The peloton can pass in a blink, but the dozen host cities of the second USA Pro Challenge — beginning Monday in Durango — are working to extend the party and financial rewards well beyond the race-day flash.
All those televisions flickering with images of happy spectators lining historic main streets will plant seeds in more than 160 countries. Custom-made television commercials airing during NBC's 31 hours of coverage will promote each community and water those seeds.
And long after the hotels empty and the banners fall, each of the 12 hosts of the week-long race expects to harvest a bumper crop of new visitors to feed their tourist-dependent economies.
"We are looking long term," said Andrew Shoemaker, who served on the organizing committee that assembled the penultimate stage finishing atop Boulder's Flagstaff Mountain. "If someone visits, hopefully they will share their experience and it becomes something that blossoms over the years."
With crowd estimates swinging from, say, 30,000 to 60,000 or more at each stop (not to mention many more along roads and an expected quarter million watching the final day in Denver), organizers, especially the newcomers, are bracing for bountiful crowds.
"I get the feeling this is a bigger animal than last year," said John Dakin with the Vail Valley Foundation, which helped lure the race to Beaver Creek.
A second-year event with new venues challenges planners who echo Dakin's expectation for something bigger than last year. Certainly it will draw more spectators, but how many?
"We are balancing our nerves with the knowledge that we do this in the winter," said Dakin, noting Beaver Creek's ability to handle monster crowds for its World Cup alpine ski races.
The exposure offsets the hassle and the cost, which runs anywhere from $100,000 to $250,000 for each host. Boulder is unveiling a new branding campaign during the race with a fun commercial featuring a local bike-shop owner sipping his morning joe as he ponders his man cave overflowing with toys for all seasons. The ad, touting 300 days of sun and ample playgrounds, is designed to spur year-round travel to Boulder.
Each of the host cities gets a commercial slot during NBC's coverage, and most have created websites touting the party planned around the race. Every host has plans for downtown festivals, with music, drink and citizen races. All the lively scenes are carefully scripted to stir viewer visits.
The inaugural race last year drew more than a million spectators who packed Denver, Gunnison, Crested Butte, Salida and Colorado Springs as well as alpine roadsides along remote mountain passes such as Cottonwood and Independence. Twenty-two percent of those spectators hailed from out of state. Last year, Colorado hosted a record 57.9 million travelers with 29 million overnighters fueling a record $10.76 billion in visitor spending, according to the annual tourism survey by Longwoods International.
Last year's event pumped an estimated $83.5 million into the state, with well-heeled visitors (the average household income of last year's attendees was $113,918) from across the country feeding the economic impact.
This year, race organizers expect more roadside cheering.
"I would expect that number to grow and grow nicely in 2012," said USA Pro Challenge chief executive Shawn Hunter. "The enthusiasm we see not just in Colorado but across the country is amazing. It's been building since last August."
Still, getting those spectators to return for another holiday is a bigger deal than the one-time swelling of town hotels and eateries. Nearly 85 percent of out-state race watchers said they were likely to visit the state again, according to last year's race-impact study by St. Louis research firm IFM.
Organizers in Telluride, which will host its first stage Monday night as racers arrive from Durango, aren't sure how many visitors to expect. The box-canyon town is no stranger to throngs, with nearly every weekend of summer filled with festivals. But the benefits far outweigh any uncertainty, said Telluride Mayor Stu Fraser.
"When we look at this from an exposure standpoint, it will be substantially more than we have ever had before," said Fraser, who has conjured dozens of uses for the upcoming iconic photograph capturing the stage winner arriving in historic downtown, arms upraised and framed by Ingram Falls tumbling from the canyon's rim. "So many people who don't know Telluride will be seeing us for the first time. I think we will impress a lot of people, and we are hoping that will expand our tourism base."
That's already happening in Crested Butte, which this week joins neighboring Gunnison as a second-year stage host. Last August, Crested Butte saw sales-tax revenue climb more than 13 percent from the previous August, marking the busiest August in several years for the town. This year's summer traffic is helping pull the town out of the hole caused by last winter's balmy weather. May's sales-tax revenue in the town was up 18 percent, and June climbed 10 percent. July, said Crested Butte Mayor Aaron Huckstep, will also show double-digit gains over last year.
Obviously, not all those gains can be credited to the race. But hosting it is yet another strategy in Gunnison-Crested Butte's hunt for tourists. The boost in spending joins local research showing that last year's hosting of the race, with its television and other media, was the equivalent of $1.3 million in marketing, more than the county tourism group's annual budget. That's worth the $100,000 to $110,000 cost estimated for this year's hosting, up from $85,000 last year. (That cost is shared among the towns of Crested Butte, Mount Crested Butte, Gunnison and Crested Butte Mountain Resort as well as business support and donations.)
"We think that success last year has provided us a great steppingstone for an even better 2012 event and well beyond that," said Huckstep.
Breckenridge, which also is hosting a stage for the second year, saw taxable sales climb last August, with visitors and locals spending $21.9 million, marking the busiest August since 2007. Through May this year, spending in the town is up 6.6 percent, thanks largely to a 25 percent year-over-year spike in taxable sales in May. The town this year is spending about $200,000, with three-quarters of that coming from town coffers and the rest from business support and donations.
The USA Pro Challenge will only fuel recent momentum, said local organizer Lucy Kay.
But since this year Breckenridge is hosting a Friday-morning start instead of a Saturday-afternoon finish, organizers aren't expecting to see a spike in crowds. Breckenridge is still closing Main Street, hosting a downtown viewing party for the stage finish in Colorado Springs and throwing a street party with funky saxman Maceo Parker.
"We designed the day to give lots of people reasons to stick around, maybe for the whole weekend, maybe for another visit," Kay said.
Jason Blevins: 303-954-1374, jblevins@denverpost.com or twitter.com/jasontblevins