Ned Overend wins the 1990 World Mountain Bike Championships in Durango, Colorado. Photo Special to The Denver Post by Carl Yarbrough.
The legends of American mountain biking – Ned Overend, John Tomac, Julie Furtado, Ruth Matthes, Sara Ballantyne and Mike Kloser – are gathering in Durango this weekend to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the first-ever UCI World Mountain Bike Championships, a watershed race that sparked the sport’s explosive growth in the U.S.
But this won’t be some glad-handing, meet-and-greet reunion with the pioneers. These legends will be racing to win in the Sept. 12 Durango Dirt Fondo, a 50-mile and 30-mile race that traces Purgatory’s most storied trails.
Put on by the indomitable Overend and Durango Olympian Todd Wells and supported by the pair’s longtime sponsor Specialized bikes, the weekend will include not just open-to-all races but the rarest opportunity to mingle with the icons of knobby-tired competition. Overend was the first-ever world champion at age 35 and Tomac took that honor the following year. The top women of mountain biking – Matthes, Balantyne and the sport’s first downhill world champion Cindy Devine – will be there too.
The races will follow singletrack used in the 2001 World Cup, NORBA Nationals, the Iron Horse Bicycle Class, the Single Speed World Championships and even the 1990 Worlds Dual Slalom Course.
As of Thursday there were still race spots open. Register at .
For a fun glimpse at how far mountain biking has come in the last quarter decade, check out the 1990 World Championship video below.
