'Cult Following' For Carroll County Cycling Event

By Frank Flack, Carroll County Cycle Club

For yet another year the Carroll County Cycling Club was happy to have beautiful weather for the Race and tour ride around the Carroll County area. Although rain seemed to splash down in the days preceding the race and again later in the afternoon, the racers rode for the 6th straight year under bright sunny skies.

Racers and riders traveled from both near and far to partake in the event, which is developing a substantial cult following. People attended from as far away a Massachusetts and as close as Freeport, IL. Many of the racers were former state and national champions both from the USA and abroad.

This years race returned to Savanna IL, which is where the inaugural event took place, with the start line beginning at Old Mill Park. Typically the race route in Savanna goes up 4th Street and Hospital Hill to get up to Scenic Ridge Road. This year to avoid complications and traffic congestion at the Chicago Ave and Rte 84 intersection, racers were treated to the scenic by-ways of Oakton and Dean Roads enroute to Scenic Ridge Road.

The race stayed on its typically hilly back-road route through to Mt. Carroll, Lanark, and Chadwick. After leaving Chadwick, Racers made a small change in the route, due to construction on Ideal Road, and instead stayed on Argo Fay route to the Village of Thomson and onto the finish line.

The Race Finish Line this year was move to Riverview Road about 1/4 of a mile south of the Rte 84 junction. This allowed the racers a long fast straight way for a competitive finish. In other years, racers usually head up Rte 84 to the bike path and into Savanna. This particular plan was set aside for safety reason. Competitive racers tend to really speed up close to a finish line to make sure that they do better than the next person, even if only by a mere 1/100th of a second. Because of this high speed finish and the tight area on the bike path that the public also uses, there was no way this could be included for the finish. Interestingly enough, the path was also flooded on that day.

The Carroll County Cycling event has grown the number of participants each year since its start. This is the first year that number did not grow, holding with the same number in attendance as last year, mostly do to the reports that everything in Western IL and Eastern IA were flooded out.

Much of the growth that occurs is due to the Cult following that the race has developed as a true road race. Once again this year, racers that attended were very excited to tell their other race club members about the event for next years calendar. Many of the Top racers here consider this race to be their highest priority race and train all out for up to 4 months just for this race.

The Race Directors would sincerely like to thanks all of the people who tirelessly volunteered to make this event a reality. Various individuals, community members, church groups, and business owners all pitched in to show the racers and riders how great we are out here. A special thanks to the Carroll County Sherriff, Jeff Dorn, for helping organize safety concerns, the Carroll Co. Deputies, the several Auxiliary Patrollers, and all of the City Police and Rescue people who helped watch intersections. Without the help of all of these good people, the race would not be able happen.

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