INDEPENDENCE PASS 2011
Justin Todd
Back when this was announced when Lance and the governor came together to push and get this all taken care of I was sitting down with a friend of mine who’s a national champion Her fiancé rides for HTC, TJ Vangarder. We were talking and he was saying how he wanted to come out and ride the US Pro Challenge and do all that. She said that the thing that’s always left in the dust is womens racing. How do we promote it in the right way and if we can get the word out there. She said why don’t we put on our own race in conjunction to this?
We’re going to do a 3 day stage race and have it finish right before the men finish in town. It’s a criterium. There’s a course in downtown Aspen that they’ll go through. We’re taking that same course, expanding it a little bit in a criterium with the pro women that will finish one hour before the men actually arrive in town. The first five minutes of TV coverage will be of the women.
One of my roles with the Aspen stage is to do all the ancillary events that are happening. Make it exciting outside of just the men coming into town which is exciting by itself with this stage.
I think it will be crowded on the uphill of Independence Pass. Some people were talking about being out where the Independence ghost town is. I think it will be very challenging place to watch. He thinks Independence will also be closed to cars after a certain time, but just 4 hours before. Coming down Independence will be so fast it won’t be a good place to watch. Should be fun. It’s very exciting.
Each town has the opportunity to put something in the VIP tent that showcases the individual town. We can also do something within the Expo.
