After 11 inches snow wreaked havoc on the 2021 USA Cycling Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships at Purgatory Resort, Fort Lewis’ Skyhawks and Durango will get another shot to show off the local trails to the nation next year.
USA Cycling announced its upcoming national championships schedule on Tuesday, with Purgatory Resort once again set to host the collegiate mountain bike championships on Oct. 13-16.
“We’re excited,” said Dave Hagen, director of FLC Cycling. “We get to learn from what we did wrong and hopefully do right again what we did right the first time. And hopefully we don’t get 11 inches of snow two days before. That really threw a wrench in last year.”
The snow caused the cross-country course to be rerouted, so cyclists climbed only about half the mountain. The downhill course was completely changed and allowed some of the top cross-country riders to pedal like mad and win the downhill races.
All the races were staged, mostly in a mix of snow, dirt and mud.
“It was pretty crazy that every race went off as scheduled,” Hagen said. “With even more organization and understanding what could go wrong up there, it will be that much easier to run a plan B.”
The chance that Purgatory gets a foot of snow right before the October championships is fairly slim, Hagen said.
“People would want to buy a lottery ticket if that happens again,” he said. “It normally doesn’t happen with that ferocity.”
Hagen also said “3 to 4 inches of snow would have been fine” and wouldn’t have caused nearly as much disruption.
If everything goes smoothly next year, the downhill mountain bikers will get to race World Cup, which would provide some good challenge to the collegiate riders, which include many of the nation’s top U23 talent.
“It’s great riding up there,” Hagen said about Purgatory. “The leaves and the atmosphere that time of year is amazing. We know everyone will get much more enjoyment out of everything (without snow), and it will also help bring more people up there.”
Fort Lewis College finished second in the varsity team omnium competition this year behind Colorado Mesa University with lots of Skyhawks reaching the podium.
The 2022 USA Cycling Mountain Bike National Championships and High School Festival also will return to Colorado, July 18-26 at Winter Park.
Other schedule highlights include the collegiate road national championships May 6-8 in Augusta, Georgia; the pro road national championships June 23-26 in Knoxville, Tennessee; the Elite BMX national championships May 1 in Phoenix; and the marathon mountain bike championships at an undetermined date in Frederick Maryland. The venues for few events, like the cyclocross championships, will be announced later.
