{"id":128486,"date":"2026-05-10T16:58:33","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T22:58:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/12-hours-of-mesa-verde-completes-20th-anniversary-ride\/"},"modified":"2026-05-11T09:38:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:38:23","slug":"12-hours-of-mesa-verde-completes-20th-anniversary-ride","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/12-hours-of-mesa-verde-completes-20th-anniversary-ride\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Hours of Mesa Verde completes 20th anniversary ride"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"The
The 12 Hours of Mesa Verde mountain bike race at Phil\u2019s World in Cortez drew hundreds of riders from across the Western United States to its 20th anniversary edition. (Ben Bradley\/Special to The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

CORTEZ \u2013 With two decades now in the books for Montezuma County\u2019s largest mountain bike event of the calendar, the event kicked off the summer\u2019s list of exciting events taking place at the county fairgrounds.<\/p>\n

One title defense among the five solo categories highlighted the day\u2019s festivities, as 17-year-old Benjmain Bigwood from Salt Lake City took home the top solo male ride for the second consecutive year. Bigwood completed eight laps in 11 hours, 18 minutes, while Cortez\u2019 own Scott Arter took runner-up with seven laps in 11 hours, 1 minute.<\/p>\n

Another teenager topped the solo female division, with 16-year-old Emma Daly capturing the endurance ride title with seven laps completed in 12 hours, 3 minutes, edging runner-up Anna Haemer by 29 minutes as the two competitors to complete seven circuits of Phil\u2019s World.<\/p>\n

Tina Wagner of Prescott, Arizona, won the female geezer (50 and up) category as the only solo rider to cover five laps, while Moab\u2019s Jacques Hadler won the male geezer category by making it a full 12 Hours of Mesa Verde, covering seven laps in 12 hours, 7 minutes.<\/p>\n

In the single speed competition, the closest battle of the solo rides came down to three riders separated by 23 minutes, as Johnstown\u2019s Andy Lueck edged out Durango\u2019s Rene Garcia Reyes and Stuart Buergler for the top spot on the podium after the trio all complete six laps in under 11 hours.<\/p>\n

Of the 12 team competitions, the group that covered the most laps in the fastest time came from the duo male category, where Durango teenagers Ryder Seitz and Johan Souders bested the field by six minutes while completing nine laps in 11 hours, 25 minutes.<\/p>\n

The fastest all-female team came from the 3-4 grommet division (19 and under), where the trio of Draper, Utah\u2019s Melissa Abbott, Crista Abbott, and Avery Larrabee rounded eight combined laps in 11 hours, 11 minutes.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Other winning performances came from:<\/p>\n

Durango\u2019s Finnley Arnett, Benjamin Andrea, Raleigh Shaw and Fielder Lecompte (3-4 grommet male division \u2013 9 laps, 11 hours, 53 minutes)<\/list-item>The Colorado Springs trio of Emmett Frozley, Seth Carlson, and Jacob Webber (3-4 male division \u2013 9 laps, 11 hours, 42 minutes)<\/list-item>The Durango quartet of Kathy Waage, Rachel Ross, Blair Matlock and Jen Gersbach-Venzara (3-4 female division \u2013 8 laps, 11 hours, 57 minutes)<\/list-item>The Vail Valley duo of Ingrid Stensvaag and Miranda Sheets (duo female division \u2013 8 laps, 11 hours 46 minutes)<\/list-item>Spanish Fork, UT\u2019s KC Holley and Chris Holley (duo co-ed division \u2013 8 laps, 11 hours, 15 minutes)<\/list-item>The Front Range group of Brandon and Natalie Dyksterhouse, Jason Russell and Joshua Scott (3-4 co-ed division \u2013 8 laps, 11 hours even)<\/list-item>Durango\u2019s Ian Barton, Zoey Waage, Luca Williford and Cooper Wells (3-4 co-ed grommet division \u2013 8 laps, 11 hours, 25 minutes)<\/list-item>Dolores\u2019 Ross Delaplane and Littleton\u2019s Mitch Westall (duo geezer division \u2013 8 laps, 11 hours even)<\/list-item>A Four Corners group of Dolores\u2019 Erik Berggren, Durango\u2019s Steve Koller and Paul Tocco, and Aztec\u2019s Ryan Tenge (3-4 geezer division \u2013 8 laps, 11 hours, 43 minutes)<\/list-item>Orem, UT\u2019s Dan, Bri, and Caleb Hoopes along with Nico Beesley (3-4 family division \u2013 8 laps, 10 hours, 59 minutes)<\/list-item><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

afternoon conditions do little to slow down hundreds of riders<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":128487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6313],"tags":[1820,38,39,28,37,36,6419],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-128486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports-2","tag-dh-trueanthem","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-dove-creek-high-school","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school","tag-tj-trueanthem"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128486","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=128486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128543,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128486\/revisions\/128543"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128486"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=128486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}