Forty and Still Rolling: The Redlands Bicycle Classic Opens Its Landmark Anniversary Edition at Lake Perris as American Stage Racing's Oldest Survivor Turns 40
This is the kind of anniversary American pro road cycling very nearly did not live to see. The Redlands Bicycle Classic rolls its opening start gate up to Lake Perris on Wednesday morning for the 40th time in a row — a five-day stage race that has, somehow, outlasted the US Pro Championships, the Tour of California, the Colorado Classic, the Philly Classic and almost every other major event to which American road racing pinned its hopes during the last three decades. The longest continuously-running professional invitational stage race in the United States begins with a 15-kilometre individual time trial on the rolling roads around Lake Perris in Riverside County. When the final rider rolls down the start ramp, the 40th edition will be underway. When the peloton reaches downtown Redlands for Sunday's criterium finale, an anniversary half a generation in the making will be complete.
"This race exists because a community decided it would," race director Stephanie Houk said at Tuesday's press conference in the old Santa Fe Depot, not far from the finish line that has hosted every single edition since 1986. "Every year somebody told us it was impossible. And every year we showed up at Lake Perris on the Wednesday morning and rolled out the start gate. Forty times. Forty." She paused, for a moment visibly choosing not to say the names of the other US races that did not. "We are the last of a very long and very proud list. I am proud — not of the longevity, but of what that longevity protects."
The format is familiar to anyone who has ever followed American stage racing — a compressed, punchy, unapologetically demanding five days that squeezes an entire stage-race drama into a week that fits around jobs and school runs. Wednesday's Lake Perris individual time trial is followed on Thursday by the Highland Circuit Race, a rolling eight-lap city loop that almost always turns into a battle of echelons if the Santa Ana winds cooperate. Friday takes the race to Big Bear Lake for the Mountain Road Stage, the GC day, 2,100 metres of total climbing and a brutal finishing circuit above 2,000 metres in altitude. Saturday brings the Beaver Medical Criterium, a fast, tight night-race around downtown Redlands. And Sunday closes the book with the famous Sunset Road Race, twelve laps of the Sunset Loop, the race's signature finale and one of the most atmospheric days on the entire American calendar.
Forty years on, the professional fields still reflect what Redlands always has been: an essential rung on the development ladder for a generation of North American riders trying to earn a living from the sport. Modern Adventure Pro Cycling — the only UCI ProTeam in the men's elite field — lead the race as a home-continent unit, with veteran Tyler Stites captaining a squad built deliberately around ambitious development riders. The Continental ranks are deeper than they have been for several seasons, with Project Echelon Racing, L39ION of Los Angeles, Above and Beyond Cancer and the returning Aevolo Cycling all bringing their strongest seven. Colombian and Mexican Continental outfits add a continental-Americas flavour that has become a Redlands signature in recent editions. The women's elite field is, if anything, even deeper, with teams from Canada, Mexico and Colombia joining a domestic field headed by DNA Pro Cycling and Virginia's Blue Ridge TWENTY24.
But the real headline of the 40th edition is what is happening alongside the professional men's and women's racing. For the first time in Redlands history, the junior programme mirrors the senior format in its entirety — a time trial, circuit race, mountain stage, criterium and Sunset Road Race all included. "A full pro-style stage race at junior level does not exist anywhere else on the North American calendar," said race organiser Beth Newell. "We have been working toward this for five years. Our junior riders get the same terrain, the same format, the same atmosphere. They do not get the prize purse — but they get everything else. For a fourteen-year-old racer, it is transformative." The expanded junior schedule has been underwritten by a multi-year partnership with Loma Linda University Health, announced in March.
There is a deeper context, of course. The Redlands Bicycle Classic's 40th edition comes at a moment when US road cycling as a professional sport has been in slow but undeniable retreat for more than a decade. The Tour of California is gone. The Tour of Utah is gone. The Colorado Classic stopped in 2019. There is no longer a national-championship week capable of attracting a full US WorldTour contingent home. Every time a flagship American race closes its doors, Redlands has simply remained — volunteers painting the finish line, sponsors writing the cheques, the peloton rolling past the Santa Fe Depot one more time. "We were never the biggest," said founding committee member Andrew Buckley on Tuesday night, at the 40th-anniversary dinner. "We were just the most stubborn."
There is also, this year, a European sub-plot. French-registered pro continental squad Hincapie Modern Adventure — yes, that Hincapie — has sent a three-rider contingent from its wildcard-selected Paris-Roubaix squad to finish the week in California before flying straight back to Europe for the Ardennes Classics. George Hincapie himself is expected at the finish line for the Sunset Road Race on Sunday. It is a small thing and not a headline anywhere outside California. But it is a reminder that even as American racing contracted, the network that built it never entirely went away.
"Forty years ago, Redlands started because somebody wanted a bike race," Houk said, closing her Tuesday press conference. "Forty years later, Redlands still exists because somebody still wants a bike race. That is all a stage race has ever needed to be." The Lake Perris start gate goes up at 10 o'clock local time on Wednesday morning. Stage one of the 40th Redlands Bicycle Classic rolls at 10:15. The longest continuously-running professional stage race on American soil is, once again, underway.