Ned Overend felt the pressure. And if he relaxed, even for a moment, a sponsor or friend or someone on the street would remind him of the expectations.

Having the first-ever World Mountain Bike Championships take place just up the road from home doesn’t come without some stress.

“I felt pressure from myself, from the town, from sponsors,” Overend said of the days and weeks leading to the Sept. 16, 1990, cross country race. “That’s all anybody wanted to talk about.”

For riders such as Overend and Durango downhiller Greg Herbold, the 1990 Worlds was validation. For others, such as Durango native Travis Brown and Durangoans-to-be Juli Furtado and Ruthie Matthes, it launched a successful career.

On Friday, Sept. 14, downhillers began descending one at a time in the weekend’s first marquee event.

Herbold estimates that during the year leading up to Worlds, he spent an hour or two a day working on his equipment, particularly the shock, to assure it would function on race day.

“I just didn’t want anything to screw up,” Herbold, a motorbike fanatic, said of the burgeoning technology. “I was pretty much covered in auto transmission fluid for a year.”

His run on race day went nearly exactly as planned. He crossed the finish line, exhilarated but exhausted, “threw up a little bit,” then saw a friend who told him: “I’m pretty sure you won.”

With only a few competitors left on the course, he’d taken a six-second lead over second place. The lead held, and he won by three seconds over Mike Kloser.

At the start of the women’s cross country on Sunday, Furtado quickly surged into the lead. Matthes, who two weeks earlier had won silver at the road Worlds in Japan, claimed the lead briefly on the first big uphill, but Furtado lost her on the difficult descent.

“The support of the community was tremendous,” recalled Matthes, who would move to Durango in 1993 and would compete in mountain biking in the 2000 Olympics. “It was like, ‘Wow, the town is really behind this.’”

By the end, Furtado had put 2 minutes, 27 seconds on race favorite Sara Ballantyne. Matthes had surprisingly earned a bronze.

“I was psyched to get a medal,” Matthes remembered.

Travis Brown was a junior at the University of Colorado, on his way to a degree in microbiology. His first mountain bike race came the summer after he graduated from Durango High School in 1988. The Worlds would be the 21-year-old’s first race as a pro.

“I think part of my success that day was I didn’t feel any pressure at all,” said Brown, who would go on to make the 2000 Olympic team and win several national races and a series title.

On the final section of the last lap, he completed a pass to move into 10th.

“It was really the springboard for my pro career,” Brown said.

Ned’s ride

With four national titles and three unofficial world titles, the 35-year-old Overend was already a star of the up-and-coming sport of mountain bike racing. But a win at the first UCI Worlds could give him true validation.

“To really put a stamp on it, you’ve got to win an official Worlds,” he says. “Plus it was in my hometown. Add to that, everyone was calling me the favorite. ... I wanted to validate it. I wanted to win there. I wasn’t basking in the fact it was here. I was stressed.”

John Tomac, then 22 and living in California, took an early lead. With his drop bars and rear disc wheel, he was a popular and recognizable target for fans. Not long after Worlds, “Johnny T” relocated to Southwest Colorado, where he still lives.

As the race took form, Overend’s main competition came from 20-year-old Thomas Frischknecht of Switzerland. But on the third lap, “Deadly Nedly” put the hammer down, and the field couldn’t keep pace. By the fourth lap, he was way off the front.

For weeks, months, Overend had physically and mentally prepared. He’d worried about fitness, he’d worried about flats and crashes and just not having a good day. Finally, the end in sight, he raised his right arm and threw a fist into the air, crossing beneath the start/finish banner in victory.

“There wasn’t so much elation as relief,” he says now.

Eventually, his 1990 Worlds win turned into perhaps his proudest achievement, certainly his most historic. Over the years, that relief of taking the first-ever World Mountain Bike Championship has turned to exultation.

“I finally got to enjoy it,” Overend says. “I’m still enjoying it.”

Still at the apex

Todd Wells, co-host of Todd and Ned’s Durango Dirt Fondo, to be held Saturday in conjunction with the 25th anniversary celebration of the Worlds, wasn’t into mountain biking in 1990. But he soon would be.

The future three-time Olympian moved from Kingston, New York, to Durango in 1995 to attend Fort Lewis College and to race bikes. In Durango, Wells was surrounded by top mountain bike pros.

“All of a sudden I show up in Durango and those were my celebrities,” Wells says. “For me to ride with them and hang out with them – that was pretty special to me.”

There’s an impressive group not only of past, but of current and even future mountain bike racers. Durango native Howard Grotts led a pack of locals who made the top 15 in this July’s USA Cycling national mountain bike championships at Mammoth Mountain, California.

Among the various age groups and divisions, in all, 11 national champions at Mammoth were from Durango.

“What is it in the water in Durango?” onlookers were heard to say.

Although we wonder sometimes what is in the water these days, luckily that’s just an apt expression. The reality is that for three-plus decades – highlighted by the 1990 World Mountain Bike Championships – Durango has embraced the sport and remained at the forefront.

And there is no sign of a letup.

This story was done for the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic, which is hosting a 25th anniversary celebration of the 1990 World Mountain Bike Championships. Reach John Peel at john@jplifepreserver.com