very good and sometimes barely distinguishable from G1. In my 6.5 hour drive, I recently cut out some father south G1s in favor of some G2s I really liked that were not quite so far away. G3 roads (orange, are good as connectors but rarely memorable).
3. Then, favorite your routes on a.rever.com, connect to car play, start the app on your phone, but then tap the Carplay screen and choose the heart. Start the directions from the screen, not the phone, and choose "follow route line", not "turn by turn" (in my experience, if you use turn by turn and get even a little off the route, it will get hopelessly confused). The directions won't appear on your screen unless you start them from the screen (I found this very confusing for a while).
4. There are some G2 roads west of St. Louis (notably highway 94) which I have tried and don't like as much. They are curvy, but they are more heavily trafficked, and they criss cross the katy trail bike path, which requires repeated caution just when you want to take turns fast. They might be nicer for someone looking for a wine-tour type experience, with some little quaint touristy towns (none of that down south).
5. Regarding Highway 19, I stopped at Echo Bluff State park on my long drive. It's between Salem and Eminence. It is a really nice place to eat a lunch, if you bring yours (the first right leads to a nice overlook with tables). I remember H19 being quite good in that area, but it wasn't one of the highways I remember thinking was a noted favorite.
If you end up coming south, feel free to PM me and I think I can share some of my routes with you on the app. I will say Chicago is a long way, so your mileage may vary. But I have experienced true joy on the G1 roads. I feel like I go 10-15 minutes without seeing any other cars, even coming the other way (I drive on weekdays because I have a flexible schedule). The roads all have 55mph speed limits, with lots of 30-35mph advisory turns, and I find the cornering really fun. I have been having a great time without going more than 8mph over the speed limit (but pretty much ignore the advisories). It's also beautiful country.
Most of the roads are weirdly well maintained (I really wonder why some of them even exist), but my favorite road close to St. Louis, Highway T, is the road that inspired me to add PPF on the rocker panels with some gravel coming out of driveways entering the roadway.
If you want to go even farther south, northwestern Arkansas is just littered with G1 roads. I am planning to head down there next spring. Also, you could take a look at the maps/drives referenced by PCA Palooza
These are all right in that G1 concentrated area, I suspect there is a ton of overlap.
Anyway, I have been having a great time, hope this helps!
Thanks so much...this is all great info! I'm afraid that it will all have to wait til spring since our car isn't here yet, but I may take a couple of days to do a drive down there. I can stop by for 2.5 minutes to say hi to some of my wife's family in the area, which will make it all allowable
I am in Oklahoma and some of the best kept secrets are for driving are OK/AR/MO. There are tons roads that are smooth and empty. A popular one that is scenic is PigTail in MO/AR look it up. Look up Express Rally and watch some videos to see the roads.
Hi all. Ok, so of course the Midwest isn't exactly known for twisty roads since we have a lack of elevation change in general. And I did find this thread in the 991 forums...
...but that thread doesn't have as much in it as you might expect, and I'm wondering if people care to share their favorite roads to drive their cars on here. I'm in the Chicago area and I realize I'll need to go a ways out to find much of anything, but there's one road in particular, not too far from St. Louis, that I'm wondering if anybody here has any experience with.
Anybody here in Missouri? Wondering how the drive is on MO 19 from Salem to Winona. It looks pretty good just looking at it on a map (and on Curvature) but would love to hear from somebody who's driven it if it's a good drive. It would take me quite a while to get there from the Chicago burbs so I just want to make sure it's not gravel or 25mph and loaded with police before thinking about a trip down there. TIA
Yes that is great route to go hit twisties with low traffic flow.
If you're looking to take a long weekend, and willing to go a bit further, you might check out Branson, MO. They have a lot of cabins and B&Bs there, and also some really good twisty, well-paved roads.
We met my family there last summer (Branson is about halfway between Dallas and Indy), and had a really fun time on the roads in MO, especially when we got closer to Branson.
If you're looking to take a long weekend, and willing to go a bit further, you might check out Branson, MO. They have a lot of cabins and B&Bs there, and also some really good twisty, well-paved roads.
We met my family there last summer (Branson is about halfway between Dallas and Indy), and had a really fun time on the roads in MO, especially when we got closer to Branson.
I thought I had posted in here previously, but it must have been another thread. I too am in the Midwest, although several hours from Missouri. I'm much more in @IL_Pete 's area with the Savage Geese cornfields. I'd be willing to meet folks part way in the spring/summer, or hit up some of the wineries down in the Missouri area (I didn't know there were so many until we recently went to a wedding down there). We have some beautiful roads near me as well. Curvature is a great app/site for info about the areas around you.
10-24-2021, 12:01 PM
