The Tour of Elk Grove
We are very fortunate to have a major international cycling event brought to us annually (in August) right here in the northwest suburbs of Chicago. The Tour of Elk Grove includes 3 days of professional and amateur bike racing and cycling events, supports a number of charities, and is really a lot of fun to see (especially if you are into biking).
 The Start/Finish Line located on Elk Grove Blvd at Audubon Park. |
 The peloton (main group of riders) crossing the start/finish line in one of the Saturday morning races. |
 Some of the lead riders taking the corner on Tonne Road in the Pro Women's Circuit Race on Sunday. |
The Tour of Elk Grove (TOEG) was started in 2005 and is free and open to the public (the charities are supported through the entry fees from the cyclists). There are also plenty of other activities going on with the Tour such as block parties with live music, fireworks, and even a big wheel race for the kids.
The village of Elk Grove closes down a number of streets at different times for the races (even Arlington Heights Road is closed at times) and there are cyclists from around the world that participate in this event. Prize money for the 2012 races is expected to total $75,000 so, as you can see, there are some serious bike races going on here.
********** Update June 1, 2014 **********
Sadly, the Tour of Elk Grove has been cancelled for 2014 and beyond due to scheduling with the Tour of Utah and other local events. See Tour of Elk Grove Update here on the Elk Grove Village website for more details.
The 2012 Tour of Elk Grove
I only found out about the TOEG myself last year after the event was over when I saw it televised on Comcast (which they will be doing again this year). I have posted the dates and times of the 2012 broadcasts here on the about-bycycles blog. Comcast usually broadcasts the race videos multiple times starting the month after the race (September).
One of my reasons for posting this page and the photos of the TOEG is to get the word out there for those of you who are interested in this kind of event so you wont miss it like I did last year. I made sure that I did not miss this event it this year.
 The peloton of the women's pro race as they cross the start/finish line for another lap. |
 A crash scene televised on one of the big screen monitors that are used for the TOEG. |
 A group of team cars chase after the cyclists with spare bikes and team support. |
Anyway, as for this year's Tour of Elk Grove (2012), I attended the event on all 3 days but I did not get to the Tour until later in the afternoon on Saturday, just before a big thunderstorm, and I was not able to see any of the activities on Saturday. Fortunately, a friend of mine went to the TOEG earlier in the day on Saturday and took some excellent photos of Saturday's races.
The 2012 TOEG started with the time trials on Friday afternoon. I saw the men's and women's time trails and took a number of photos to try to capture the feel of the event. With the time trails you don't have the excitement of the large group of racers but if you camp out on one of the streets where they race you get to see the cyclists racing by every few minutes.
Saturday's activities included some entry level races as well as the stage 2 pro women's and pro men's races. I saw an old friend of mine on Saturday and we intended to see the final race of the day (the pro men's stage 2 road race) but as I mentioned above we got caught in a thunderstorm and were rained out. We got caught on our bikes in a total downpour as we headed back to the car but I found out later that they did have the race a little later in the day after it cleared up.
Sunday was a beautiful day and we were able to see the pro women's and pro men's races. We saw parts of the women's race on Tonne Road and at the intersection of Tonne and Elk Grove Blvd but we also joined in with all the action at the start/finish line.
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The Tour of Elk Grove, TOEG Photo Tour
There are quite a few photos of the cyclists and races posted on the main Tour of Elk Grove website (that I referred to above) but I wanted to not only get photos of the cyclists and the races but also try to capture the overall feel of the event too.
The photo tour below includes photos from all 3 days along with additional first hand information on the events. We captured the action at the start/finish line as well as scenes from other race locations.
There are a few sharp corners at the intersection of Tonne Road and Elk Grove Blvd. and we camped out there for quite a few of the photos including one unfortunate crash scene that I was only a few yards away from.
The Tour of Elk Grove Photo Page 1
The Tour of Elk Grove Photo Page 2
The Tour of Elk Grove Photo Page 3
The Tour of Elk Grove Photo Page 4
The Tour of Elk Grove Photo Page 5
The Tour of Elk Grove Photo Page 6
The Tour of Elk Grove Photo Page 7
The Tour of Elk Grove Photo Page 8
Special thanks to Dale Kiffel for his photo contributions of the events that I missed and for some excellent photos.
The photos below are from the 2013 Tour, Prologis Pro Men Road Race (Stage 2) which was held on Saturday, August 3rd, 2013.
2013 Tour of Elk Grove Photos 1
2013 Tour of Elk Grove Photos 2
The Tour of Elk Grove, TOEG Video
I also captured a few short videos of the last race on Sunday. Here's a video with a few brief scenes (73 seconds) from the 2012 Tour of Elk Grove.
Scenes from the 2012 Tour of Elk Grove 
Enjoy your ride (or race!)...