Another premier cycling event will come to Durango in 2020.
Tuesday night at Ska Brewing Co, Durango BMX announced it won the right to host the USA BMX Colorado state championships.
“I am really excited to have such a big event down here in Durango and show the state overall back down here in one of the most beautiful corners of the Earth,” said Jordan Rupe of Durango BMX.
The event will add to a loaded schedule of racing in 2020 for Durango. It will start in April with Fort Lewis College’s Squawker Classic weekend of road racing within the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Cycling Conference. In May, the 49th Iron Horse Bicycle Classic will bring three exciting days of racing over Memorial Day weekend. In October, Durango will once again host the Colorado High School Cycling League mountain bike state championships, and FLC will host the USA Cycling Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships at Purgatory Resort. Winter also will bring the singlespeed cyclocross world championships.
“It’s really sweet,” Rupe said. “It feels like there’s this big shadow cast over BMX all the time even though everyone thinks it’s really cool. To finally make it into the spotlight feels really good and just helps boost our program even more. We’re excited to get some of the spotlight I think our sport and program deserves.”
Rupe is unsure yet of the date of the BMX state championships. He said he will likely target late September.
Fort Lewis College cycling director Dave Hagen attended Tuesday night’s announcement and said he is eager to have his riders get a shot to compete at their home track for the state championships and for FLC and Durango to have another chance to showcase their cycling culture.
“With any cycling event that comes to Durango, the red carpet is out. We are going to impress people when they come down here,” Hagen said. “Having all the kids from Colorado come down here, they’re gonna go to college sometime, and we’d like to have them here. It’s good we have good kids here already and have a good recruit coming in next year who won the BMX state champs last year. To get more riders like that here, it helps us build slowly but surely like we have with all our other programs.”
The BMX state championships have been held several times on the Western Slope. Montrose reigned supreme for years before a track in Dacono in northeast Colorado took over for a bit. For the past several years, Grand Junction’s Grand Valley BMX track has been No. 1 in Colorado.
In 2019, the top spot finally went to Durango.
“I had to check the points on my computer for the last two months,” Rupe said. “It wasn’t a surprise because we set a goal and worked really hard toward it the whole year. It was a year in the making. The point system, it’s updated every few weeks. We had a good cushion toward the end of the year, so I was feeling really good about it, but being in limbo there at the end waiting for an official announcement was painful.”
Durango BMX has been working for several years to bring the event to its track. It has hosted Colorado state qualifiers and Gold Cup state qualifiers that have brought an estimated 800 people to town for the competition.
“I’m expecting double that for state,” Rupe said. “It’s our first time running it, but I’ve been to plenty of state championships and looked at the numbers. As far as influx of people into town, I think we can expect double what we’ve seen at state qualifiers based on rider participation.”
To win host rights, Durango’s BMX track competed against all of the other tracks in the state. To race at the track, athletes are required to buy a license. Durango BMX earns points for every rider that buys a license for its track. That is half of the equation, while the other half consists of tracks getting points if a rider completes five races at their track.
In 2019, Durango BMX held 28 races from May to October and had an average of 75 racers at each Friday night event. There were 216 different racers at the track through the year, and 204 riders showed up for the state qualifier.
Durango BMX also had 101 athletes at its summer camps and licensed 57 young riders on balance bikes, also known as strider bikes. The track also sold 134 new memberships.
Not only did Durango BMX rank No. 1 in the state, it is ranked No. 38 out of 316 tracks in the country, one spot behind Albuquerque. To make it all happen, Rupe said it takes more than 700 hours of volunteer work each year.
“It’s a combination of consistency and accessibility,” Rupe said. “Having races every week for six months and letting people know we are there every Friday night and they can count on it happening. The same goes for our youth programs and having structured practices that draw people in where kids can learn to race and ride.
“This last year, 2019 at Durango BMX, was a serious feat. We had massive numbers that our track has never seen before. ... It’s come from all the racers participating, our sponsors in the community and come from a board of parents that are really dedicated to the sport and program as well as our parks and rec department within the city. The community we have all created is what makes it so special.”
jlivingston@ durangoherald.com
