MARK JOSEPH 2011 Aspen Stage Technical Director
“I’ve been involved in cycling since I was a kid. Started in Berkeley, CA. I raced all through college. I quit racing because I hurt my knee. 1979 I came out this way with George Mount in the Red Zinger car that he had won. I was here for about a year and I was working as a carpenter. I decided to start a bike shop. I saved up some money, got a space and was building the business and it took off. In a couple of years I had a pretty sizable bike business going. I decided to promote my business I would sponsor and coach a team. I was coached since I was a kid, had all this experience, and nobody here did, so… The shop was called the Hub of Aspen. I sold the Hub in ’88. It’s still here.
“I put on races, sponsored about 20 guys, we went to all the races, had clinics. Just got really into it. And then, just through George I started to get involved with the Coors Classic. Michael Aisner said he wanted to do some stages in Aspen again. I was asked if I’d like to help organize and said yes. I spent most of the year on it. It’s a lot of work. It was a thankless job back then. People weren’t into cycling and didn’t follow it like they do now. We had to get 400 rooms for free. We had to beg borrow and steal to convince them that it was worth it to give up 5 rooms just to bring the race into town. It got easier as we put on that first race. It got pretty big. We had 30, 40, 50,000 people in town. Greg LeMond, Bernard Hinault.”
“The day they announced this race, I looked at the article and said this sounds pretty good. I thought Aspen should be a stage. I called up Aisner and said What’s going on? He said I’m working on consulting with them in the beginning. The mayor wrote an article the next day saying we should bring this bike race here. They had announced they were going to do bid packets. I emailed and said I’m still here if you guys need any help. In one day I was technical director of the race in Aspen. Aspen has a great staff for putting on events but they didn’t have any experience with putting on a bike race. It’s not really about putting on a bike race because they bring the race to town. It’s about all the ancillary everything that has to go on with it which is really kind of drudgery in a way. It’s working with the police and the hotels and the restaurants, the food and 300 volunteers. There are just a lot of projects.”
“So we formed an amazing group that first day. Usually I would have a meting and there would 3 people but immediately but it was like 25 people. Every agency, hotels. We formed a committee immediately and did a bid packet. It’s a lot of work. We had to figure out courses. We had to figure out if we could do lodging. We went to the lodging community who said ‘we’ll do it. Great. Can we do two nights? It’s the best thing ever. We’ve got to put this bike race on.’ So that was easy. The staff in Snowmass did a huge job.”
“So that all happened and then really the biggest focus was to work with the UPCC which was Quiznos at the time to give them what they wanted. They wanted Aspen from Day 1. Obviously a marquee deal, Lance pushed for it, and we put together a really good package. We put together a package that had a lot more than what was required for the bid. We offered a number of different course options. They came up with a course that we didn’t think of or expect. Why would they want to race down Independence Pass? But it’s going to be an amazing stage. It’s not going to be like any other. With two passes over 12,000’ that just says it right there. It’s 4,000’ out of their comfort zone. That zone over 10,000 is where you really start to hurt.”
“I live here and I go up there all the time. I get above 10,000… Like the Bells are around 10-11,000. The regular rides around here stay below that. The minute you get over that you start to feel it, get dizzy. When you’re on the top of Aspen Mountain you’re above 10,000’. These guys, top fit athletes, they’ll be acclimatized down at this level, like Denver. It doesn’t matter what you do. When you get above 10,000’ it’s really hard to breathe. So that’s going to be the biggest factor.”
“It’s not as steep as the Tourmalet, it doesn’t have 9% grade. It’s going to be very tough. That’s what’s going to make the race very interesting to watch. These two passes-one with dirt which is going to have people interested and it’s going to be a tough descent. It could be really slippery if it gets wet which is more than likely that time of year.”
“I think it’s going to be, for an early stage, much more decisive than you typically see. One of the things that’s so great about the Tour is it kind of builds up and you can make it into a daily habit, just really get into it. This is going to be a flash.”
“What we’re focused on now is making everything come off perfectly for UPCC, the riders, and for our town, for our businesses because they’re putting a lot into it. We have to secure a budget of about $200,000 for the city to backup all the costs. Most people who work on the race are hired. They have some sort of volunteer status but they’re actually doing it on their work time. So we’re paying a fair amount to the city and to the ski co for that. We just got started on our whole mission to raise money. All the VIP tickets are being sold through us. We’ll have about 250 VIPs. It’s going to be the only way to see the race. There’s very little finish area space.”
“It’s really hard to get up on the mountain. There’s hardly any shoulder anywhere, there’s nowhere to park, you can’t line it with vehicles like you do in the Alps. Pretty much they’re going to have to ride up. Here there will be 3 big screen TVs. They’ll have the expo, of course. Aspen is just a great town to hang out and walk around in, with all the malls and the course winds through town. So my money is on most people staying here.”
The road will be closed four hours before the race comes.
“For us I think in town it’s great because we have a really huge body of cyclists. It’s becoming more popular every year. Back when I was a racer nobody did it. Now it’s such a hot popular thing. Everyone kind of knows about it a little bit. What’s interesting is that I find, especially with all these, sometimes when I’ve been talking with people, the presentations I’ve done and interviews, Americans really don’t understand the sport very well.”
“I’m actually working on this article. I’ve made a connection in my mind which I’m working on in the story – it’s like chess on wheels. There are a lot of other parallels that you can make with how you use your men to do the various tasks, what they’re best at. What I’m trying to give people is a better way to watch the race and understand what’s going on. Anybody who’s followed the Tour is starting to get a pretty good idea. In chess your opponent can’t figure out all the moves that are possible and he misses one. To make it more interesting for people and to give them better understanding, there are a lot of stories just waiting to be done around how the teams work together. And even how they work with other teams, or against other teams and about how they pick their place in time often well in advance when they’re going to do something. For instance, the last few stages where Andy and Frank didn’t do very much, they picked this stage awhile back and they wanted to test people but they also wanted to have as much energy for this stage as possible. So they didn’t waste it back then when they couldn’t have made the same.
I think the more we can help people understand what they’re looking at the more they’ll enjoy it. Cycling has a lot of fanfare and color and whizzing by but it’s not easy to understand.
