Kickapoo Trail Map Poster — Watercolor Edition

About this print

Kickapoo map poster

Kickapoo State Recreation Area sits along the Middle Fork of the Vermilion River just west of Danville, in east-central Illinois. The land was strip-mined for coal before it became a park, and that history is still visible in the deep ponds scattered through the property and in the folded, uneven ground that riders now thread between. For a state often described as flat, the ravines dropping toward the river give the singletrack here a reputation that pulls people in from Champaign, Indianapolis, and Chicago for a weekend of laps.

This print is drawn from the mapped trail network, about 41.7 miles of trail with roughly 8,190 feet of climbing across the system when the full network is linked together. Seen all at once, the lines make a shape that is hard to picture from the saddle: loops folding back on themselves, connectors stitching one section to the next, the whole thing pressed against the bend of the river. The Watercolor Edition treats that tangle as a painterly subject, with soft washes and bleeding edges rather than the hard precision of a trail map.

It suits someone who has ridden Kickapoo enough that the network has become familiar territory, or someone who learned to ride dirt here and moved away. Hung in a hallway, an office, or a garage near the bike stand, it reads as a record of ground covered rather than a set of directions, and it is meant as art rather than something to navigate by. Worth considering, too, as a gift for the riding partner who keeps suggesting one more lap before the drive home.

More mountain bike trail map posters · Did it yourself? Make a poster from your own Strava activity

Route details

Distance

41.7 mi

Elevation gain

8,192 ft

Location

Kickapoo State Recreation Area, Illinois, United States

Collection

Mountain Biking, Trails

Edition

Watercolor Edition