BUENA VISTA — On a snowy March day in 1986, schoolteacher Gloria Siekmeier saw a newspaper ad for a new event called Ride the Rockies. On a whim, she signed up. When it was over, she was hooked.
Sixteen years and nearly that many rides later, something disappointing happened in 2002: She wasn’t picked in the lottery that determines the 2,000 bicyclists. So she offered to be a volunteer.
Hooked again.
Siekmeier, 75, is a regular among the roughly 80 volunteers who keep the annual bicycle tour of Colorado’s high country running smoothly.
Friday, she catered to throngs at the day’s second aid station, 30 miles into the 75-mile route from Crested Butte to Buena Vista. She sliced oranges. She refilled the Gatorade and water containers. She hauled trash.
She was too rushed to talk.
“It gets very busy for about an hour and a half” as the main wave of cyclists passes through, she said later.
Other volunteers drive sag wagons, direct traffic, mark the pavement with rough-road warnings and hang up directional signs, among other tasks. Most of them, like Siekmeier, return year after year.
What’s the allure? For Siekmeier, it’s “being around the cycling community, the other volunteers, the camaraderie, all the interesting people, and of course the beautiful scenery.”
Of volunteers, tour director Chandler Smith said, “It’s fair to say they’re the heart and soul of the event.”
When Siekmeier signed up for that first Ride the Rockies, she was only a casual cyclist. “I had my daughter-in-law’s 10-speed bike, my son’s helmet, tennis shoes and khaki shorts,” she said. She saw no sense in buying a lot of gear when she had no idea whether she would enjoy riding.
After putting in thousands of Ride the Rockies miles, she said she had no regrets about making the switch from bicycling to helping the riders.
“I had already ridden most of the passes in Colorado anyway,” she said.
Staff writer Ingrid Muller contributed to this report.
