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Chainless Downhill World Championships

  • By Steve Frothingham
  • Published Jun. 30, 2011
  • Updated Dec. 2, 2011 at 9:16 AM UTC

The Chainless Race down Kebler Pass during the Crested Butte Fat Tire Festival in Colorado is a decade-old tradition. This year organizers raised the stakes by declaring the event the world championships.

Riders descend for more than six miles on pavement, then turn onto dirt for a few hundred meters of twists and turns before a tight right turn onto pavement and the finish on CB’s Elk Avenue, which quickly became the most colorful and happiest finish line this reporter has encountered in many years of race reporting.

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Steve Frothingham

VeloNews.com editor Steve Frothingham joined the gang in bike-crazy Boulder in early 2008. He is the former executive editor of the trade magazine Bicycle Retailer & Industry News. He also was a reporter and editor for The Associated Press, where he covered three presidential primaries in politics-crazy New Hampshire. His racing career began on a BMX track in 1980 and reached its zenith with several miserable road races as a category 2 in the early 90s. He subsequently retreated to cat. 3, where he has had a consistently mediocre (at best) record ever since, in road, mountain bike and cyclocross events. Follow him on Twitter at @steve_froth