You should *always* trace to a real server (it can be a mail server, news server, or DNS server very close to you, though). Ideally, the server you trace to is one that you regularly use and have problems with. This does a few things for you:

1) It gives credability to your data when you use it to complain about problems. If you trace to a router and it has performance problems ... who cares? No one uses a *router* - they go to another destination.

2) It could be that that router wasn't even *supposed* to be doing anything durint the period you traced because the routing tables were selecting a different router to be used. If that's the case, then all your data collection was invalid.

3) Routers can respond completely differently when they are traced to directly, rather than through.

It's almost certain that you can find a server / service very close to you that is normally something that people use (ie: mail, dns, news). Instead of looking for a router, look for one of these.