Saddle up and ride north to the big one. The 110th annual Cheyenne Frontier Days rolls out today, and right behind that Saturday is the start of the nine-day rodeo competition.
Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association members who have been working arenas along the Front Range and in the ProRodeo Summer Tour will join the nearly 1,800 cowboys and cowgirls bucking for $1 million in total purses during the week.
The world’s largest outdoor rodeo and Western celebration has daily rodeos starting at 1 p.m. and lasting nearly 3 1/2 hours each afternoon under the Wyoming sun. If you would prefer to enjoy the cool Cheyenne evenings, the Professional Bull Riders’ Challenger Tour, which is the minor-league circuit for the Professional Bull Riders, makes stops under the lights Monday and Tuesday nights.
But as anyone who has made the pilgrimage north can attest, go for the rodeo, then stay for the wild-horse and potato races.
If you want to see how your favorite stock views a rodeo, there are daily chute tours that take fans through the maze of holding pens and gates, then into the bucking chutes and finally across the arena. Boots are highly recommended.
The ProRodeo Tour stop is the July 29 event. But the final day, July 30, may be the most exciting, with the awarding of the championship saddles and buckles. Also handed out that day will be buckles to the winners of the chuckwagon cookoff – categories include best configured wagon, as well as best-tasting meat, beans and bread.
You can’t get much more “Daddy of ‘Em All” than that.
Around town
Ever get so desperate for the slopes that you thought about pulling the knobby tires off a Tonka truck and strapping them to a snowboard just to huck yourself down a dry hill? If so, Snowmass Village is the place for you this weekend. If you didn’t get enough action sports last weekend during the Dew Tour stop at the Pepsi Center, head up to Fanny Hill for the U.S. Open Mountainboard Championships. There will be more to watch than just racing; for anyone who wants to try, there are free demos and test rides both days. Professionals in this up-and-coming discipline will compete in two divisions: dirt boardercross (DBX) and dirt slopestyle. Prelims are today, and the finals are Saturday. And as with any action sports gathering, a free concert follows. For more information, go to www.dirtboardx.com/usopen.
The couch
OFF: Get out your checkbook and bug your friends. The annual Courage Classic, which benefits The Children’s Hospital, starts Saturday in Leadville. Based out of Copper Mountain, this three-day cycling event goes 157 miles, but you don’t have to do the whole thing. Sunday offers the Taste of Courage, which includes a variety of rides – the base ride is 54 miles (with an optional century route to the top of Ute Pass and back) as well as a 35-mile family event along the bike path from Copper to Breckenridge and back. Besides an entry fee, a minimum donation is required. You have until Aug. 30 to turn in those, and there are some great incentives. For more info, check out www.couragetours.com.
ON: If you have an early tee time this weekend, think about changing it. TNT’s predawn coverage of the British Open starts at 5 a.m. Saturday and 4 a.m. Sunday before ABC takes over two hours later. Better watch out, because if you tune in after 11:30 a.m. Sunday, you’ll miss the whole thing. Plus, it’s supposed to be a chilly 85 degrees this weekend, so a late-afternoon stroll (after your nap) around the links might be reasonable.
What we’d like to see …
The Colorado-Colorado State football game sell out the day tickets are available. … OK, how about in the first week? Single-game football tickets went on sale Monday, and CSU, which is the home team and keeping the game in Denver, has plenty of the $55 and $85 tickets available for the Sept. 9 game at 76,125-seat Invesco Field at Mile High. CU is asking its fans to go through Ticketmaster (and ask for the CU sections) until its single-game tickets go on sale Aug. 1. So far, the place is one-third full, with CSU commitments from 12,000 seats for season-ticket holders, 10,000 set aside for students and 1,500 sold since Monday. Any chance this thing sells out by Sept. 8?
Weak in review
It has become the car wreck on the side of the road: Look, but don’t look. The Rockies’ unbelievable slide to the bottom of the NL West going into Arizona tonight has been well-documented, so we don’t really want to look again, but still we have to.
