Unpredictable weather made for more than a few tough decisions during Durango’s biggest sporting event of the year.
Snow on Coal Bank and Molas passes Friday prompted race organizers to shorten the 43rd Iron Horse Bicycle Classic from a 47-mile race to Silverton to a 26.5-mile sprint to Purgatory at Durango Mountain Resort. Rain on Saturday night and Sunday morning left the mountain-bike race mired in mud.
Through it all, the IHBC committee and racers agreed it still was a successful weekend.
“My first year, having to face some of the challenges and very difficult decisions, it was tough,” said Jeff Frost, the Iron Horse’s rookie race director. “The Iron Horse team has seen it all over the years, and I think we made all the right decisions, and it turned out very well.
“Were people angry? No. Were they disappointed and maybe came across as angry? Yes. If I trained for six months and wanted to go to Silverton, would I be angry? Absolutely. In the end, it was a safe event, and things went well.”
Chairman of the IHBC committee and event founder Ed Zink said about 2,700 cyclists signed up for the road race to Silverton. Of those registered, around 1,700 actually participated.
“My sense is, if I was living in Denver and watching the weather Wednesday and Thursday, I may have just said I won’t drive all that way to ride the race,” Zink said. “Roughly a third of the competitors didn’t come; it is disappointing but understandable.”
Five-time IHBC road race champion and 58-year-old Hall of Fame cyclist Ned Overend wondered if more racers could have gotten into the race.
“I would have to ask how many people got into the race that wanted to get into the race,” the Durangoan said. “Overall numbers were there, but we could’ve made room for more (Citizens) Tour numbers rather than just the registered riders.”
Men’s road race champion Troy Wells said the shorter course probably helped him finish first with not having to climb the two big passes. Overend, the 2014 runner-up, said he doesn’t think five years from now competitors will remember that it was a shortened race when they look at the list of previous champions.
“They had some challenges this year, but I think it was important that instead of canceling the event they ran it to (Purgatory),” Overend said. “It is so hard to predict the weather. It was nice enough for awhile that some people went to Silverton, and others rode back down to Durango. It’s tough, and it just shows you how freak weather can go in late spring in Colorado.”
The inaugural Fort Lewis College Cross Country mountain bike race featured the largest cash purse of any IHBC event at $8,000. When rain made the Horse Gulch course too muddy to compete on, the event was canceled.
In its place, organizers scrambled to add a mountain bike fat tire criterium to the Sunday afternoon criterium schedule in downtown Durango.
“We had constant contact with Trails 2000 and Dave Hagen of Fort Lewis College cycling, and we had someone go out and ride the course, and they said the race wouldn’t be a good experience, and it would do too much damage to Horse Gulch,” Frost said.
“One of the best decisions we had was adding the fat tire crit; it put on such a good show.”
Another obvious change – a disappointment to some spectators – was the mountain-bike race didn’t go through Steamworks Brewing Co. or Mountain Bike Specialist as it has in previous years.
Overend, a world-class mountain biker, said not racing the mountain-bike race was the biggest blow of the weekend, but organizers made the right call.
“It would have been nice on the new course, because it is a real classic mountain-bike race course,” Overend said. “I don’t know how many volunteers the old course through Steamworks and all that required, but that experience is like nothing else. They will have to take a look at what is the long-term sustainability of getting a solid number of mountain bikers here to race.”
The downtown Durango criterium race course saw changes this year, too. The course was reduced in length, size and width.
“In a shorter, tighter venue, we made the racing better,” Frost said. “The laps were short enough that there was always action coming by you on Main Avenue. Another thing we did, in response to concerns, is we narrowed the course. The course width used to go right up to the curb line. We narrowed it to the parking stall line because it allowed people to walk on the sidewalk and in and out of businesses while spectators still could lean on the rail up close to the race.
“Those little changes made a big difference in the look and feel of Sunday in downtown.”
While there undoubtedly was some disappointment in this year’s Iron Horse weekend, Zink called it another example of how agile the race committee has had to be in 43 years.
“We were both fabulous and disappointing: fabulous from the point of view of how people rallied and the extra effort volunteers put in so we could salvage a good share of the weekend and disappointing that the weather got us,” Zink said. “Competitors were understanding and realistic, and overall I think it was great.”
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
Silverton got some traffic, but not what it expected
Silverton businesses surely missed out on some traffic by not having the finish line for Iron Horse bicyclists in town. But some riders did continue on to Silverton despite the truncated race course, while other visitors also came for the Memorial Day weekend, said Amy Dickinson, executive director of the Silverton Chamber of Commerce.
“It was a bummer that it didn’t happen, but we still had people come that planned on coming,” she said.
Silverton is looking forward to a busy run of summer events. July 4 is Silverton’s largest annual draw. Only a week later, the Hardrock 100 Endurance Run comes to town with about 200 runners.
Then on July 27, the Mile High Jeep Club is expected to arrive with 1,000 people for several days. The event is based at Kendall Mountain.
cslothower@durangoherald.com
