IRON HORSE BICYCLE CLASSIC

One of our favorite bike races is held in Durango, Colorado. The 38th annual Iron Horse Bicycle Classic was held on May 23rd. The race starts in Durango with the train whistle of the Silverton steam powered train and ends in the city of Silverton, fifty miles later. They have about 1000 people who do it as a race and 1500 people who do it as a ride. Most of those people beat the train to Silverton. It is an exciting race.

As Richard on his motorcycle and I in the Jeep drove from our hotel to the start of the race on Saturday we saw a bear at the edge of town. I think the only place that I have seen a bear is the zoo and Yellowstone, so it was pretty exciting to see.

The weather for the Road Race was great, only a few sprinkles, so the temperature was perfect for the riders.

That evening we got invited to a Livestrong Foundation dinner. It was held at a beautiful home right on the river.

We had a great time visiting with all who were there. They ended the night with a cookie judging contest. They had cookies from all of the business in town and we had to pick the best cookie. They had some really yummy cookies.

On Sunday they have a crit in the downtown area of Durango. We started the day with rain for the first crit, had a few sprinkles during the day, but for the most part it was beautiful.
This was the first time that our friend Harry




worked a crit on his motor. He did a fabulous job!


We ended the day back at Steamworks. We finally ate a dinner that Rachael has wanted every time we have been there. It is a fish fry dinner. Shrimp and Crab and potatoes, they just dump them out on the table that is covered with brown paper. It was good.

Monday is the Time Trial. Richard and Harry took turns starting the riders. Three days and three great races.

We had Harry start home first so that we would be behind him if he had any problems on the motorcycle on the way home. We watched the rain clouds all over as we drove towards home. Just before we got to Green River, the rain came down, we caught up to Harry in there where he was taking a rest from the bad weather. We all hid out at a gas station there for a while until things calmed down some. The next day on the news they talked about all of the flash flooding that had happened near Green River, Utah , and I was glad that we avoided all of that.