\u201cIt was a pretty big effort from a lot of people,\u201d said Blevins, who is now the research and programs coordinator for The Specialized Foundation<\/a>. \u201cIt was a community effort, and Emily Schaldach was kind of the instigating factor with all this. I\u2019ve known her since I was 6 years old, and it was cool to work with her on something like this that\u2019s so close to home, literally and figuratively, for the two of us.\u201d<\/p>\n IHBC race director Gaige Sippy said the payout for the pro men\u2019s and women\u2019s mountain bike races has been equal since 2011. The road race prize payout had followed a long-used model based on rider turnout. He said in any given year, roughly 70 pro men compete in the IHBC road race to only 15 or 20 pro women.<\/p>\n \u201cThe old prize money model used to be that you paid based on how many people registered,\u201d Sippy said. \u201cWe took a percentage of that and gave it out as prize money. We\u2019ve always been within a few hundred dollars. It\u2019s not a huge amount of money in the change. There\u2019s a paradigm shift that goes along with this, but the number of dollars we\u2019re talking about is only a few hundred dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n For the women who race, it wasn\u2019t about the $450, it was about being equal.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s actually not about the money. It\u2019s kind of what it represents,\u201d said Sarah Sturm, a Durango-based pro cyclist who finished second in the IHBC road race last year. \u201cIt\u2019s just the equal sign we\u2019re after and not the dollar sign.<\/p>\n \u201cOftentimes, it\u2019s a numbers game, but in 2019, we kind of all believe that the numbers game can be easily sorted out. \u2026 It\u2019s the same distance, it\u2019s the same race, we all train the same, we all race the same, and the women deserve to have the same payout when we finish the same bicycle race.\u201d<\/p>\n Schaldach, a former collegiate national champion, is still a pro cyclocross and mountain bike racer now based in Boulder. During the last decade, she said she knows of five women who had approached the IHBC committee about making the payout equal.<\/p>\n \u201cI talked to them two years ago and was very shut down about that idea,\u201d Schaldach said. \u201cWe had pushback until we had the larger community of support. I think having men and women on board in Durango made it a much more convincing argument. It wasn\u2019t just one woman who felt it was unequal; it was a whole community of people who supported what we were doing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are in a town that is a leading location and destination for cyclists all over the world. Durango Devo has as many girls as boys, and people in town, I hope, believe people deserve to be treated equally.\u201d<\/p>\n Blevins drafted the letter to the IHBC and Schaldach mobilized to gain signatures that included Durango\u2019s biggest names in the sport. Levi Kurlander of Durango Devo<\/a> then drafted another letter on behalf of the organization to also send to the IHBC. Cycling superstar Christopher Blevins, Kaylee\u2019s younger brother, also drafted a letter of his own. Blevins said Durango Devo co-founder Sarah Tescher and Durango\u2019s own pro cyclist Teal Stetson-Lee also served as key advisers during the effort.<\/p>\n