Wagner Park and Ajax Mountain in the summer
Sorry this took so long to post, but I’ve been a bit busy since the US Pro Cycling Challenge stormed through Aspen. As part of the Coors Classic/Red Zinger reunion tour the Aspen stop of the US Pro Challenge was a great reminder of Aspen’s wonderful past history as a cycling-race host town as well as a reminder that it is still a great place to hold a bike race, because everybody will show up.
The day before the race came to town I had a true Coors Classic flashback moment — I was outside my hotel in the great Mountain Chalet in the early morning and felt that cool summer-morning breeze that I long associated with waking up for stages in town when the Coors was there. I almost reflexively expected to see banners and race vehicles on the streets, but all that would arrive the next day for the US Pro Challenge.
Flashing back some more, Aspen was always a treat for me to visit in the summer — though I have spent way more time there in the winter, skiing with all my old ski team buddies as well as there for various World Cup events when I was a sports writer — summer was special since you basically got to hang out in Aspen all day while the circuit race went on. With my Coors media pass I had access to just about every part of the course I wanted to see, including the press areas near the start/finish for an unobstructed view of the sprint.
But it was always the walking around that was as much fun as the race — seeing old friends course-side, catching up on town gossip — or even the only-in-Aspen moment of watching some high-society woman sitting in a parked car in the middle of the day, filling her nose with two big spoonfuls of cocaine. Whee! Aspen is always fun.
From the Coors memory banks I have two fun short stories: One was a perfect intersection of my personal and professional lifes, I believe during the last trip of the Coors through town in 1988. As the obvious local expert among the media types covering the race I organized a big group dinner at the famous La Cocina, now just a memory. But that night saw us ask the impossible at the always-crowded LaCo — “can we get a table for 20?” — and of course they delivered, setting up a cool long table right through the middle of the whole restaurant. Me and my media pals were joined by a large group of other race-types as well as Aspen locals I knew for a memorable night of chips, blue corn tacos and way too many margaritas.
The second story is one I will tell on Michael Aisner, who spared nobody with many old-days embarrassment tales as part of his excellent Coors Classic reunion presentation in Vail. This story is from 1987, when I was on the race media “staff,” in probably the least-responsible position (all I did was write a wire-service story about the race every day, a task that was kind of meaningless when AP staffed the race itself from the Colorado stages on).
The cool part of being on race staff — other than getting a hot jacket — was having a race walkie talkie to carry by my side at every moment. In case you were never on staff, the walkie talkies were the lifeblood of the race, helping the seat-of-the-pants operational mode happen by simply allowing anyone to talk to anyone else at any time. As a newbie and a low-totem-poler I didn’t do much talking on the walkie but I was fascinated by the staff interaction I could listen to each day. The Aspen moment came late that night in town, sometime after 10 p.m. I would guess, when the following statement came over the main race channel:
“I’m cold, I’m tired, and I’m hungry… and I’m lost,” said the voice that was instantly recognizable as nobody else but Michael. “I’m near some street sign that says Hyman… can someone with a vehicle help me out?”
Since I had keys to one of the media pickup trucks — one of my responsibilities was to park it and get it to the start line each day — I got on the walkie talkie and told Michael I could pick him up, but one of the Kennys — can’t remember which one — followed up and called me off. So not an especially funny story but one I will always remember about Aspen.
This year, the US Pro Challenge was an incredible success, with the town full of race fans all day long (thanks to a women’s race in the morning). What I loved was seeing people pack the sides of the road of the finish even though the rain was coming down. I didn’t make it up the pass but according to those who did the crowds there were Alpe d’Huez quality, in terms of number and craziness.
I spent the day as a spectator, going for a quick ride in the morning (even after riding Maroon Bells the day before) before hooking up with my friends Joel & Kathy to watch the events, cruise the expo and in general just soak up the scene. It just felt so good to see bike racing in Aspen again. May it never leave.
A terrible picture of the Aspen Start/Finish. If you squint you can see Connie Carpenter.
