Dane County Wisconsin May Host Olympic Cycling Events

According to a Wisconsin State Journal article, published on Jan 16th, 2009, Dane County could host several cycling events in Chicago's bid for the 2016 Olympics. A Tour de France-style race starting from Madison and head west through the country side would end at Blue Mound State Park. This area is very hilly and would more than meet the Olympic standards for a challenging course. Time trials could be held in Madison with some mountain bike events held at the Tyrol Basin ski area, which is located between Blue Mounds and Mt Horeb, Wisconsin.

Several high-caliber bicycling events already take place in the area that would host the bike route, including the Horribly Hilly 100 (and its daunting Mounds Park Road climb), the Dairyland Dare of Dodgeville and Barneveld, the Blue Mounds Classic and the 10-mile L'Alpe Bl'Huez Blue Mounds Time Trial. Tyrol Basin does have some experience hosting bike races, as the hosted collegiate competitions in the 1990s.

For those of you not familiar with Olympic cycling, here is a good breakdown of the events that Beijing hosted in 2008:

Road Race: 245.4-kilometre (152.5 mi)
Road Time Trial: 47.6 km (29.6 mi)
Cross Country: No distance was given, but the course consists of multiple laps. Last year's winning time for the Men was approximately 1 hour 55 minutes.

Other cyclists competitions consisted of Track and BMX cycling. It is assumed that these would be held in Madison or Chicago.

Obviously, Chicago getting picked as a host city is yet to be seen as they face some stiff competition in the three other cities up for selection, Madrid, Rio de Janeiro, and Tokyo.

• Official announcement of using Madison and Dane County on the Chicago 2016 website.
• Wisconsin Ironman Bike route (112 miles) also goes through the area that may be included with the Chicago 2016 Olympics. A good version of the map can be seen here.
• Beijing Cycling Road Race route in Google Sketch Up.