Image courtesy of Colorado Classic

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The Colorado Classic Women’s-only Pro Cycling Race

Jessica McWhirt
13 min readAug 22, 2019

What is The Colorado Classic?

The Colorado Classic is a four-day (August 22–25, 2019) stage race through Colorado for professional women cyclists. It’s the only women’s stand-alone stage race in the Western Hemisphere on the Union Cycliste Internationale (UCI) calendar.

The UCI gave the Colorado Classic as a 2.1 designation which means teams can use this race as a 2020 Olympic Games qualifier. The only other US race with this designation is the Amgen Tour of California, which also includes men’s racing. For the Colorado Classic to earn this designation its first year as a women’s-only race is a big deal.

Another unique quality of the Colorado Classic is their free daily live streaming of each race. You’ll be hard-pressed to find live coverage of a women’s professional bike race, let alone one that is entirely free.

Most professional races either require a paid subscription to view live racing footage or, like the Amgen Tour of California, they’ll play live recordings of the men’s field and “highlight” the women’s field. The highlights are typically less than an hour and rarely advertised.

If you can’t make it to the races in-person, I insist you tune in online at 303Cycling’s website or Colorado Classic’s website.

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