Durango, Colorado Renames Park after Mountain Bike Champion

300-acre recreational park christened “Overend Mountain Park”

 

The Durango, Colorado City Council has voted to rename a city-owned park and recreational trail system after one of its own – World and National Off Road Bicycling Association (NORBA) mountain bike champion Ned Overend.

 

Known as Durango Mountain Park since its inception in 1995, the 301-acre recreational area west of Durango was christened Overend Mountain Park by a unanimous vote of Durango city council members on March 2.  Overend, a 32-year resident of Durango, won the sport’s first World Championship in 1990, and claimed a half-dozen NORBA National Championship titles before retiring in 1996 at the age of 41.  Since that time, Overend has continued to compete in XTERRA triathlons and a host of UCI World Cup races.

 

Overend was instrumental in the park’s formation by selling the City a parcel of more than fifty acres at below-market cost in the early 1990s.  Durango Mountain Bike Specialists’ owner and Iron Horse Bicycle Classic race director Ed Zink contributed to the effort by selling approx. 100 adjacent acres at below-market value as well.  Additional fundraising efforts spearheaded by local trails advocates Trails 2000 and a Great Outdoors Colorado grant combined to create the park, dubbed “The Test Track” after RockShox began using the trail system to test its front-suspension systems.

 

The Durango Herald quoted Overend as saying he was “…honored and flattered” to have the park named after him in light of “…all the people who’ve made the Durango cycling community what it is.”  One of Overend’s championship bikes is on display at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland and he is internationally renowned as one of cross-country cycling’s most decorated champions.

 

New signs have been ordered for Overend Mountain Park and its 14 trails that will be installed this summer.