Coors Classic reunion: Phinney steals the show
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Former Coors Classic competitors, team personnel, race officials and media from all over the country descended on the University Bicycles store in Boulder, Colorado, Thursday night, for the launch of a new DVD that chronicles the complete 1977-88 history of the pioneering stage race.
The store was an appropriate location for the launch, being only a half-mile from the North Boulder Park circuit that nearly always hosted the finish of the Classic.
Photo contestWe noticed a lot of you brought your cameras to the Coors Classic DVD release bash, which inspired us to declare a special photo contest. Send your best shots to us at rosters@insideinc.com (with Coors-Zinger in the subject line) and we'll give a free copy of the movie to the best pic (you can check out a few of ours down below). Meanwhile, look for two additional reports next week — a video on VeloNews.TV and an “Inside Cycling” column from VeloNews editorial director John Wilcockson. — Editor |
Star of the show Thursday night, just as he was at the race and is on the eight-hour DVD, was Davis Phinney, the 1988 champion (and winner of 22 stages), whose Davis Phinney Foundation was the evening’s beneficiary. In a short, moving speech after words from race founder Mo Siegel of Celestial Seasonings and race promoter Michael Aisner, Phinney, who suffers from Parkinson’s, the disease his charity is fighting, spoke for all 400 people there when he said, “This race changed all our lives.” On finishing his talk, Phinney brought the house down by raising both arms high in his signature victory salute.
Among those who came to share memories of the race that changed American cycling were former winners Dale Stetina (1979 and 1983), Jonathan Boyer (1980) and the multi-time women’s race champion Connie Carpenter. Also there were podium finishers Andy Hampsten, Ron Kiefel and Jeff Pierce, participants like Alexi Grewal, Hugh Walton, Alan McCormack, Thomas Prehn, Steve Tilford and Marianne Martin, officials that included Don Hobbs, Kenny Schwartz, Mike McLean, Kent Fonda, Susan Eastman and Beth Estes, and former team managers Jim Ochowicz, Len Pettyjohn and Trudi Roberts.
Phinney and the other race legends left everyone fired up for more, whether that will be a bike ride next day (Phinney was planning to ride with Boyer on a perfect, blue-sky, Rocky Mountain Friday), another get-together (maybe in 2008 on the 20th anniversary of the final race), or even another Classic. That would be a true, living memorial to a race that never dies.
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