Hey LoisLane

Bike paths...hmmm. The closest one is the IL Prairie path, which you can pick up in Maywood. Unfortunately Maywood isn't the best neighborhood, so depending on your level of comfort there, you might want to go a little bit further west via car and then ride. The Prairie Path goes on for miles and miles. You can ride all the way out to Elgin or Aurora on it. If you do the entire loop, it's over 100 miles long. There are various branches, etc. It's a crushed limestone trail most of the way.

http://www.livin4jc.net/bike/trails/...airie_path.htm

Beyond that, I'm not very familiar with bike paths around here. I tend to ride in the road. Oak Park and RF have wide roads with parking lanes, so if you're comfortable in traffic then it's very easy to get around town without using a path or sidewalks.

It sounds like you'd like the Oak Park Cycle Club also. I rode with them once, and they were very nice. Many of them rode hybrids. The only reason I don't ride with them is their average speed was a bit too slow for me. They do organized rides around the area on weekends/weekdays:

http://www.oakparkcycleclub.org/

A nice route is south down Oak Park Ave. and cutting over into Riverside and Brookfield. But again, that's all on the road. I'm not aware of a path that could take you out there. Check out their ride calendar for when everything is. They meet at Scoville Park, which is on the corner of Lake St. and Oak Park Ave.

Hope that helps. Welcome to Oak Park