{"id":16849,"date":"2025-08-19T20:57:53","date_gmt":"2025-08-20T02:57:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/adaptive-riders-breaking-barriers-at-boggy-draw-beat-down\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:02:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:02:13","slug":"adaptive-riders-breaking-barriers-at-boggy-draw-beat-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/adaptive-riders-breaking-barriers-at-boggy-draw-beat-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Adaptive riders breaking barriers at Boggy Draw Beat Down"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Adaptive
Adaptive riders celebrate their finishes after their race at the Boggy Draw Beat Down in Dolores on Aug. 2. The Beat Down included an adaptive category for the first time in its 27-year history. Photo courtesy of Telluride Adaptive Sports Program<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

DOLORES \u2013 The Boggy Draw Beat Down has been at the cutting edge of finding ways to make their annual event more inclusive for riders of all ages and abilities.<\/p>\n

Whether it\u2019s involved adding new shorter race distances to make the event more family-friendly, adding a relay, or offering in-town camping options and prerace festivities, the Beat Down and the town of Dolores continues to open its arms to make its visitors feel welcome.<\/p>\n

Add another momentous leap for the race \u2013 just having completed its 27th year of competition as one of the community\u2019s premier sporting events, the Boggy Draw Beat Down added an adaptive category to this year\u2019s race. Working in concert with one another, the Telluride Adaptive Sports Program, Rotary Club of Dolores, U.S. Forest Service, Southwest Colorado Cycling Association, and Montezuma County Search and Rescue created the offering by piecing together all the necessary components to make the race accessible to adaptive cycling enthusiasts.<\/p>\n

The opportunity came from the brainchild of Telluride Adaptive Sports Program Ski and Ride Director Tim McGough, who competed in the Beat Down himself last year. Upon finishing his race, McGough noticed a fellow rider who was a below-knee amputee, and the idea of making the race fully inclusive to adaptive riders started to materialize.<\/p>\n

\u201cI contacted Sean Gantt, the President of the Rotary Club of Dolores, and he and their whole organization immediately celebrated and supported the idea of having an adaptive category in this year\u2019s race,\u201d said McGough.<\/p>\n

\"Adaptive
Adaptive riders receive instruction from Telluride Adaptive Sports Director Tim McGough as they prepare to embark on their race at the Boggy Draw Beat Down in Dolores on Aug. 2. The Beat Down included an adaptive category for the first time in its 27-year history. Photo courtesy of Telluride Adaptive Sports Program<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Boggy Draw trail system had already made recent strides to make it more ADA accessible in recent years, including an extensive remodel of the trailhead parking area to include an accessible vault toilet and ADA parking spaces. McGough also credited the USFS for working with TASP through permitting and education while focusing on making trails that would be suitable to adaptive bicycles.<\/p>\n

Racing on the miles of trails on the extensive trail system just north of the town of Dolores, eight adaptive riders joined the 75-person field on the 15-mile \u201cGoose\u201d circuit, with riders racing in either e-assist or non-assist categories, with three non-assist riders also participants in the Tribal Adaptive Organization based in Kirtland, New Mexico.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fastest adaptive rider came in just over an hour,\u201d said McGough, noting the effort put them just a few minutes behind the overall winner, \u201cour riders really crushed it!\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rotary Club of Dolores waived registration fees since the adaptive category was in its pilot year, and in exchange the organizers received feedback from the racers about how to make the event even better in the years to come.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made a few modifications to the course and added some extra safety standards,\u201d said Gantt \u201cand we\u2019re going to use the feedback from the riders to help us figure out what we\u2019re going to do for the coming years.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gantt also pointed to some of that feedback he received, which included how few opportunities existed for adaptive riders to use mountain bike trails, let alone as part of a competition \u2013 making the innovations at the Beat Down that much more appreciated.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look to expand to more categories in the future,\u201d said McGough, \u201cadding an amputee category on two-wheeled bike, extending the handcycle course to make it that much more exciting, possibly even adding a tandem category for blind riders \u2013 the sky is the limit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only is the event offering a positive impact for the adaptive sports community, according to Gantt, it also has wider-reaching benefits. \u201cThis is just another way that the Boggy Draw Beat Down is improving the trail system for riders year-round, not just for the race,\u201d added Gantt, \u201cany improvements that we make to the trails will make them more usable for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n

It appears to be the beginning of a fruitful partnership \u2013 \u201cTASP is committed to being a full partner of the race next year,\u201d added McGough, meaning that as the Boggy Draw Beat Down continues to evolve, the race and all of its supporters continue to show the same can-do spirit exhibited by the thousands of riders that have proudly called themselves race finishers over the years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

from the Telluride Adaptive Sports Program took to the trails this month<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16850,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[38,39,28,37,36],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16849","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dolores-high-school","tag-dove-creek-high-school","tag-headlines","tag-mancos-high-school","tag-montezuma-cortez-high-school"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16849","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=16849"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20427,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16849\/revisions\/20427"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16849"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16849"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}