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Save the bicycle's biggest day

Published December 1, 2005 at midnight

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We're natural-born optimists and want to believe that organizers of the Elephant Rock bicycle tour can work out a deal with the Colorado State Patrol that enables it to remain the state's largest.

The patrol has decreed that the tour must be limited to 2,500 riders. During the last three years it has drawn around 6,800.

If the numbers are reduced that sharply the event might as well be eliminated, said tour director Scot Harris. It has been run on the first Sunday in June for the past 18 years through Douglas and El Paso counties.

We sympathize with Harris. Bicycling is a major recreational activity in Colorado and there's simply no good reason to cut this one back.

Patrol Chief Mark V. Trostel is reducing the numbers on alleged safety grounds. He said there must be one motorcycle officer on the road for each 300 riders, and he has only eight such officers available.

Whatever the wisdom of this fixed ratio, it needn't limit the tour. Officers are paid by the tour organizers, not by the state, so it isn't a burden on taxpayers.

Last year, Harris points out, the tour had 16 patrol officers plus 30 uniformed officers from the sheriff's departments of the two counties, and from the Castle Rock and Palmer Lake police departments.

That's about one officer per 150 riders, but the patrol says those guarding intersections shouldn't count.

Sgt. Jeff Goodwin, the patrol spokesman, said there has been too much "blatant law-breaking" by participants who ignore traffic rules, which are not waived for the tour. He mentioned specifically the ban against riding two abreast.

But if that's the case, then ticket some bicyclists to set an example.

When there are too many bikers, Goodwin added, it also tends to generate road rage among motorists who may be waiting to cross an intersection.

Yet it's not as if the patrol can point to bad accidents to reinforce its case. According to Harris, there has been only one bicycle-vehicle collision in the history of the event, and it was so minor the bicyclist climbed back on and finished the tour.

Harris also maintains the tour pumps as much as $350,000 into the economy and that the $100,000 in profits last year was divided among 21 charities.

If the patrol doesn't figure out a way to handle the race, lawmakers may step in and mandate a solution. And the patrol will have only itself to blame.