Pedal Durango July Newsletter
All Things Cycling in Durango Be sure to follow us on Instagram and Facebook
Proud to Announce Lola’s and Leland House as Pedal Durango Partners
Congratulations Quinn Simmons!
Quinn Simmons of Durango is the new National Road Bike Champion! Durango is usually known as being the Mountain Bike capital of the world, but now the cycling world is starting to see that some of the best road cyclists in America also come from our quaint cycling town. Durango will be well represented at the start of the Tour de France as there will be two road cyclists participating in the largest cycling event in the world. The new national road bike champion, Quinn Simmons, riding for Lidl / Trek and Sepp Kuss riding for Jumbo Visma are both participating in this years tour. I am sure that Bobke will be bragging a lot about Durango this year on the broadcast. Best of luck to both riders this year, Durango will be cheering you on!!
San Juan Brewfest
What cyclist does not enjoy a cold brew after a tough ride?
The San Juan Brewfest is the biggest and best beer tasting festival in the Four Corners. The Brewfest will be held on Friday August 25 and Saturday August 26 at Buckley Park in Historic Downtown Durango. This year it features unlimited tastings from 35 breweries, who will bring 100+ beers to sample. Live music and food are also offered.The Brewfest started in 1999 at Purgatory Ski Resort, and has been held in Downtown Durango since 2008. It has become the local United Way’s best annual fundraising event, and typically sells out of tickets each year.
Tickets are on sale now at https://sanjuanbrewfest.com/. New this year is a renewed focus on sustainability and accessibility, which will make the San Juan Brewfest better than ever. Visit the website today to get your tickets!
Colorado’s Ride Coming to Durango
About eight months ago, the owners of Colorado’s Ride, Bill Plock, and Zach Ostrander dreamed up a multi-day road bike tour that they felt is a sustainable model of road bike tours for years to come. They wanted to pick two towns with resources, ability, and desire to host up to 500 riders for multiple nights with great road riding. Riders could camp or stay in hotels.
Both, having worked with other bike tours wanted to change the formula of tours hopping from town to town and requiring many layers of support and traveling (costly) infrastructure. Over the years with tourism and huge influxes of people to the mountains of Colorado, large bike tours can strain a community and provide little impact in return when staying just one night.
Says ride director Bill Plock, “We wanted to create a tour where people could connect with the town, really experience it and have some great riding. We came up with a dual town spoke and hub model to keep riders in each town for two or three nights. We want to be valuable to the town and be welcomed back year after year. We also wanted to keep it smaller than some tours thus impacting traffic less and making it safer.”
With the concept created the next step was determining where. Says Bill, “We looked at a Gunnison/Salida, Steamboat/Grandby, and a couple of others, but we just kept coming back to Durango and Pagosa Springs. We asked riders in our database and overwhelmingly riding in that area was the preferred choice. We then contacted Ellen Barbers, the Durango Events Coordinator who invited us to a permitting conference she hosted last December. That was game-changing. To meet so many wonderful people who were excited to have us made it a no-brainer—so Colorado’s Ride was born!”
In Durango, the La Plata Fairgrounds will be the ride headquarters and camping site beginning Sunday, August 27th and riders will ride to Pagosa Springs on August 30th and campers will stay on the property of the hot springs with full access to them. In Durango, campers will have access to the Recreation Center for showers. Riders will return to Durango on Friday, September 1st.
Says Bill, “We are kinda starting out on the first day with the Queen stage if you will when riders go to Silverton and then take the train back to Durango. Our registration fee includes the ride and we will take your bike back. To learn all about this ride go to our website at www.coloradosride.com
Promote your business on Pedal Durango and support our cycling community. Contact us pedaldurango@gmail.com
