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A New Twist on Summertime Colorado Bike Racing

Professional bike racing has been a staple in Colorado for decades. After a number of successful years of international racing with the Red Zinger and the Coors Classic events in the 1970s and 1980s, top-level pro bike racing blossomed again with the US Pro Cycling Challenge from 2011 through 2015. Top WorldTour teams and racers like Chris Froome and Peter Sagan participated, and for one week Colorado was the center of international bike racing. But all of these events suffered from the omnipresent challenge of sustaining the requisite funding and sponsorship – and all eventually folded. The latest iteration, the Colorado Classic, was inaugurated in 2017 – again boasting an international roster of men’s and women’s teams contesting a multi-day stage race across the state. This time the event was held in conjunction with the Velorama music festival, as part of “an integrated mission to...

Home Sweet Home: How U.S. Racing Can Reshape Pro Cycling

Bicycle racing in the United States has always charted a maverick course.  American Six-Day track races were the most successful and lucrative cycling events in the world in the early 1900s – think of the “Madison” events, so named because many originally took place in New York City’s Madison Square Garden.  The sport was hugely popular across many segments of the American public, and the U.S. produced the majority of the star racers throughout that era.  But in the many decades since then, if an American wasn’t winning the Tour de France, then the coverage and interest in bike racing simply hasn’t been there.  In short, bike racing hasn’t really captured the attention of the broader American sports audience, and has fluctuated in popularity ever since the Second World War, when those “golden days” wound down. Enterprising bicycle race promoters stepped into this gap during the 1970s...