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La Ruta Grows Up: New Stage, More participants signal race's progression
With three stages of the 2007 La Ruta de los Conquistadores in the books, Federico “Lico” Ramirez has proven beyond a doubt he owns the strongest legs of anyone in the race. So far the Costa Rican is three-for-three in stage wins, having handily dropped his countrymen and foreigners alike on the course’s steepest climbs. While Ramirez speaks no English, the Tico strongman is a spokesperson for La Ruta to North America and Europe. In 2005, Ramirez rode to a third-place finish at Germany’s eight-day Trans Alp race. Just three months ago, Ramirez and his BCR-Pizza Hut teammate Ivan Amador traveled to Canada’s TransRockies Challenge to race the seven-day competition. The duo rode strongly against the United Cycles team of Roddi Lega and Tim Heemskerk, and finished second. The Tico’s mission was to promote La Ruta to the lucrative Canadian and American mountain-bike markets. “I think seeing [the Ticos] have helped people know about La Ruta, and now we have good promoting skills and I think that having both is a good way for us to market,” said Luis Rueda, La Ruta’s marketing and public relations chief. “Our goal is to get more people to come to Costa Rica.” The goal is also to help the 15-year-old race attract more riders — a task Rueda has helped spearhead. He is now a staple at North American bike events, and attends California’s Sea Otter Classic and Las Vegas’s Interbike flying the La Ruta flag. He also picks up the tab for North Americans journalists and elite racers to attend the event. The marketing strategy appears to be working: La Ruta grew from 483 participants in 2006 to 520 in 2007. And 2007 marks the second-consecutive year that foreigners outnumber the local Ticos. Not surprisingly, customers from Canada and the United States sent the biggest numbers. The growth in size is imperative to La Ruta’s future within the fast growing world of epic mountain-bike stage races. South Africa’s Absa Cape Epic and Germany’s Trans Alp races now attract more than 1000 riders annually. The TransScotland and TransGermany events debuted in 2007. British Columbia has two epics — the BC Bike Race hit the ground running in 2007 with 200 riders and the TransRockies Challenge celebrated its fourth anniversary in 2007 with 600 riders. Another British Columbia race is on the docket for 2008 in Kamloops. Race organizers in Colorado are planning a five-day race for 2008, and another event is rumored to be on the books for Baja, Mexico. Each race markets itself as a unique event in the rapidly expanding market, and the hook could prove useful if the business of epic stage racing starts to wane. The BC Bike Race boasts miles of singletrack riding in British Columbia’s west coast, and the Absa Cape Epic puts its competitors on television and attracts the world’s top cross-country professionals. La Ruta’s race director Diego Viquel says he does not see the other races as competition, but as models to learn from. But Viquel is quick to point out that, while the other races attract primarily local business, La Ruta is the only event to attract the lion’s share of it’s cliental from abroad. “The scenario we have here they do not have in the other countries — you come here and you ride in the jungle and summit a volcano,” he said. “You see mud and rain and trees. It is a challenge.” Indeed, the race’s unabashedly punishing nature could prove La Ruta’s saving grace in the future. While it is three days shorter than British Columbia’s seven-day races, La Ruta boasts more combined climbing feet (40,000) than both events. And with a fourth stage added for 2007, the race now draws a continuous route from the Pacific Ocean to Caribbean Sea. Organizers eliminated a brutally muddy hike-a-bike section for the 2007 race’s opening day, and the stage still contained 15,000 feet of climbing in only 58 miles. Many of the ascents were on grades too steep to ride. “I think we are well known now as the toughest race on the planet,” Rueda. “We want to show that we can organize a race on the international standards or professionalism Whether La Ruta rises to that challenge is something left to be seen — the 2007 edition saw a few hiccups. Both the first and third stage saw botched course markings send numerous riders off route. A near accident between a bus and a truck in downtown San Jose stalled the rolling enclosure during stage 3. And the event boasted a poor showing of professional riders from North America to challenge Ramirez, who currently owns a 27-minute advantage over countryman Paolo Montoya with only the final 120km stage 4 from Aquiares to Limon remaining. But Rueda is confident that the race’s image and reputation will prevail. “We want to be one of the biggest races in the world,” he said.
