Week-long bike tour kicks off June 9
By Heather Sackett
Associate Editor
The annual statewide bike ride, Ride the Rockies, will start in Telluride this year.
About 2,000 cyclists will descend on the box canyon in the days leading up to the June 9 departure for Cortez. This year’s 513-mile route will take riders on a tour of southwest Colorado to the host towns of Durango, Pagosa Springs, Alamosa, Salida and Cañon City before finishing in Colorado Springs on June 15.
The route will take riders over Lizard Head, Wolf Creek and Poncha passes, as well as the 956-feet-high Royal Gorge Bridge. This is the 28th year of the week-long event, which is sponsored by The Denver Post.
According to tour director Chandler Smith, although the ride has swung through Telluride before — most recently in 2008, 2003 and 1999 — this is the first time the event has started here.
About 2,000 cyclists will descend on the box canyon in the days leading up to the June 9 departure for Cortez. This year’s 513-mile route will take riders on a tour of southwest Colorado to the host towns of Durango, Pagosa Springs, Alamosa, Salida and Cañon City before finishing in Colorado Springs on June 15.
The route will take riders over Lizard Head, Wolf Creek and Poncha passes, as well as the 956-feet-high Royal Gorge Bridge. This is the 28th year of the week-long event, which is sponsored by The Denver Post.
According to tour director Chandler Smith, although the ride has swung through Telluride before — most recently in 2008, 2003 and 1999 — this is the first time the event has started here.
“Telluride, in particular, is one of our favorite destinations,” Smith said. “We couldn’t imagine a more beautiful backdrop to start the ride. It does a great job showcasing what mountain communities of Colorado are all about.”
Smith said host communities usually see about $250,000 in revenue from lodging, restaurants and retail. And unlike last summer’s professional bike stage race, the USA Pro Challenge, Telluride does not have to put up any money for the event. The town spent about $92,000 hosting the Pro Challenge in 2012. The Denver Post Community Foundation awards a $5,000 grant to a non-profit organization in each Ride the Rockies host town.
The riders will be in town during a weekend that is not very busy, giving a boost to the early summer economy, said Telluride Mayor Stu Fraser.
“It was nice because they came to us on it,” Fraser said. “It’s in a weekend that is typically not very busy and [riders] will be spending money and probably two nights here.”
Telluride Tourism Board President and CEO Michael Martelon said it’s a major bonus to be the overall start for the event and it could push the summer occupancy rate above 50 percent, which is one of Martelon’s long-term goals.
“We ended up running about a 48.5 percent average occupancy rate (last summer),” Martelon said. “This could push us over the hump to get to 50 percent occupancy for our core summer months. That’s exciting.”
Martelon said Telluride will probably see more than a quarter million dollars in revenue because ride registration is on Saturday. The ride begins on Sunday.
“That number is going to go up for us,” Martelon said. “People are going to be trickling in on Friday, before registration on Saturday.”
Martelon and Fraser attended the route announcement, which was a closely guarded secret, at Casselman’s Bar and Venue in Denver Saturday.
“People were just screaming, they were so excited about it,” Fraser said.
Cyclists can register for the event at ridetherockies.com. Applications for the lottery will be accepted Feb. 3-22, with 2,000 participants selected on March 1.
For more information on this or Telluride area luxury real estate, please contact Telluride Real Estate Corp. at 970.728.6655, info@telluriderealestatecorp.com or visit www.telluriderealestatecorp.com.
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