USA Pro Cycling Challenge

Watching the Tour de France this year inspired me to volunteer for the first USA Pro Cycling Challenge, a week long bike race in Colorado. The final stage was today, and it went from Golden to Denver. I volunteered as a course marshal in Golden. I was positioned two blocks from the start. Before the race began, there were festivities in the park across the street, and several people were riding old-time bicycles.


Once the race started, I decided not to take any pictures. I circled myself in this photograph I found on the internet.


Here's the full-sized photograph.


I'm wearing a yellow shirt to the left of the full-time course marshal standing in the middle of the road. As you can see, I had to "contain" quite a few people!

The riders made a loop north of Golden, then came back to the same intersection. This time around, I was deputized by the real course marshal to stand on a median in the middle of the road with my yellow vest. I had a great view that only a few photographers and a TV cameraman had.

Once the race was past, I meandered past the park


and past the start



to catch a bit more of the race before the riders left Golden and headed for Denver.

This video shows the festive atmosphere of the race:


While filming this, I was caught in a Denver Post photograph!



On my walk back to my car, I took this picture of Washington Street going through downtown Golden.


When I got home and watched the race on TV, they edited the coverage and showed only the Denver part of the race (that's why I went online to find two of these photographs).

It was a fun time. Maybe Boulder will get a stage in the race next year!