Times change; cycling is no different.
Through 43 years, the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic has done plenty of changing of its own, but a concentrated shift in focus from professional cyclists to the citizen races has been evident in recent years.
“When we very first started this, it was totally a racers’ race event. It was that way all the way through the 1980s,” chairman of the race committee and IHBC founder Ed Zink said. “But the whole industry has shifted. Big tours are growing more than the straight competitive events.
“It is a competition; I shouldn’t quite call it racing.”
This year’s abbreviated road race from Buckley Park in downtown to Durango Mountain Resort featured just three categories: professional men, professional women and the Citizens Tour. The Citizens Tour was not broken up into age or gender categories, leaving one list of results that ran 1,554 riders deep.
What used to be a USA Cycling-sanctioned event with more than a dozen categories has turned more into a gran fondo style event in which thousands of riders unite for a big ride together, de-emphasizing competition. Gran fondos started in Italy and quickly have become popular in the U.S.
“One of the things that has impacted our professional field is that the U.S. Pro Championships have been scheduled on Memorial Day weekend, and that is drawing away the cream of the crop professional racers,” Zink said. “As we try to balance all of those factors, we are just following a trend.”
Because of the lack of categories in this year’s race, there was no overall omnium point standings throughout the three-stage event. Albuquerque’s Kip Taylor, who was third in the omnium in 2013 and unofficially would’ve been the omnium champion in this year’s race, said that was discouraging.
“The event is straying away from a competitive setting and turning into a fondo-type format where everyone just rides to Silverton,” said Taylor, who rides professionally for High Desert Bicycles. “Hearing there was no omnium format was disappointing. I had a lot of thoughts this weekend that this might be my last doing all the events. The lack of USAC officiating and broader focus on a fondo style event, it just isn’t what it used to be.”
First-year IHBC race director Jeff Frost said the committee will reassess its strategy going into next year’s race. He said more categories likely are to be added to the Citizens Tour.
“The omnium is solely driven by the amount of categories you offer. When we made the decision to only have two road race categories, open men and open women, the omnium would’ve only been available to a handful of riders,” Frost said. “Next year, we will add back more age-group categories to the road race so we can bring back the omnium, but we will only bring back two or three categories, not 30 or 40. Adding those will translate better into the criterium and time trial events and get the numbers back up in those.”
When it comes to USA Cycling officiating, that appears to be gone for good. Zink said that directly correlates to insurance problems.
“We certainly could be a USAC event. The issue, interestingly, is one about insurance. They have wonderful insurance, but it is quite narrowed and tailored to the race, not to having buses and trucks and transportation and kid and citizens events,” Zink said. “The broadness of our event, their insurance is nervous with us. They go, ‘Oh my gosh, you are doing all these things, we only know how to insure races.’ That’s the reality of what we have to deal with.”
Zink said one of the biggest perks of the IHBC is the blend of road racing and mountain biking, and it is the kids and citizens events the IHBC organizers have been working hard to develop.”
“We did 372 kids at the kids races this year, and that started at age 3,” Frost said. “We had 47 3-year-olds; that’s big to us. We want to accommodate everyone.”
Five-time IHBC road race champion and Specialized Cross Country team captain Ned Overend said those events are a big deal for long-term sustainability of the Iron Horse.
“I was downtown when they had the kids race, and that is an important event,” said Overend, a Durangoan and Hall of Fame cyclist. “There are a lot of people down here, and to get those events on and activities like the Cruzer Criterium, as a festival of cycling for those who traveled here and live here, it’s always good.”
But, with more and more races springing up each year on the same weekend as the IHBC, and without USA Cycling involvement, Taylor doubts the race can keep the same appeal to elite riders from outside Durango.
“With such strong local talent, it was still very hard, but the overall competitive numbers were down this year, which could especially be seen in the crit and (time trial),” Taylor said of the Iron Horse’s final two events that drew a total of 14 open men’s cyclists, numbers way down from previous years.
“The fact that this year and last year was not a USAC-officiated race, you can see teams like Strawberry Farms and others will not show up to an event ran as such. ... Without a USAC-sanctioned race, there is really no reason for a team to use their funds to show up.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
