The Iron Horse Bicycle Classic will host a new event this year that will officially clock some cyclists’ race against the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad train.
The Tailwind Nutrition Beat the Train Challenge will kick off this year as a part of the McDonald’s Citizens Tour to Silverton, which begins at 8 a.m. Saturday.
The Iron Horse race was conceived after two brothers decided to race each other in 1971. Jim Mayer, who worked on the train, was challenged by his brother, Tom, an avid cyclist, on a race to Silverton. The duel inspired the creation of a bike race the next year, and the race against the train has been a focus for the event ever since, IHBC race director Gaige Sippy said.
“We’re really just kind of formalizing what has gone on for the last 45 years into something a little more structured,” Sippy said.
Beating the train is part of the Citizens Tour appeal, but there has not been any formal recognition for those who do so. Cyclists who have entered the race have had to compete against the train on their own and without any pacing guidance, and many of them don’t even know how long it takes for the train to get to Silverton, Sippy said.
“We’ve never spent any real time capturing people who actually beat the train to Silverton,” Sippy said.
Tom Mayer will be among the 150 participants of the challenge who will be corralled in the front of the 1,840 cyclists participating in the citizens race. Mayer will ride on the same bike he rode when he raced his brother in 1971.
The group will be led by a group of five pacers who will focus on helping the cyclists beat the train by maintaining a carefully calculated pace. Each aid station will have a clock to provide cyclists not only their own time but the train’s time as well. The train takes three hours and 30 minutes to reach Silverton, and the pacers will be on course to arrive at three hours and 25 minutes.
“We’re not trying to enable people to set any speed records, to finish in a sub-three hour,” said Jenny Vierling, founder of Tailwind Nutrition and co-organizer of the event. “It really is designed to help people beat the train.”
Bayfield-based Tailwind Nutrition sponsored and helped organize the event. The IHBC and Tailwind have sent the participants packets of information, including fueling tips, altitude guides, peloton riding tips, and pacing trips in general.
The participants who beat the train will take a group photo together, which will be hung inside the train station. The plan is to continue this tradition with a new poster next year, Sippy said.
“This is a test run,” Sippy said. “That’s why we’re keeping it to 150. We’ll see how the logistics of it go, the planning of it goes, and then I would like to believe it is something you see long term.”
asemadeni@durangoherald.com
