As racers sprinted out of the start line looking for a holeshot, Erin Huck suddenly looked down noticing a loss of power. Her chain was broken.
The 39-year-old Olympic hopeful from Boulder pulled to the side and watched the professional women’s mountain bike field race out of Durango Mesa Park on Sunday during the 49th Iron Horse Bicycle Classic. The favorite to win the race and the Queen of the Mountain title for the IHBC didn’t know what to do next.
With chain in hand, Huck asked if it was OK to try to replace it. Granted permission, she ran over to a friendly team van from Boulder Junior Cycling, where she got a new chain. After falling six minutes behind, she loaded back onto her bike and set out on a 27-mile assault of the course that made three laps between the Durango Mesa Park and Horse Gulch trail system.
“I didn’t have tools or anything to fix it, so that would have been race over for me. I was just glad to have the opportunity to race,” Huck said. “I didn’t do my due diligence with bike maintenance before this. I’m just glad it happened right at the start so I was able to get help instead of being out there by myself.”
Making time on the rest of the women’s field every second, Huck found herself in third place at the end of two laps. Unable to catch Utah’s Evelyn Dong or Boulder’s Madigan Munro, that is where Huck would finish one day after she claimed the IHBC pro women’s road race victory on the 47-mile ride from Durango to Silverton.
Dong, who was third in the road race, would win Sunday’s grueling mountain bike race in 2 hours, 35 minutes, 50 seconds. Riders who compete in both the road and mountain bike races earn points toward the Queen of the Mountain standings. Dong was third in the women’s road race, giving her and Huck both 48 points. But the tiebreaker went to Huck for winning the road race, and Dong thought that’s exactly the way it should have gone.
“The road race should be weighted a little more. That’s the premier event, and the mountain bike is the hair of the dog event,” Dong said.
For Huck, who is likely to be picked by USA Cycling as the third women’s rider for the team at the Tokyo Olympics later this summer, the win in the women’s road race backed and a memorable ride on the mountain bike was the perfect way to return to Colorado from early-season World Cup mountain bike racing in Europe.
“This was just what the doctor ordered. It was super fun to race with such great people and to be at a race with people cheering for us,” Huck said. “I don’t know how long it’s been since we had people cheering at a Colorado race, so that was pretty special.”
Munro finished second Sunday, 3:46 behind Dong’s dominant performance. Huck was third, 4:14 back after nearly catching back up to the younger Boulder rider.
To even get back to the women’s pro field and pass 15 of those riders, Huck also had to get around 23 riders in the men’s ages 19-34 race who had started shortly after the pro women.
“That was really hard. There weren’t that many passing opportunities. When it was open, it was full gas sprint as hard as I could over and over again,” Huck said. “But it was also kind of nice because I was always with people, except the last lap when I was pretty much by myself.
Dong had a crash on the first lap on the first descent and again in the final berm turn before riding into the finish line. But nothing could keep her from victory, though she knew younger riders such as Munro and Durango’s Ruth Holcomb were mighty challengers.
“The kids go out really hard. I’m too old for that,” the 36-year-old Dong said. “I stayed behind the kids for a bit, and they were going fast. If it was a two-lap race, one of the kids would have won. On the second lap, I decided to open it up a bit on that second climb and slowly got a gap.”
Holcomb, 18, was third after one lap not far behind Dong and Munro. But a flat tire late in the second lap would end her day, and she did not finish on a hot and windy afternoon.
“It is so hot, and all the climbs are so brutal,” Holcomb said. “I knew Erin was not with us at the start, so I knew I had to really hang it out there on the downhills to keep her off me because I can’t quite hang at her pace on the ups. Second lap, coming down the last downhill, I smacked a rock and flatted my tire.”
Holcomb, who still races at the junior level in UCI events, was excited to race alongside established pros such as Dong and Huck in her hometown race.
“Erin is incredible, but Evelyn was flying out there, so it was going to be tough. But seeing Erin come back from down six minutes is out of this world,” she said. “Seeing the level they race at is insane and inspiring. It’s so fun to learn from them and see where they are.”
Durango’s own Ellen Campbell would place fourth, 18:59 behind the winning time of Dong. Behind her was a long list of Durango talent with Bailey Cioppa, Lauren Aggeler, Madelyn Roberson and Michaela Thompson finishing fifth through eighth, respectively.
Only nine pro women finished the race of the 18 who started. While the course was a strong challenge, Holcomb said she hopes the traditional IHBC mountain bike course in downtown Durango involving Steamworks Brewing Co. returns next year once the COVID-19 pandemic is under control.
“I would have been good with two laps of this course,” Holcomb said. “This is the longest race, aside from the road race (Saturday), that I’ve done all year. Nothing wrong with that, but I was tired and ready to be done early.
“It was fun on these trails, but there’s something so special about racing in downtown Durango with the whole town around you, and there were a lot of lonely spots out there on the course today.’
jlivingston@durangoherald.com
