{"id":33704,"date":"2023-05-27T21:54:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-28T03:54:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/payer-repeats-as-ihbc-road-race-champ\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:12:50","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:12:50","slug":"payer-repeats-as-ihbc-road-race-champ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/payer-repeats-as-ihbc-road-race-champ\/","title":{"rendered":"Payer repeats as IHBC road race champ"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Kira
Kira Payer crosses the finish line, winning the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic women\u2019s pro road race on Saturday in Silverton. Payer also won the race last year. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A hard crash a few weeks ago left Kira Payer banged up and unable to ride her bike for a while.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was out with a concussion and broken collarbone,\u201d she said. She recovered from the concussion, but her collarbone was still broken on Saturday when she lined up for the 2023 Iron Horse Bicycle Classic pro women\u2019s road race, attempting to defend her title from last year.<\/p>\n

She said she wasn\u2019t sure how it would go. \u201cThis was my first full effort back,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Payer, however, went with Sarah Sturm and Michaela Thompson when Sturm started pushing the pace early. Around Shalona Hill, the three had put a gap between the peloton.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery year, the pro women go slow through the valley, so I sat in front and drilled the pace,\u201d Sturm said. \u201cThat was the selection.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sarah
Sarah Sturm crosses the finish line second in the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic women\u2019s pro road race on Saturday in Silverton. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Sturm said she wasn\u2019t expecting it to be just those three riders at the front, but no other women joined them, so the they worked together.<\/p>\n

On Coal Bank Pass, however, Payer and Sturm were able to drop Thompson near the beginning of the climb. Payer then got a gap on Sturm with some hard work, but also some bad luck for Sturm.<\/p>\n

\u201cI executed my plan \u2013 a full gas effort up Coal Bank,\u201d Payer said. \u201cI\u2019ve been practicing KOM hunting in Malibu.\u201d<\/p>\n

Payer is an FLC student, but said she spends her winters training in California now.<\/p>\n

While Payer was going hard, Sturm dropped her chain.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was probably an operator error,\u201d Sturm said, noting that this is the one road she does every year and doesn\u2019t usually ride with two front chain rings.<\/p>\n

Sturm almost caught Payer on Coal Bank, but had to use a lot of energy to catch back up and wasn\u2019t able to overcome her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m pretty disappointed because I felt really good,\u201d Sturm said.<\/p>\n

Payer, meanwhile, kept her foot on the gas to keep Sturm from catching her.<\/p>\n

\u201cI sent it pretty hard down Molas and then put in a strong dig in the last mile to keep that separation,\u201d Payer said.<\/p>\n

Payer ended up winning the 47-mile race from Durango to Silverton in 2 hours, 30 minutes and 28.5 seconds to defend her title from last year.<\/p>\n

Sturm finished second, for the second year in a row, in 2:31:13.1 and Thompson crossed third in 2:35:59.2.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m stoked (Thompson) was riding so strong,\u201d Sturm said, noting that she\u2019ll join her and Ellen Campbell as a guest on their team in some gravel races this summer.<\/p>\n

Sofia Waite finished fourth in 2:39:10.4 while the rest of the top 10 included Erin Osborne (2:39:26.1), Kaylee Blevins (2:40:10.0), Campbell (2:43:17.6), Isabella Rich (2:43:19.6), Lauren Aggeler (2:48:32.6) and Vicki Chavez (2:49:09.8).<\/p>\n

Payer\u2019s boyfriend, Caleb Classen, also won the pro men\u2019s road race on Saturday.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe pushes me pretty hard,\u201d she said. \u201cHe\u2019s made me a lot better rider.\u201d<\/p>\n

While Sturm was disappointed on Saturday, arguably the biggest race of her season is next week in Kansas: Unbound Gravel, which she called the \u201cTour de France of gravel.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

finishes second after dropping chain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":33705,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,2111,3743],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-33704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-iron-horse-bicycle-classic","tag-race-results-iron-horse-bicycle-classic"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33704","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=33704"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33704\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82310,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33704\/revisions\/82310"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33705"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33704"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33704"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33704"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=33704"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}