By OOFD Volunteer and Guide David Stanford After riding with OOFD for the past 5 years, this year has been my first year volunteering with them. I’ve been really excited about the Train O’ Lakes ride since hearing about it, since the Chain O’ Lakes state park is one of my favorites, and it’s always exciting to find a new bike route somewhere I’ve only ever driven. This route ended up being even more special because I got to help out doing some of the initial research to talk about the history of the places on the ride, specifically Wheaton, and it’s history as the home of the Chicago, Aurora, and Elgin interurban. The week leading up to the ride had raining forecasts for the day, but on the day of that only ended up being cloud cover, luckily. It’s a long ride out to the park taking the Prairie Path Geneva Spur and the Fox River Trail, so we had an early start from the Dark Matter Star Lounge Cafe. Our group was not too large for the ride, which gave everyone a chance to get to know all the riders on our 90 mile day. The start of the route, like many of our long days, had to get from the city to the trails. The city of Chicago has been improving the bike lanes throughout the city, so we took some new ones (or new ones to me) along Madison Street to get out to the start of the Illinois Prairie path. The Prairie path was in great shape, even with the recent rain, and car traffic was really accommodating of us getting through. It was great to have a little bit of a wind at this point in the journey to blow away the humidity starting to build up on the day, and in our bike clothes from working our way across the city. We took the Prairie Path to our first stop, the French Market in Wheaton. It was a hopping place, and most everyone got fresh snacks to nibble on to help fuel us for our ride. Rachel got new spices at the market that ended up going with Dinner and Breakfast at camp. It was a good thing we fueled up at Wheaton, because while we had about another hour of cloud cover, the day only kept getting hotter, and the clouds broke to a beautiful but spicy day. As we road out on the Geneva Spur, we passed a small municipal airport, and saw planes taking off over the pathway. It was good it was beautiful because this was one of the hottest segments of our ride, and into a headwind without the tree cover of the early portions of the path. But the headwind didn’t last long, because soon afterwards we hit the Fox River, and the Fox River Trail. The Trail takes you along places that used to be the old Fox River Trolley system, though some of the towns along the river had since developed that property and had to improvise sections of the trail. Everyone was happy for the shaded stop in St. Charles right by a fountain that could be turned into a splash pad and a cafe selling ice cream and popsicles. After folks were rejuvenated, we were off to our next stop, Lunch in Elgin. We stopped at the Blue Box Cafe, an homage to Dr. Who. The interior was very cute, the sandwiches were tasty, and the fancy lemonade / tea mixtures they were making really perked us up. We were 50 miles in, but had barely started hitting the hills yet. It was definitely one of those days that every stop was appreciated, because it gave us a chance to cool down, re-apply sunscreen, and hydrate. Our next stop to hydrate was at the Casey’s in Lake in the Hills, where the heat and the slow incline had started breaking the group up a bit. We regrouped and made our way to the Crystal Lake Park District Nature Center. Some riders got an impromptu tour of the moth and butterfly room, and we all learned about Graminoid Fen’s, and how much of those type of Fen’s in Illinois got drained and converted to farmland. The small one left in the park was beautiful. After the park we entered Stearnes Woods, one of the most fun up and down sections of the ride, though a little precarious to ride with a bike loaded down with camping equipment. Everyone gave each other enough space that we had a chance to zoom down the hills, and try to maintain momentum up the next hill in front of us. This took us onto the Prairie Trail which goes up to the Glacial Park Preservation Area. I love learning about the different environments we have nearby, and this park which had been converted to farmland got re-converted to prairie after an opportune flood made a local ranger notice the remnants of the old creek bed and the effects of the last ice age still being evident on the land. From there, it was a quick 10 miles (with a tailwind finally!) to the Chain O Lakes Park. The entrance road way was as beautiful prairie as I remembered, and even more beautiful was fellow OOFD guide Alex there at the park waiting and ready for us with hot coals in the fire pit, and veggies chopped and ready for us to make our dinner whenever we were ready. Some opted for a quick beverage first, while others setup tents, and others went straight for the showers to wash off the layers of sun screen and bug spray and grime from the day. Dinner was delicious and because we were taking the Metra in the next day, we didn’t need to rush off to bed to get to sleep. We didn’t stay up too late though because of the 90 mile ride in the heat, but the temperature finally turned, and we had cool sleeping weather to help us rest and relax off the miles. Alex coming out in a car was key for breakfast the next day, because he brought along a griddle. That lead to us having pancakes, and hash, and sausages and scrambled eggs for breakfast for everyone to continue replenishing the calories burnt the next day. After some quick breakfast cleanup we were on our 5 mile journey to the Fox Lake Metra station. Our nemesis road US-12 (which we deal with going to the Dunes in Indiana) continued to be a pain in our side, as it’s the only way to get across the lakes to get to the Metra station. We road on about ¼ mile of grass, ex-sidewalk, and unnecessary curb cut driveways to get to the bridge, and then were scott free. After a stop at a nearby coffee shop for folks to get last minute snacks and caffeine for the train ride, we got on the train and made our way back into the city
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