Dust-up between cyclists, ambulance highlights headaches rural Colorado bike races can cause first responders

BOULDER COUNTY — Ned Gravel had only one reported accident Saturday, July 13, during its fourth annual race where 870 riders pedaled courses ranging from 10 to 116 miles up thousands of feet in temperatures pushing 90 degrees. But alleged complications with communication has some critics questioning the safety of rural Colorado races. 

A man was seriously injured when multiple riders crashed while coming around a tight corner on Gold Hill Road on Saturday morning. When Indian Peaks Fire Protection District paramedics responded, other riders swerved in front of them, impeding their ability to reach the victim quickly, according to a post on Nedheads Facebook group after the fallen racer was transported to a Boulder hospital by ambulance. 

Emergency responders, all volunteers, say they were caught off guard by the race crawling across their 122-square-mile region, although records show the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office alerted Indian Peaks, as it does any fire protection district with an official event planned for its service area.

Race organizer Gavin Coombs said he hopes to sit down with Indian Peaks responders and discuss the incident. In the four years since the race started it’s the first time Indian Peaks has had to respond to an emergency call, he said. 

In the meantime, Coombs, like other organizers of gravel races in Colorado, has framed up a new code of conduct for cyclists participating in his races, hoping to cut down on race-day conflicts.

Coombs said the Boulder County Sheriff’s Office, the Colorado State Patrol and Gilpin County were all alerted prior to race day. Ned Gravel also contracts with Event Medical Specialists to have six medical providers, partnered with amateur radio operators, stationed along the course to respond to emergencies. And its operations plan includes a detailed emergency response plan that lists things like evacuation pickup sites and a designated emergency treatment facility. 

Andy Bohlmann, who organized hundreds of cycling races as the first technical director for the U.S. Cycling Federation, now USA Cycling, said it sounds like Ned Gravel “had its act together” based on information in its emergency plan, but that gravel racing in general “is very loose, meaning there are no rules or regulations or oversight or checks and balances on the race organizers.” And with some events, he added, he’s surprised no racers have been killed.

“There’s no governing body to assign some kind of official to monitor these events, to get them in some kind of order,” he said. “These people don’t want organization but then they’ve got to find insurance. You have to have insurance to be an entity, and usually an entity is a 501(c)(3). But that doesn’t mean they know how to organize a bike race. And gravel racing is as dangerous as any road race.”

Gravel’s behavior problem 

The rider injured during Ned Gravel is “stable and OK,” Coombs said. 

But according to comments in the same Nedheads post, once Indian Peaks responders reached him, some riders were “funneling at top speed” between the ambulance and the patient, making it nearly impossible to get supplies like oxygen to him. 

It’s an extreme example of similar attitudes that have prevailed in other races, like SBT GRVL, in Routt County, which ended with ranchers decrying last year’s race. Several public meetings were held in the aftermath in which area ranchers said riders’ trash, selfish attitudes and disregard for safety were more than they could take. For months it was unknown if SBT GRVL would continue after Routt County commissioners scheduled a public hearing to decide its future. 

Discussion are ongoing and this year’s race is scheduled for Aug. 18. 

“We haven’t worked through all of the challenges, but we’ve certainly engaged in a really robust process of public meetings, and to the race organizers’ credit, they did quite a bit of work to respond to concerns of citizens,” Commissioner Tim Corrigan said. 

Top concerns were safety and attitude of racers toward the communities in which they ride. 

SBT GRVL cofounder Amy Charity said a number of significant changes have been made to the  2024 “action plan,” including operational updates such as new routes that use less traveled roads and eliminate bi-directional rider traffic, asking Colorado State Patrol to control the front of the race, increasing the number of traffic marshals, beefing up on-course resident outreach and focusing on “education and stewardship messaging” to riders.

Another key change focuses on rider education with the Respect the Routt campaign, which hones in on key topics such as safety, stewardship and kindness, Charity said. 

And all race participants must sign a new set of SBT GRVL oaths prior to starting this year’s race. These include riding on the right side of the road and obeying pertinent traffic laws, respectfully sharing roads with other users, using portable toilets (rather than relieving themselves on private property), and “practicing kindness to others on and off the bike” amid the understanding that this event is inclusive of all. 

Making gravel friendly again

In some instances, organizers in other locations have taken it upon themselves to preemptively ease the burden on communities. 

At a July 1 community meeting in Beulah, fire crews indicated the Oak Ridge Fire, which has been burning since late June, could take weeks to get under control.

The crews were staging on part of the Twelvemile Gravel Hill Climb, which features a short, gutpunch of a course where beginners can get used to safely suffering on the bike, and pros can lay it all out.

No one could be sure how long the fire efforts would take, so Adam Davidson, founder of Grassroots Gravel which hosts the hill climb, immediately canceled the race.

“It’s like the one opportunity in gravel to have a bunch of clangity, clangity, clangity, clangity, clangity, clang,” Davidson said, mimicking the sound of cowbells used to cheer on bike racers.

But calling it off, he said, “was a no-brainer,” even though this would have been the race’s first year.  “It also gives us the opportunity to reassess the race. Like, does it make sense in the coming year to hold it during fire season?”

Like most gravel races, Twelvemile is a no-refunds and no-deferrals event. Grassroots donated what was left of registration fees to the Nature and Wildlife Discovery Center, which has been hosting fire crews at its mountain campus in Beulah, and the Beulah Fire Protection District.  

“Literally the last thing that I want to do is create a burden on a community or be exploitative of the community,” he said. “That’s not what we’re here for. Like I’d rather not run an event than for it to be a net negative on the community. We want to be a symbiote. We don’t want to be a parasite.”

As for Ned Gravel, Coombs said starting next year, riders will have to sign a code of conduct when they register. They’ll have to follow rules of the roads, show respect to residents, motorists and race personnel, adhere to all laws including stopping and/or moving over for emergency vehicles and defer to first responders as well as uniformed and non-uniformed officers, he said. 

If a rider violates the code and someone catches them, they’ll be disqualified and could face banishment from all future races. And the new rules will “trickle through” all other events Coombs’ production company, Peak to Peak Endurance, presents, he said.  

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