Boulder firm offers luxury bicycle tour

BOULDER – Bicyclists who want to be like the professionals in the USA Pro Cycling Challenge bike tour in August can sign up with Colorado Wilderness Rides and Guides to ride many of the same routes.

The Boulder-based adventure company will hold its own eight-day tour featuring about 400 miles of bicycle riding – mostly in the mountains, and luxury support, including a chef, said Josh Baruch, tour manager and company owner. The cost for the Colorado Wilderness Rides and Guides tour is $7,500, and organizers plan to have 10 to 20 riders, Baruch said.

The adventure company’s tour will start in Boulder on Aug. 21 and wind its way through Colorado on a route that includes Crested Butte, Aspen, Breckenridge and a finish in Denver on Aug. 28. The professional tour is not scheduled to come through Boulder but includes many of the same stops.

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“We are targeting some of the best riding in Colorado,” Baruch said. “I think it will be an amazing experience for people. If they want a top-flight experience, it will be.”

Participants will receive a training schedule to get ready for the several days of riding “at altitude,” Baruch said. The adventure company tour includes several heart-hammering rides – including a ride up Cottonwood Pass near Buena Vista, a ride up Independence Pass from a point near Leadville over the pass to Aspen; the Copper Triangle ride, in which bicyclists climb three mountain passes higher than 10,000 feet; and a trip up Mount Evans, which tops out at 14,130 feet above sea level.

Matt McNamara, a USA Cycling Certified ELITE coach helped design the tour, Baruch said. The group also may have some access to race team members, he said. Several of the riders involved in the Pro Cycling Challenge live and train in and around Boulder.

Colorado Wilderness Rides and Guides expects to gross as much as $1 million for the events it does this year. The slightly more than two-year-old company has 16 employees, many with medical background and experience, Baruch said. In addition, Baruch said he and McNamara have worked together on a variety of adventure trips around the world for the last 13 years.

In addition to biking events, the company also offers guided wilderness events and team-building events.