Looking Back, Racing Ahead: 50 Years Of The Iron Horse Bicycle Classic + Durango Cycling Culture

In the 1950s, Danny Feller and his brother Bob of Durango were two early bicycling innovators whose contributions to the evolution of cycling have largely gone unnoticed. Photos courtesy of Fort Lewis College Center of Southwest Studies.

Every late May in Durango, the spring season rolls toward summer with the momentum a cyclist may feel on a swift descent from Molas Pass to Silverton. It was there atop Molas on May 28, 2022, when I felt the elation of this truly great event in its 50th year, the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic. Happy to be done with climbs and feeling that “home stretch” stoke that only comes after the hardest efforts, I smiled for a quick selfie before grabbing a swig of water and reaching for my wind shell to prep for the downhill.

Like every photo I took of the towering mountains of the San Juan range that day, it’s hard to do justice to the event and the full Iron Horse weekend without being there and experiencing it yourself. For five decades, cyclists from all over the world have been riding these car-free miles from Durango to Silverton in celebration of the challenge that it is and the community that supports it. What’s more, the history of cycling in Durango spans well past the history of the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic. Colorado has been on the map for a while when it comes to all things cycling, much in thanks to Durango and its generations of bike enthusiasts.

Durango local Jon Bailey is an artist and a cyclist. For over two decades, he has supported and participated in the Iron Horse in various capacities, and for the event’s 50th year, he was the artist commissioned to create the limited-edition commemorative poster. Bailey was also integral in helping curate a special new exhibit at the Center for Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College: “Looking Back, Racing Ahead: 50 Years of the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic and Durango Cycling Culture.” The impressive collection celebrated its opening during the Iron Horse weekend in May of 2022, and the exhibit will be open through spring of 2023.  

Bailey worked with Center for Southwest Studies museum curator Elizabeth Quinn MacMillan to co-create the exhibit.

“This was just a really exciting partnership,” shares Quinn MacMillan. “We started talking about doing this exhibit a few years ago, and we were even lucky enough to meet with Ed Zink before he passed away and with Gaige Sippy, and then to have it built over the last few years to what it is; it’s been really a true partnership — having support from the Iron Horse crew and having Jon on board to help connect us to all the cyclists in our community to pull together those really personal stories.”

The more you learn about the history of cycling in Durango, the more you hear names like Ed Zink and Gaige Sippy again and again. Zink, who passed away in 2019, was a Durango native, local rancher, owner of Mountain Bike Specialists and one of the founders of the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic. Sippy, longtime director of the Iron Horse, stepped back from that role following the 50th anniversary with Ian Burnett now filling those shoes.  

The author riding the course of the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic in May 2022 — the event’s 50th anniversary. Photo by Kim Fuller.

A walk through the exhibit reveals many more names and stories to go with them all. For those who don’t know tale behind the Iron Horse race, it was in 1971 when Tom Mayer, a cyclist, challenged his brother Jim, a railroad worker on the Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad, to see who could get to Silverton faster. Tom was able to pedal the distance faster than the steam engine, and the legend of the Iron Horse was born.

“In the ’60s, there wasn’t a movement like this,” explains Jim Mayer. “When you fast-forward and see what’s happened in areas like Durango and Moab and other places where all the bicyclists continue to race and ride, it’s incredible. I never would’ve thought [Tom’s] challenge to me would result in something this big. It’s an incredible legend.”

For every piece of history related to the Iron Horse, there is equal or more dedicated to Durango’s notable cycling heritage.

“There are so many legends that have come out of Durango, as far as mountain bike and road cyclists, that are pretty well-known, and their stories are well-known,” says Bailey, “so to be able to dig a little bit deeper was definitely an exciting part of the process.”

Roots of Cycling in Durango

The entire history of cycling in Durango can date back to the late 1800s, with the Durango Wheel Club supporting cycling in Durango since 1895. Originally a cycling advocacy group, it later became the social cycling club it is today.

As Quinn MacMillan and Bailey compiled details for the exhibit at the Center for Southwest Studies, lesser known stories from Durango’s cycling history were given more attention.

“Like with the Feller Brothers,” explains Bailey. “The Feller Brothers were this legend I’ve heard about through stories from past rider friends who have lived here for a long time, including Ed and including Bob Gregoriowho I worked with for a good chunk at Durango Cyclery. Years ago, he had taken me up to their cabin, which is up in Falls Creek, and just started telling me about these brothers who were pushing the elements of what a clunker cruiser-style bike could do.”

“This is before Marin County,” adds Bailey. “The ‘godfathers of mountain biking’ — this is way before them. But, this wasn’t a trend; this was a utilitarian purpose.” 

As the story goes, and as Gregorio outlines in his written narrative on display in the exhibit, Danny Feller and his brother Bob “were two early bicycling innovators whose contributions to the evolution of cycling have largely gone unnoticed. They were primarily farmers who also operated a small mine located some 2,000 feet above Hermosa in the Animas Valley north of Durango. Beginning in the 1950s, the brothers used bicycles as tools, tinkering and improving them to suit their purposes. Danny, being more involved in the mining operation, would modify old balloon tire bicycles to accommodate his need to haul tools and heavy loads up and down steep, single-track trails. These nearly daily excursions to the mine led to Danny's discovery of the joys of backcountry biking as far back as the early 1960s. He and Iron Horse legend Tom Mayer were riding Hermosa Creek trail at least a decade before mountain biking was supposedly invented! Bob was more likely to be seen riding his customized three-speed up and down the Animas Valley as he'd run errands and scout for discarded bike parts in the back alleys of Durango.”

“For years I’ve wanted to do something about the Feller Brothers, because they were just this unknown source that was pushing limits of bike travel, and I’m a fan of that,” says Bailey. “So, to be able to tie that into the event and do that, that meant a lot to me, and I’ve gotten a lot of feedback from the community that had no idea, or just had a little bit of idea.”

Mountain bikes from the sport’s early days in the exhibit at Center for Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College in Durango are on display through spring 2023.

In true style of the Feller Brothers, riding in, around and through the San Juan Mountains took hold over the decades that followed as Durango become known around the world as a mountain biking destination. In 1990, Durango hosted the first-ever unified and sanctioned Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) Mountain Bike World Championships. Ned Overend, today a Durango cycling icon, won in front of a home crowd at the Purgatory ski area. Durango continues to host collegiate and world mountain bike championships and produce the next generation of mountain bike stars like Elke Brutsaert and Howard Grotts that follow names like John Tomac, Greg Herbold and Missy Giove. The mountain bike brand Yeti opened its doors in Durango in 1991, and this decade also brought the development of Trails 2000 (now Durango Trails).

From the combination and commitment of all of these efforts and accolades, Durango has continued to become a world-class cycling community and destination.

“I felt like we did pretty well in capturing not only the Iron Horse but all of these other offshoots of what makes Durango cycling so unique,” says Quinn MacMillan of the museum collection.

Along with its hallmark road cycling event, the 50th Iron Horse Bicycle Classic anniversary weekend showcased a dual downhill competition and Roostmaster (cross-country mountain biking and BMX in a fast-paced sprint to the finish), and there couldn’t have been a better celebration of all things cycling in the bike-loving town that Durango is, and, as it seems, always will be.

Learn more about the exhibit at swcenter.fortlewis.edu.

Originally published in the Fall 2022 issue of Spoke+Blossom.