photos by Stephen Eginoire

The cycling masses once again reared up on their (shaved) hind legs and set forth on what is likely the Southwests most popular early season bike race: 12 Hours of Mesa Verde. The annual relay-style race is a fund-raiser for Montezuma County Partners, a child mentoring program. Celebrating its fifth year running, this year with the Wild West theme, solor, duo and team riders cranked out loop after 16-mile loop, racing to complete the most laps in the alotted 12 hours. Defending champs, Durangos Directory Plus/Trek (Greg Lewis, Miles Venzara, Nick Gould, Rolondo Gonzalez) battled Waltworks/Fuentes Design (Brian Fuentes, Michael McCalla, Walt Wehner) until the bitter end of 9 laps, being bumped into a second place finish by a mere salty 2 minutes.