Monsters of the Midway Preview (and a little history)

What's flat and four-cornered, yet scenic and exciting?  That would be the Monsters of the Midway Criterium, now in it's 22nd year on the beautiful Midway Plaisance by the historic University of Chicago campus.   

Monsters is the longest running -- and still running -- criterium in Chicago.  It all began with, well, actually I'm  a little unclear on the beginnings.  In the early '90s the then young University of Chicago Velo club, headed by Ed Desjardins, had some serious racers (Scott Anderson, Craig Gartland, Paul Sklena,…) participating in races like the great Chicago International Cycling Challenge, Superweek, and the Tour of Illinois.  They also held a little criterium race on campus called Monsters of the Midway.   Back then, the Monsters logo wasn't a cycling gargoyle, but a voracious monster devouring his handlebars mid-race.  (Hey, I might devour mine too if I had 90's downtube shifters).

Monsters and the velo club faded sometime around '93 or '94 but picked themselves back up in 1995 with a revitalized race, thanks to some help from ABR.  Here's Ed's 1995 announcement - pretty exciting:

"The University of Chicago Velo Club will be hosting our 5th Annual Monsters 
of the Midway Criterium Bicycle Race on Sunday, May 14 (Mother's Day)
...We will be the final stage of the Tour of Illinois and Wisconsin.  We are 
running 9 USCF categories, plus a Public race.  Weather forecast calls for 
ideal conditions (sun, 77 deg).  Food concessions will be sold.  Finish 
line services and race announcing provided by Velo Tech.  A demonstration 
of "old-time" bicycles will be provided by the Bicycle Museum of America…"

In the late 90's Monsters grew to draw some of the biggest names in Midwestern cycling, including the Trek women's regional team and members of the US Postal Service, and featured as the Illinois State Championship.

This year we're proud to be part of the Illinois cup, and although we won't have any old-timey bicycles to showcase, we are hoping for a repeat of the 1995 weather.   The course is a classic,  four-corner, 1.1 mile loop; safe and beginner-friendly.  But watch out Cat 1's:  the majority of the course is visible from most points, so there's no hiding from your chase group when you're off the front.  And no hiding from spectators either.  

2012 also promises to be a big year.  With one week of preregistration left to go (as of writing), we're already approaching the prereg totals of last years race.  If that's not tempting enough to get you out here with the crowd, we've got some excellent premes lined up to keep you hammering off the front, including bike fits from Trek bikes on Michigan, coffee coffee coffee thanks to Hyde Park's Cafe 57, swag from Skratch labs, and more.  We've also got some special deals to encourage women and collegiate racers to come out -- details on bikreg. 

As always, we encourage Chicago racers to ride to the race down the lakefront path.  
Hope to see you out there looking monster-ous, 

- Katie Mann
2012 Monsters of the Midway race director
ucvc.uchicago.edu/Monsters.html