Day 6 Princeton to Naperville – Phil Graham of Team Canada

First of all, who knew Illinois had hills??? I came to this Tour expecting corn fields and soybeans, and miles and miles of flat. Instead I found hills, history, scenery, and lots of corn fields, soybeans and miles and miles of flat. It has been great, and I’ve been asked to summarize Day 6, Princeton to Naperville, on behalf of Team Canada. This year we were fewer in number, but strong in character with me, Warren Hoselton, Marian Makar, and in support, Joanna Nakeff.

After a challenge ride on Day 5 that lived up to its name with 110 miles of headwinds, and the “regular” ride that was almost as tough, it was a tired crowd that gathered in front of the AmericInn in Princeton under threatening skies to roll out on the fourth near-century ride in a row. Escorted by the local police, and the local trolley driver Coach Kizer who adopted the Tour as his own, we headed into the rain to City County Park for a tree dedication. Team Canada’s own Warren took on the ceremonial duties, and added some Canadian embellishments, including the famous “the roots, the roots, the roots are on fire” chant. With references to the great Canadian Beaver, he brought the international spirit to the tree dedications.

We had an 81-mile day to lunch, which is extraordinary, but fried chicken at the rest breaks carried us all through in style. And the weather cleared up, except for one scary looking system that brewed up mid-morning. It looked the opening scene of The Wizard of Oz, and the winds scattered the group I was riding in all over the road, but the winds passed as quickly as they came. Then the sun came out and the temperature climbed. And climbed. Lunch in the air conditioned Village Grind coffee shop in Oswego was a great relief from the heat, and Oswego Cyclery was a great host. The best part of the 81-mile ride to lunch was the fact that we only had 20 miles to go to the end of the day’s ride, which included a tree dedication in the TREE Fund’s home town of Naperville, at their beautiful Riverwalk Park.

I’d like to say that I hammered all day and rolled in first, but in reality we rode in much larger groups today and kept a steady but strong pace, and all rolled in together. You might say that it was because we were all tired after a tough day the day before, but in truth we were neutralizing the peleton to protest the obviously biased course officiating (right Joanna!) that say a certain fast rider disqualified in Stage 2 for going off route. Of course, this was after the very same official told me, or should I say “that anonymous fast rider,” to turn left at Bell School Road. That and a litany of other pretty sketchy official rulings just put the peleton in a rebellious mood.

Day 6 is also the last full day of the Tour, with the celebratory ride into the ISA Field Day tomorrow. Our dinner at the Morton Arboretum was a chance for us all to reminisce over the week’s adventures, recognize standout accomplishments like Dick Rideout’s first century since his accident (and then his second and third), and to start thinking about next year.

As usual, it has been a slice. From Team Canada, thanks for a great STIHL Tour des Trees.

Moline to Princeton: Jim Skiera, ISA Executive Director, Illinois

I am a first timer and just finished up my third consecutive 100-mile day. I feel both exhausted and awesome. Exhausted, as it was a warm and windy day — much of the ride was into a head wind. Awesome, as the training paid off and I made it through all three.

If you are considering doing the Tour des Trees I would highly recommend you don’t wait as long as I did. I have been thinking about it for 10 years, so just do it. The ride itself is not only good exercise, it is a wonderful social experience. I don’t believe you can mix with a better bunch of people, all with similar passions — trees and cycling.

I would liken the experience to a cycling emersion class. I learned more about cycling on the first day of the tour then I did during the five months I trained to participate. The support people are always willing to help. Mechanics are on the ready if you have a problem with your bike, and the seasoned riders welcome you and offer tips throughout the ride to make you a better cyclist. They really helped me kick up my game. I’m hooked and plan to participate again next year. I also raised valuable funds to support tree research — it is a double win.

Day 3 Rockford to Galena: Doreen ‘Captain’ Crenshaw and Tom Ordway, Team Indiana

Day Three. The best day thus far for Team Indiana! 62 plus riders headed out on a misty cool morning for one of the longest days on the 2010 Chicago Loop tour. The ‘Captain’ rallied the Team – totaling two, only one of whom bothered to show – to be ready for stretches with Maggie Harthoorn at the crack of dawn. Thanks, Maggie! Of those total tour participants, not all made it through the regimen and some had to sag to the starting position at Illinois Beach Resort. Now, by Day Three, the Fast, the Slow and the Ugly groups have started to take shape. We won’t name names…yet.

Stuart Crow’s mentoring program appears to be gaining some momentum, bringing in the next generation of tour riders. It has been fun seeing young riders, like 14-year-old Jeffrey May, join us and make us look and feel older than we already are. Hopefully, Jeffrey will inherit all of the best habits from the Texas crew, like 5 AM coffee, hammer’in SAG support, bikes for whoever might need one, etc. The bad habits can be left behind, such as …(edited portion of blog, ha!)

Amy Kraak has officially joined the Tour des Trees support crew, offering a wide assortment of tasty snacks to hot and weary road riders. When not helping with rider support, she rides a tandem with her dad Thom, making her the youngest Tour rider on record!

Despite the rainy road conditions in the morning, riders rode without incident. The road rash from the past two days is healing nicely, thank you very much. The skies cleared in the afternoon, allowing riders to push and pull through the change in terrain. In other words, we finally hit some hills…as Andy mentioned above, the horizontalized locality was made vertical!

The end of the ride day is always a welcome site. Isaac Harthoorn made up for the lack of markings by steering all riders into the back ‘servants’ entrance of the DeSoto House on Main Street in Galena, IL. Dinner, hosted by Utility Lines Construction Services with the support of Silver Sponsor ITC, was most graciously devoured by most. Thanks to Maggie and Isaac’s dad, John.

As the week progresses, Team Indiana will begin to grow in number, as we will welcoming Mr. Scott Bennett, Chuck Dykes and Andy Callahan.

This has been another great ride, memory maker and reason to get more people to ride next year and really put pressure on Paul to do another really great job.

Signed, Team Indiana

Day 4 – Galena to Moline: Andy Kittsley …

… Sez: Today, day four of the Tour, started and found us breakfasted and eager for the challenge of the day. Unfortunately, the first thing was to get out of Galena.
Galena, for those of you who have not been lucky enough to visit this place, is a charming 19th century gem. With, like 70% of the buildings of the village listed in the National Registry of Historic Places.
Anyway, like I was saying, getting out of this wonderland is another story. There are two ways out of Galena. One is on a packet boat on the Mississippi River. The other way is UP.
We were told the boat wasn’t an option.
Up we went, our bellies filled with breakfast supplied by the Desoto Hotel.
A bit about the Hotel. This is a great old creaky hotel in downtown which has hosted generals (Ulysses S. Grant’s house is a few blocks away), and presidents, just take my word for it ‘cause I didn’t write their names down. Anyway, all the rooms are named for persons real or imaginary (Tom Thumb for one, Booker T. Washington for another).
We stayed here about 9 years ago on the Minneapolis to Milwaukee Tour. Those of us who rode then were happy to be there again.
When we left the town, up we went. Climbing a few hundred feet in a half a mile doesn’t translate well. So imagine a sprint from street level to the top of the Empire State Building with a belly full of food, and you get an idea.
We got to the top.
Vistas of the Miss-ippi River were tantalizing because we knew that eventually all that climbing would mean a zoom-zoom to the bottom. And zoom-zoom describes it.
Land speed records were shattered for several riders, posting speeds in excess of 50 mph.
Fifty miles an hour on a bike with tires about an inch wide is seriously exciting fun.
And at least one van owned by someone in Illinois was damaged when it pulled out in front of Quadzilla. He was not going 50 mph, but did a bunch of damage to the van anyhow, and some to his own self, too – as you might imagine. But he says he’ll be ready to roll tomorrow.
After the verticality of the locality was horizontalized, the route became a shady rolling fun ride into Moline.
Moline, for the uninitiated, is a smallish Illinois city on the east side of the Miss-ippi, (across the river from the smallish Iowa city of Bettendorf). Moline used to make the Minneapolis-Moline Tractor in the late 1930’s and early 1940’s. This farm tractor was way ahead of it’s time in that it was fully enclosed and climate-controlled. It looked like a Plymouth on steroids.
Others may have differing views, but so far this tour ranks in the top three for me.
So now we are at dinner. I’m hungry. Love to all!