Forty years after mountain biking first earned its rainbow stripes in the San Juan Mountains, the sport is coming home. The UCI has officially awarded the 2030 Mountain Bike World Championships to Durango, Colorado, marking a return to the birthplace of the event.
Durango will host a three-year build-up of major races leading to the Worlds: a new international event in 2028, a World Cup stop in 2029, and then the full World Championships in 2030. Purgatory Resort, perched north of town at at 8,800 feet (2,680 m), will serve as the stage for downhill, cross-country, short track, and e-bike racing.
The 2030 Worlds will mark the first time since 2001, when Worlds came to Vail, Colorado, that the United States has hosted mountain biking’s biggest stage. The last North American World Championships came in 2019 at Mont-Saint-Anne in Québec.
Ryan Simonovich
The bid was led by Durango native Todd Wells, a former elite national champion and three-time Olympian, and longtime Iron Horse Bicycle Classic director Gaige Sippy. (Check back soon for a full interview on Worlds.)
What's old is new again
On the walls of Mountain Bike Specialists, a storied shop on Durango's Main Street, hang the World Champion's stripes and American champion's stars, the jerseys of decades of local racers who reached the very top of their sport. The bathroom in Durango Cyclery is a literal shrine to 1990 Worlds downhill champion Greg Herbold, every inch of its wallpaper covered by magazine clippings and old film photos. The town is surrounded on all sides by singletrack. Former World Short Track Champion Christopher Blevins grew up in town, as did Vuelta winner Sepp Kuss – who got his start in cycling with the Durango Devo junior mountain bike program – and US road champion Quinn Simmons.
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