{"id":120059,"date":"2014-05-23T20:09:22","date_gmt":"2014-05-24T02:09:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/iron-horse-road-race-shortened-because-of-weather\/"},"modified":"2014-05-23T20:09:22","modified_gmt":"2014-05-24T02:09:22","slug":"iron-horse-road-race-shortened-because-of-weather","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/iron-horse-road-race-shortened-because-of-weather\/","title":{"rendered":"Iron Horse road race shortened because of weather"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"SHAUN
SHAUN STANLEY\/Durango Herald<br><br>Rders race forward ahead of the steaming Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Riders during the McDonalds Citizens Tour in 2012 during the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic along U.S. 550.<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe have just made the official decision that we are going to finish at Durango Mountain Resort and will not go to Silverton,\u201d said Ed Zink, IHBC founder and chairman of the race committee. \u201cIt is an agonizing decision because we believe in this race and know all the people prepared and have been working for months to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The finish line now will be placed at the upper parking lot at Purgatory Village at DMR.<\/p>\n

Rain was in the forecast for much of the route. Organizers hoped the forecast might improve, but it didn\u2019t. Rather than wait until the final minute to make a decision, they pulled the trigger Friday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had overwhelming evidence that the weather was not going to get better. There is going to be snow, and it is not going to get better,\u201d Zink said. \u201cWe cannot take the risk of taking people into a snowstorm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zink remembers a horrifying situation in 1995 in which riders were stranded between Coal Bank Pass and Molas Pass in a heavy snowstorm. Riders had to be evacuated, and many were treated for hypothermia. Two cyclists briefly were hospitalized.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t need to ever experience that again,\u201d Zink said.<\/p>\n

The race was shortened to a Purgatory finish in 1997 because of a heavy snow. In 2008, the race was canceled because of the weather.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the week, Durango-based mountain biker Todd Wells joked that the last two times he registered for the road race, it was affected by snow. The streak now stands at three, as Wells registered for this year\u2019s race; he joked that the jinx lives on.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think some people may be thanking me (Saturday) when they get to Purg and they will be done,\u201d Wells said. \u201cWhen it goes to Silverton, the race really started at Purgatory before Coal Bank Pass. Now, I think it will be an all-out sprint to the finish. At just 25 miles, I bet times come in under one hour.\u201d<\/p>\n

The race to Silverton was 47 miles; the race to Purgatory is 27 miles.<\/p>\n

For Silverton, the race\u2019s shortening was another blow on top of several that have already occurred. Red Mountain Pass was shut down by a rockslide in January for a month, and it\u2019s been closed most of the daylight hours since late April for more work to stabilize the mountainside above U.S. Highway 550.<\/p>\n

The highway closures have affected many Silverton businesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just another blow from Mother Nature,\u201d Rose Raab, the outgoing executive director of the Silverton Chamber of Commerce, said Friday evening as she prepared a news release for chamber members about the Iron Horse decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve just had a series of unfortunate events. (Business owners) are going to be extremely disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Slverton parks staff spent all week readying Memorial Park, the finish area, with new playground equipment and a climbing rock, Raab said.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell people to come,\u201d she said. \u201cIf they can\u2019t come on their bicycles maybe they can come in their cars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zink said the race committee anguished for all of the people affected by the decision.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are crushed by it, and it is very difficult,\u201d Zink said. \u201cWe\u2019ve tried everything we could think of to find a way around it, but this is the only safe decision available to us. We anguish for the people who have spent months getting ready for this.\u201d<\/p>\n

jlivingston@durangoherald.com<\/a> and johnp@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

STANLEY\/Durango Herald<br><br>Rders race forward ahead of the steaming Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Riders during the McDonalds Citizens Tour in 2012 during the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic along U.S. 550.du1-i-syn \u201cWe have just made the official decision that we are going to finish at Durango Mountain Resort and will not go to Silverton,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":120060,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13,2111,88],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-120059","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-iron-horse-bicycle-classic","tag-weather-news"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=120059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/120059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/120060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=120059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=120059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=120059"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=120059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}