The way he tells it, when he bought the 1,680 acres adjacent to town, he thought it would be a fantastic place for a rural park that included biking and hiking trails and a centralized set of soccer fields.  He quickly learned it was “naïve” to think park development would be uncomplicated or quick.

What he started in 2014 has now become a whopper of a park that someday may prepare mountain bikers for the Olympics. Katz, though, only had experience working in the private sector, as CEO of a credit card payments company.

The $14 million parcel he bought once hosted a coal mine and gravel pit, and it sits atop a steep mesa above the town. Planning for the new park turned into a nine-year effort that involved countless meetings with city and county officials. Then there were road trips to innovative park projects, notably those around Bentonville, Arkansas.

As one of its goals, Katz’s project includes an 80-acre “outdoor mountain bike stadium,” a BMX track and community events center, which would make Durango the king of U.S. mountain biking.

“We anticipate the 2028 US Olympic Mountain bike team training at the park,” said Gaige Sippy, a board member of the Durango Mesa Foundation that’s carrying out Katz’s vision.

Sippy knows cycling. He was the longtime director of the Iron Horse Bicycle Classic. Every Memorial Day weekend, the race pits a tourist train against several thousand bikers, who usually win.

Cycling is anchored deep in Durango, with a vigorous youth and adult program involving hundreds of participants. Still, said Moira Compton, who runs Katz’s foundation as executive director, “this is a big lift for Durango. But so was Purgatory Ski Resort and our local Chapman Ski Hill.”

Sippy agreed. “Those same people who fought the rec center now say, ‘It’s too small.’ This is the biggest philanthropic endeavor for Durango times-ten,” Sippy said. “Sometimes I feel like a snake oil salesman, selling something that won’t be fully realized for 20 years.”

But the hard work isn’t on his plate. “That’s Moira’s job,” he said, as Compton wrangles meetings and talks to residents about what they want in the new park.

Compton said planning includes leaving “big open space” for what the community might want in 10-20 and even 40 years. “If you told me that the Klunker bikes we made in our garages in Crested Butte would become an Olympic sport, I’d have said, ‘impossible.’”

For today’s users, Katz said, “We know we need adaptive sports trails (hand-bike trails), and we need a dozen ball fields in one place for state tournaments. We also need camping, from primitive to RV hook-ups to go with it.”

“Don’t forget frisbee golf,” he added, and “dedicated walking trails” for the many locals who don’t bike or find interactions with mountain bikers intimidating.

“They (bikers) just move so fast,” agreed 77-year-old Dave Stiller, an avid walker.

To get things moving, Durango Mesa Park opened last fall with a series of demonstration trails with banked corners, table-top jumps and unlike other area trails, traffic goes in only one direction and e-bikes are permitted.

The biking community was ecstatic. Sippy said. “We just had to get something going. It was time to get shovels in the ground.”

If there’s grumbling, it’s about housing.

Durango, like many mountain towns, is housing constrained. “Three developers put (Katz’s) land under contract and then passed on developing. The infrastructure costs were over $100 million,” said Sippy.

“This, though, is a rural park,” said Compton. “We don’t have to build sidewalks or streetlights.” Sippy added that if the town moved its ballfields and BMX track to the park and the county moved its fairground, “it would open up land in the town for housing.”

But the county backed out of building their fairgrounds in the park. “It was a setback,” Compton said. “We’re leaving the option open if they want to reconsider.”

As Sippy put it, “Someone rarely hands you a huge chunk of land next to town and the money to build a giant park for the community. This is a big opportunity for Durango.”

“And it’s our job not to screw it up,” said Compton.

Dave Marston lives in Durango and is the publisher of Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit dedicated to spurring lively conversation about the West.

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Riders, though, must climb a curvy route of 47 miles over two passes, both more than 10,000 feet high, as the road threads its way through the rugged San Juan Mountains.

Winners finish about two and a half hours, the train chugs in an hour later.

An enduring race legacy belongs to one man, Ed Zink, who died five years ago. He spent decades running the race or being involved through its nonprofit board from 1972-2019. Though the race is now 52 years old, attracts 3,000 riders and has a big budget and staff, its beginnings were entirely local.

In 1971, two brothers named Mayer thought it would be fun to pit bicycles against the local train, where Jim Mayer worked as a brakeman for the Durango and Silverton Railroad. Jim’s brother, Tom, bet his brother he could beat the train riding his bicycle. He did just that, winning a candy bar. 

The next year the brothers teamed up with Zink, a born organizer, to start what became an annual race during the Memorial Day weekend.

For the next 30 years, said Patty Zink, the race was a bootstrap operation. Her husband “and his kids and employees at our Mountain Bike Specialists store led the volunteering, food and cleanup. It’s fabulous that it’s thrived and now is the second oldest bike race in the United States.”

“Zink worked so hard organizing the race, he didn’t get to ride in it until 2006 when he was 59,” said Gaige Sippy, who took over as director in 2007, until 2022.

Sippy said to this day, there has always been at least one Zink family member and often 10 volunteers helping out along the route of the race,

More recently, the race has featured the remarkable Mara Abbott, an Olympian biker who’s also the winningest Iron Horse rider. She’s beaten thousands of men six times.

In a TEDx Talk, she recounted almost winning an Olympic race until running out of gas with just a few hundred yards to the finish. At that point, she said, three cyclists passed her, leaving her “with the privilege of a broken heart.”

Sippy credits Abbott and local Durango legend Ned Overend, who owns the second most wins, with inspiring legions of riders to take on the mountain passes.

But before Abbott and Overend and the race’s national reputation, there was Zink. He kept the race going until it became an institution that helped define Durango, a sports-loving town.

Many locals recall Zink as a man who loved to get good things going, An example was his founding of the easier Quarter Horse Bike Race, where riders only grind out 25 miles uphill to the Purgatory ski area. Once the shorter race was established, Zink let someone else lead the event.

Zink was also early to the idea of mountain biking having its own home. Sippy recalls him saying, “We’re always trying to fit in, riding on trails sharing with other folks. It would be great if cycling had its own stadium.”

Back in 1990, it was because of Zink’s work that the Mountain Bike World Championships came to Durango. It was early days for mountain biking—just a decade after riders on homemade Klunker bikes started traversing old mining trails.

Marc Katz, founder of a big park for mountain bikes and other sports that’s underway close to town, said he deeply feels Zink’s loss. “I had many chats with Ed Zink along the way. I am sad he isn’t around to talk with now that we’re getting this thing done.”

Dave Marston is the publisher of Writers on the Range, writersontherange.org, an independent nonprofit that seeks to spur lively conversation about the West. He lives in Durango, Colorado.

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