In April, Durango’s Christopher Blevins was just minutes from the finish of the opening mountain bike World Cup race of the season in Mairiporã, Brazil. With less than half a lap remaining, the 26-year-old sprinted into the lead and managed to ride to the win two short seconds ahead of his competition. He raised his arms and punched the air in celebration of his second-career World Cup Cross-country Olympic victory that would help him secure a spot on Team USA’s roster for the Paris Olympic Games.
The U.S. mountain bike squad is composed of three riders from Durango — including Blevins, 22-year-old Riley Amos, and 25-year-old Savilia Blunk — a town with a rich cycling culture that has fostered world class talent for decades. Haley Batten of Park City, Utah, is the fourth and final rider who will represent the USA in the Parisian singletrack.
“Durango has meant everything to my success and trajectory on the bike,” Blevins said as he made his final preparations for the Games. “Result-wise and where I am as an Olympian but also just how much I love the bike. I think that’s what I’m most proud of and what Durango’s provided.”
Blevins began his life as a bike racer at age 5. He racked up multiple age group national titles as a BMX racer before cracking his skull and suffering permanent hearing loss as a 10-year-old. Despite initial hesitation from his parents, he began mountain biking with the Durango Devo program and started racking up even more national titles.
The Devo program, co-founded by coaches Chad Cheeney and Sarah Tescher, is known for instilling a passion for riding bikes through a fun-first approach of practicing riding skills, going on adventures and building fitness.
Cheeney was an early coach of Blevins when he picked up mountain biking after his early BMX years, and Devo encouraged Blevins and his cohort to develop a love for the bike that is evident in Blevins’ riding style and videos of him showing off quirky moves, such as kissing his front wheel or hopping his bike up a flight of stairs.
“I saw him a few times on the big screen and wanted more,” Cheeney said after watching Blevins in the Tokyo Olympics in 2021. “He is so stylish on the bike. I bet he made some fans smile.”
As he got older, Blevins explored racing on the road and secured strong results in Europe, but ultimately decided to focus on mountain biking ahead of the Tokyo Olympics, where he finished 14th. That same year, he won the inaugural short track World Championships in Italy and his first World Cup in Snowshoe, West Virginia.
Originally from a small town in Northern California, Blunk came to Durango in 2018 to attend Fort Lewis College, and she still bases out of the town when she’s not racing or training in Europe. Riding for the Fort Lewis College Cycling Team and training in Durango fired Blunk’s passion for the bike, improved her riding skills and shaped her career trajectory.
“Coming from a small town where mountain biking wasn’t an everyday sport, to Durango, where overnight I was surrounded by talented riders and people pushing me to become better, I improved so much as a rider just by having people to train and ride with that both challenged me and gave me confidence,” Blunk said.
Blunk got her first international racing experience as a junior racer and steadily climbed through the under-23 ranks and into the elite field. Last year, she rode to a career-best fourth place at the Snowshoe World Cup, and bested that with a second-place performance in Brazil this year.
The sole American rider for the French Decathlon-Ford team, Blunk appeared in a commercial for the automobile manufacturer last year.
She’s been preparing for Paris in Girona, Spain, where she is focused on training, recovery, sleep and nutrition.
“Mainly it has been a quiet process of lots of suffering on the bike and finding the perfect balance of tension and freshness to get my best performance at the Olympics,” she said.
Like Blevins, Amos also grew up in Durango and came up through Durango Devo, the same program that produced Vuelta a Espana victor and Tour de France stage winner Sepp Kuss and 2016 Olympian Howard Grotts. In his junior years, he was coached by Todd Wells, a now-retired, three-time Olympian who is a mainstay of the Durango cycling community.
Along with lessons about fitness and training, Amos said Wells gave him a broader appreciation for the elite athletic lifestyle.
“No matter how hard things get, no matter how shit your race was, or how much you are suffering in the moment, you never know how many more of those you are going to get,” Amos said in a recent Instagram post. “Being able to be a professional mountain biker is the greatest job in the world plain and simple, the days you are pushed to the breaking point are always rewarded if you stay committed to the process and are willing to learn and improve.”
Amos got his first glimpse of international success in 2021 when he won a World Cup in the U23 category in Austria. This season is his final in the U23 ranks, a category designed as a stepping stone for younger riders before they enter the elite field, and Amos has not been wasting it. He has been undefeated at the World Cup races, with the exception of one second place.
Amos opted to skip the most recent World Cup in France, instead flying home to Durango to recover from a stomach bug, spend time with family and train at altitude. He acknowledged the importance of his home community in the social media post.
“My community is the reason I’m here,” Amos wrote. “Without (Durango Devo) and my little town in Colorado, I would have never found this path. The amount of fun I’ve had growing up exploring the outdoors on my bike with my best friends showed me what life is about.
“Cycling gave me a chance to be something that mattered, to give me purpose each day and simplify the world around me. I had so many cycling mentors growing up, and I constantly strive to take a small piece from their process and incorporate it into myself. I’ve always had a stronger wheel to chase, and I’ve always lived to surprise those better than me.”
Shortly after that first U23 win, Amos posted an Instagram picture of VeloNews magazine with Batten and Kate Courtney on the cover. The two riders were wearing Team USA jerseys, set to race at the Tokyo Olympics.
“I haven’t been just watching cycling, and getting to see so many people of different sports pour their hearts into competition has been really inspiring,” he wrote in the Instagram caption, from inspiration to an Olympian three years later.
Blevins and Blunk said that the Paris course will be fast and less-technical than some of the World Cup courses that they are accustomed to. This may lead to tight racing with riders staying together for much of the race, similar to the first race in Brazil that Blevins won.
While Blunk based in Spain and Amos in Durango, Blevins has been training in France in recent weeks. He caught COVID earlier this summer, but has been feeling stronger and stronger, he said.
While Blunk and Amos will make their Olympians debut, Blevins (along with Batten) are heading back to the Games for the second time.
“I think it’s a different experience now,” Blevins said. “First of all I’m older, I’ve got more experience and really want to fight for the medals this time. It’s also different in the way where we don’t have COVID and I can actually be a part of the community a bit more, watch some events after. That’ll be really special, and I’ll be having my family there as well.”
While these three athletes are all in their 20s, Durango has a long legacy of cycling. The town of just over 19,000 has had a representative in each Olympic mountain bike race since the sport was added to the schedule in 1996. Before Blevins, Grotts rode in the Rio Games and Todd Wells in Athens, Beijing and London.
The inaugural UCI mountain bike World Championships were held at Purgatory Resort in 1990, and the Durango-Silverton Iron Horse Bicycle Classic has rolled on for more than 50 years. In recent years, Team Segment 28 (named after the final segment of the Colorado Trail that finishes in town) has been established to help young riders develop into elite racers. On the road, the town is represented by Kuss and Quinn Simmons at the WorldTour level, both beginning their bike careers as mountain bikers.
“It’s amazing that we have three Durangoans in the Olympics,” Blevins said. “It means a lot to carry on that legacy.”