A summer tradition on wheels: Chicago Grit racing series begins in suburbs drawing crowds

The Chicago Grit bicycle racing series is serious enough to employ a course designed by an Olympic cyclist.

Meanwhile, at most of the 10 Grit stops, spectators can move from their lawn chairs near the course to a beer garden or join their children in a kids’ activity area.

“I take this day off every year,” said Marianne Haverty from her front lawn while she rang a bell as riders rode past her Geneva Street home Friday in West Dundee. “Everyone comes out. It’s like a social event.”

“It really has a different energy as opposed to if you’re just going around a fair,” said Amanda Orenchuk, Mundelein’s director of community development, who helps organize the Tighthead Mundelein Grand Prix, the fourth event of the series.

The Chicago Grit, formerly the Intelligentsia Cup, started its 13th tour of metropolitan Chicago on Friday in West Dundee.

“I’m a bike rider and to see this sport at the highest level is cool,” said Scott Hannig of Mesa Arizona. He stood near the finish line in West Dundee Friday and comes every year to escape the Arizona heat and watch the races.

It will resume at 10 a.m. Saturday with the Ray Whalen Builders Tour of Lake Ellyn in Glen Ellyn, a course originally conceived by two-time Olympian and U.S. Bicycling Hall of Famer John Vande Velde.

The criterium-style races and accompanying festivities continue with daylong events in Winfield, Mundelein, Lombard, Brookfield, Northbrook, Elgin, and Lake Bluff before concluding on July 27 in Chicago.

“This is not the Tour de France,” said Eric Larson, who chairs the host committee for the Elgin Classic, “but when you look at the riders as they race or talk to them after, you’d never know it.”