The 2011 USA Pro Cycling Challenge peloton racing from Avon to Steamboat. (Getty)
A presentation to the Boulder City Council reveals specific route information for the August stage race.
By Joe Lindsey
For most of the stages of the 2012 USA Pro Cycling Challenge, we know only broad details—start and finish towns and likely climbs or routes. But on Tuesday night race fans learned the specific route of Stage 6, a highly anticipated ride from Golden to Boulder.
Late last fall, the Denver Post and Denver’s 9News television station published a leaked list of the start and finish towns. But the Post‘s information on Stage 6 was only partly correct, as it predicted a roughly 73-mile route.
At the same time, local organizing committee members were working hard on a much more ambitious route, which was revealed last night at a presentation to the Boulder City Council.
The stage will go up state highway 93 directly into Boulder, but then turn west up Boulder Canyon to Nederland, north on the rolling Peak to Peak highway, and then down South Saint Vrain Canyon to Lyons.
That’s all a beautiful prelude, as the race turns south on US 36 to Lefthand Canyon, a favorite area ride. Six miles up, they’ll go over Lee Hill, a short, steep pitch followed by a fast descent to Boulder and then the main event: a climb up Flagstaff Mountain.
Provided the fourth stage, to Beaver Creek, doesn’t finish atop Bachelor Gulch, the Flagstaff finish could be the race’s first-ever true mountaintop finish (the climb last year to Mount Crested Butte is steep but short).
The total will be right around 100 miles, with about 7,000 feet of climbing. That’s not daunting by pro standards, but the final 30 miles will be tricky. GC favorites will have to be watchful on the Lee Hill climb, and the final ascent to Flagstaff will be about 1,500 vertical feet.
It’s steepest at the bottom, then backs off some, but the climb should take the pros about 11-12 minutes from the base of Gregory Canyon to the 6,800-foot Sunrise Ampitheater parking lot.
Coupled with a likely time trial for the final stage the next day in Denver, and the 2012 edition will almost certainly go down to the wire. That’s in contrast to last year’s edition which was essentially finished after the mid-race Vail time trial.
(continued)
