Elk Grove Village Mayor Craig Johnson has made no small plans in his attempt to put his home on the map via the sport of cycling. Plans for his Tour of Elk Grove get even bigger in August 2008, its third year: A professional road race will make its debut, a JumboTron will help fans track the action, and the weekend’s $225,000 payout will be theworld’s largest for a three-day cycling event.

Part of what has made the Tour of Elk Grove extraordinary is that is has always included a full slate of amateur racing. What’s more, its amateur purses have been the most generous in the Midwest, making it one of the few weekends where even a Cat 4 racer stands a good chance of a decent payday.

Since August, however, we amateurs have been wondering how the 2008 changes will affect us. To find out I went straight to the top and asked Mayor Johnson about what to expect. Some details remain to be finalized, but as things stand now:

• » Saturday’s road race will start in Schaumburg and end with circuits of the 4.5-mile time trial course, a portion of which makes up that day’s amateur criterium course, meaning racing will either be put on hold for or will be scheduled around the pros’ arrival.

• » A two-criterium series for Cat 1/2 men will feature a $35,000 purse. (That’s almost as much money as is on the line for P/1/2’s over the entire 17 races of Superweek.) The overall will be decided by time, with time bonuses available at both stages.

• » Masters racing will expand. Cat 1/2 masters get a 50-minute race with a $6,000 purse, 3/4 masters get 40 minutes and $3,000, and Cat 5 masters get 20 minutes and awards.

• » Men’s 3’s score big: They’ll get their own 60-minute race, after sharing a 20-minute race with the 4’s in 2007. Cat 4’s will get their own 25-minute race, and 5’s will get a third field to accommodate demand -- this in addition to the Cat 5 masters race.

• » The good race director giveth, and he taketh away. To make room for added men’s races, there will be no juniors races, and the lone women’s race will have an open field. The women’s purse will be $4,000, down from a combined $18,000 in 2007.

• » Portions of each entry fee will benefit the Heart of the Marines Foundation and the Elk Grove Village Fallen Soldiers Memorial Fund, which provides scholarships in the name of Elk Grove residents killed in the line of duty.

This next year brings many exciting changes but also some challenges.

• » Will the country’s best teams return even though the race isn’t on the National Racing Calendar?

• » Can the race shrug off any embarrassment from its 2007 winner, Nathan O’Neill, having tested positive for a banned diet drug?

• » Will spectators finally show up in numbers that do justice to the caliber of the riders?

• » Will Elk Grove and Schaumburg have the logistical wherewithal to pull off a successful road race? (Chicago cycling historians, help me out here: When was the last time there was a road race this close to the city?)

For answers to all this and more, here’s the Chicago Bike Racing interview with Mayor Johnson.

What kind of cyclist are you?
I’m a newer cyclist. I bought my first bike since college two years ago when we were doing the bike race for the first time. But I’ve always been somewhat of a fan of it.

Let me explain how all this got started. Our community celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of a band called REO Speedwagon.

A little bit, yes.
We had them come and do a concert for the community. Back in the early ‘70s they played at our teen center when they were first coming out. We thought that would be a neat way to celebrate our birthday: Get a band that really made it big after it was playing little teen centers.

So we did that, and I was trying to think of a way to bring the world to Elk Grove. I had followed bike racing, and I said, “You know, that would really be neat if we could do something like that.” `We can’t bring the Cubs to play a game in Elk Grove. But we could have world-class cycling in Elk Grove.’We can’t bring the Bears to play in Elk Grove. We can’t bring the Cubs to play a game in Elk Grove. But we could have world-class cycling in Elk Grove.

It was going to be a one-time event. In order to get the community involved I thought, Besides getting the pros to race and the differing categories out there, why don’t we do a community race, where we have a mayor’s challenge?

The event was a huge success the one year. I’m not sure if you remember, but Floyd Landis was going to race that year.

I remember that.
And six days before our race he got caught. That was kind of a blow to us. We had ESPN coming out to cover the race. We had all the major networks coming out. This was going to be Floyd’s first race, since he won the Tour de France, back in America.

It would have been neat to have that, but it was such a success in the community and so many riders liked it, and more importantly our community loved it, we decided we wanted to have an annual event now.

Last year we went from a one-stage professional criterium to three stages over two days: a time trial and a crit the first day and a final crit on Sunday. And of course we kicked up the purse, which is astronomical in the cycling world, as we’re finding out. We had the largest purse for a two-day event in the world last year.

So we said, If we’re really going to make this a real event that’s going to be on the top level -- and we go back and forth on whether to be UCI sanctioned or not -- we really have to get a road stage in. So we decided that this year we’re going to have a time trial on Friday evening for the top pros, we’re going to have a 90-mile road stage with the neighboring town of Schaumburg, and we’re going to finish with a final 110km crit in Elk Grove on Sunday.

We of course kicked up the purse, and we just got verification that we’ve got the biggest purse for a three-day, three-stage race in the world [$225,000]. That’s exciting for us, because we want to make sure people realize we’re making a premiere event here.

We’ve also expanded some other things. For example, we’re going to do three Category 5 races. We’ve separated the men’s 3/4 race into separate races, and we lengthened the time on them. The men’s 3’s race will be a 60-minute race. Even the Category 4, I think we’re going to do 25 minutes and a lap. Last year we did 20 minutes. I’m eventually going to get the 4’s to 30 minutes and a lap.

We also increased the purse. One thing we’re doing that’s unique is a two-day, two-stage Cat 1/2 race. It’s almost like a little mini tour. The purse on that is $35,000.

Will that be two criteriums?
They’ll be criteriums. Trust me, trying to do a road race in this area is impossible.

I believe it. What can you tell me about the course?
The road race is going to start in Schaumburg. They’re working on that as we speak. They’re going meander through the community a little bit and then end up in an area where they can do an 8- or 9-mile loop and do five or six of those. And then they’re going to bring it back through the town, back into Elk Grove, and we’ll have them finish up on our course. We’ll use the same time trial course, which is 4.5 miles. So they’ll do four or five loops or whatever we need to get to the 90 miles. We want we meet the minimum requirements and make it a 160km for a road stage, so there will be some loops in there. We’re trying to minimize the amount of that.

What we’re going to do this year that’s neat for the fans is we’re going to have a JumboTron TV with live feed for all the races. For the road stage we’ve already hired the helicopter and we’ve got the motorcycle rider that will carry the feed for the road stage live back to our JumboTron so the fans in Elk Grove will be able to see the pros going.

At the same time the pros are running in Schaumburg, we’re going to run some races on our course, so they can check on the TV to see how the pros are doing at the same time they’re seeing some racing in the village.

All the races, the Cat 5 races all the way up to the Cat 1/2 two-stage race, will be televised live on the JumboTron. So as they’re riding the crit course, you’ll be able to see them as they are away from the start/finish line.

We want to become more fan friendly. We’re doing two nights of block parties. After Friday night’s time trial with the pros and after Saturday’s road stage is complete, we’ll have live concerts and fireworks for the fans. If they want to hang around and have a beer or have a brat, they can do that.

We’re going to have a Kids Fest area. One thing we heard from the parents is, “Hey, bicycling’s fun for them but sometimes the kids get a little antsy.” So Wal-Mart’s going to sponsor a kids fest area, where they have the jumping gym area `We’re trying to get in more races ... We’re doing is we’re tying to give what the riders are asking for.’and the slides and all of that. And all that is free to the community.

We’re really trying to expand more. We’re trying to get in more races. One thing I’m sorry to say will be eliminated this year will be the junior races. And we’re going to cut down to just one women’s open race. We’re not going to have two different women’s races this year.

And in all honesty the reason on that is lack of riders. One of the juniors races we were doing I think had seven riders. To take away time on the course when we had so many people clamoring for Cat 5 races -- we had to turn riders away for the Cat 5 last year. And I know the 3’s and 4’s wanted to be separated. We heard from them on that one. So what we’re doing is we’re tying to give what the riders are asking for.

All the races, we’ve increased the purses. I mean, $35,000 for a two-stage 1/2 race? It’s unprecedented. No one does that.

The women will not be doing the road race?
No. They’ll just have an open criterium race. I’m sorry we had to do that, but I was very disappointed with the women last year. The first year, we did a $6,000 women’s P/1/2 race and I think we had 48 riders. And they came clamoring to me: “Mayor, it’s great what you’re doing, but give us some purses that rival the men’s. C’mon, come through for us!” And I said, “I’ll do it for you, ladies, if you turn the riders out.”

So last year we did a one-stage criterium, P/1/2 women, $15,000 prize money, which is unheard for women -- and we had only 38 riders. We had 10 less riders than we had the year before. And I said, “Come on. You asked me for something, I delivered for you, even though a lot of the people involved said I was crazy to do it.” I wanted to give ‘em the chance, and they didn’t come out.

So just one women’s race?
Yes. It’s an open, so you can be a pro on down to Cat 4.

The National Racing Calendar came out last month and Elk Grove wasn’t on it. Do you expect it to get on there? What difference do you think that will make as far as what teams you attract?
I don’t think it’s going to hurt us because everyone knows now about the Tour of Elk Grove. We were disappointed with the calendar situation. I talked to USA Cycling about that. What happened was, we changed our weekend from the second weekend of August to the first weekend of August. At that time they already had two long-standing races on there. Obviously nowhere near the type of fields or the purses that we put out, but for this one year they said out of respect for those races they didn’t want to bump ‘em out. Next year, they’ve already assured us, we will be on the National Racing Calendar again.

The reason we moved it -- and we are now permanently set for the first weekend of August -- is that we have the Arlington Million going on. Our main paper sponsor, the Daily Herald, is in Arlington Heights to cover both, and they’ve asked us for years to move.

The other thing this year is the Olympics start the second weekend of August, and it would have been difficult to attain some of the top riders if we’d stuck to the second weekend. So we decided that, after talking to Chris Horner (Astana) and to Freddie Rodriguez (Rock Racing), and they can definitely make it over after the Tour [de France] to our race, and the other pros can. Matter of fact, they’d prefer to have it up that first weekend.

Everyone loves seeing Chris Horner there. Do you expect him back next year?
No question. Chris, we expect Fast Freddie back, and we expect a lot more riders from over in Europe. We’ve gotten a lot of inquiries, now that we’ve added the road stage, from the other teams in Europe. They’re excited. So you’ll see even a better field of pros. Christian Vandevelde, we expect fully to be back again next year.`[Chris Horner and Freddie Rodriguez] didn’t come over to make appearances. They came over to race and to win.’

And if you noticed, Chris and Freddie didn’t come over to make appearances. They came over to race and to win. This race, they view it as one of the top races in the world and they want to be competitive in it.

The amount of money you’re able to raise for this is frankly astounding. How do go about getting people to contribute to a sport they may not be familiar with?
Our lead sponsor is Alexian Brothers, and they’ve got a beautiful commitment with us. It’s a three-year rolling contract. In other words, after each year if they’re happy with it, we’re guaranteed two more years of sponsorship. So they’re on line for not only this year but also for 2009 and 2010.

The other main sponsors -- Citi, Elk Grove Bank, Gullo International Development -- they’re all good. And even the small sponsors -- The atmosphere we have here, the effect we have here with these bike races, it’s a community event. And with the kids fests and the big-wheel races, anyone who wants to ride on the same course as the pros race on, they can. You and I, we can’t drive our cars at the Indy 500. You and I can’t go play baseball at Wrigley Field.

So I think one reason that it’s taken off so well and the sponsors want to be a part of it is it’s more than a bike race. It’s a community and a regional and now it’s becoming a national event. And they like that. They like the partnership, and they like the atmosphere we put on for them.

Will the criterium and time trial courses be the same?
The time trial course will be the same. The criterium courses will be the same: Saturday will be the longer criterium, Sunday will be the shorter criterium. The only difference is that when the pros come back from the road stage they will ride the time trial course when they do the loops.

What was your reaction to the Nation O’Neill positive test?
I felt bad for Nathan, but the feedback I got, and my feeling is, we did the right thing. We’ve always said that we’re going to try to run the cleanest event there is in professional cycling. I feel bad that Nathan had the problem he had, but it proved to the riders that we’re not kidding and we’re not just giving lip service. We will try run the cleanest race in the professional circuit.

Remember, the vast majority of riders are clean riders, and they should face fair, equal competition. No one should have an unfair advantage. We’re going to continue the testing, and we’re going to look for ways to make it even stronger in the future.

I live in Chicago. Our mayor is a bike enthusiast, too. Who would win a 10km time trial between the two of you?
I don’t know, but if you’d like to try it, I’d be glad to do it. I would love to do it.

Maybe that’s a good way to settle the O’Hare expansion.
I’d be willing to do it, but I’m not sure he would.