Yesterday - Saturday, September 26th - was the Tour of Scenic Ogle County, or TŌSOC. This is an annual event put on as a fundraiser for the Village of Progress, a sheltered workshop in Oregon Illinois.
I rode this event last year (and took an abundance of pictures along the way, so follow the link for those details - it really is scenic) but it was a virtual activity owing to the pandemic.
This year the event was on for real, and fully supported. This is a relatively casual event - No timing chips, no one tracking and later posting your times. There are start times for each of the routes - 10, 32, and 62 miles - but this appears to be simply to ensure that the supports are available and that the supporters can be done within a reasonable period of time.
For my part, to get there by the 7:30 AM registration time I had to get up in the wee hours of darkness to have time for breakfast and to pack things up. This schedule had me enjoying the sunrise and the morning mist of the Midwest on my way to the event. The experience reminded me of early mornings with my Dad going fishing - the hushed tones of activity in the early hours, the quiet ride there… good feelings all around.
I actually managed to get there a little too early - registration was at 7:30, but in my head it was at 7, and I didn’t re-check before I left, so I arrived accordingly. Still, better to be a little early than to be late, and they did start registration a little early as well, so it all worked out.
It’s a beautiful course, riding through multiple types of territory, from the small-town settings of Sterling, Grand Detour, and Mount Morris, through river country and the hills those waterways cut into the landscape…
Yup - Hills in Illinois
To the Nachusa Grasslands and the opportunity to see Bison (though I’m at a zero for success on that front now two years running). There are multiple other preserves along the way, including the Bald Hill Prairie Preserve (though I think nowadays we’d say Follicularly challenged hill) and the Silver Creek Biodiversity Preserve.
What all of this means is that you have an array of scenery to ride through instead of the swaths of corn and soybeans that people sometimes think is all of Illinois.
You also spend part of your time within view of the Byron Nuclear Power Plant, which I cannot help but take pictures of every time I ride past it…
Byron in the distance
Byron again - it’s everywhere!
I’m not attracted to the plant itself, per se, but I think that it looks so incongruous against the rural backdrop that it draws my attention. There you are, riding along seeing barns and corn and trees and then BAM! Cooling towers. And you see it a lot during the first third of the ride, because it’s visible from quite a distance. Heck - I live 32 miles away from it, as the crow flies, and I can see the steam the towers put off from my house.
And the old computer game fan in me cannot refrain from including this shot:
Will I survive it???
I’m pleased to say that I tackled it successfully and not even once did I contract dysentery). To be fair, tho, I was only on it for about about a mile, so…
The wind picked up towards midday, coming straight out of the west. This made about half of the last 12 miles or so especially challenging - pushing against you just as your legs are at their weakest. But then again, that’s life on the prairie - as fall comes in, the wind kicks up like it’s just been waiting it’s turn.
This was a well-supported event, with multiple rest stations along the way, all with water and snacks freely available at reasonable intervals. At least a couple of these also offered restroom stops, which is much handier than the alternative of looking for a relatively private area of cornfield (which I would certainly never do).
And there’s food at the end - an old-fashioned midwestern-style potluck - to let you fuel back up for the ride home.
The ride is definitely set up as a road-touring event, even for the 62-mile course, so it attracts cyclists at all skill levels and ages. This means that wherever you are at, you are encountering people at a similar level of capability. I was, however, still the only person I saw on a recumbent trike. I’m content to be different (which happens regardless of whether I choose it), but I’m still waiting to see our machines catch on here outside of the more populated areas.
If this sounds like your sort of thing, I can recommend it - the ride is always set for the last Saturday in September, and the funds go towards a very good cause. Check it out!