Colorado Seen 1/2013
CITY CYCLOCROSS
ALSO: GUN RIGHTS PROTEST
Put Colorado on your wall
From the Editor It’s getting to be a habit. ColoradoSeen again won “Best Magazine Cover” in the National Press Photographers’ Association “Best of Photojournalism” contest for 2012. The winning cover was for our special section on “Occupy Denver: A year of Protest.” We also placed second in the competition category for “Best Use of Photography by an Electronic Publication.” You can bet we’ll be working hard to make it a “three-peat” for 2013. Watch this space!
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On the cover: Flat is easy — a cyclist pedals past a railyard grain elevator in north Denver during the MileHigh Urban CycloCross (MUCC) race in November, 2012. Later the course gets much steeper and bumpier (Story begins on page 16.)
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BEHIND EVERY BLADE OF GRASS
Gun-rights advocates protest new laws before the Colorado legislature.
Clyde Harkins protests against proposed gun laws on the steps of the Colorado Capitol on February 8 ,2013. ‘Everything’s an assault rifle, man,’ he says.
TEXT & Photos by Andy Piper
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isa Brumfiel is very clear in her support of unrestricted gun rights. “Right now in America, there’s a gun behind every blade of grass, and that’s keeping us safe,” she says. Brumfiel was one of a hundred or so demonstrators who took to the Capitol steps in February in opposition to new gun control laws proposed in the wake of the December 2012 mass slaying of 20 children and six adults at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School. Colorado has been a flash-point of the debate over expanded regulation of guns in the ‘Right now in America, there’s a gun behind every blade of grass, and that’s keeping us safe,’ says demonstrator Lisa Brumfiel, right. 4
‘Don’t monkey around with my rights.” A demonstrator reads a political handout.
U.S., ever since the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School. Last summer’s mass shootings at a movie theater in the Denver suburb of Aurora has only inflamed opinions. As a Western state with a strong frontier character, and also a burgeoning metropolitan outlook, Colorado is now also a swing state in national elections, and a central focus for both gun-control and gun-rights groups.
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he remarkable aspect of the February protest was the theme that guns were not just for hunting, or a defense against criminals, but as the people’s defense against the government itself. Max Brewster put it this way: ‘I’m out here to support the second Amendment, and to oppose the gun-ban legislations that are proposed in the 7
Skylar Oldred plays on one of the decorative cannons on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol, as her parents demonstrate against proposed new gun laws.
Capitol, and also at the Federal government. Our founders intended the Second Amendment not for defense, not for hunting. . . . it is really to defend against government that has become tyrannical.” Said demonstrator Clyde Harkins, “Every totalitarian regime eventually ends up confiscating every means for the people to defend themselves.” “Everything’s an assault rifle, man!” continued 8
the pistol grips a little less scary,” she said.
A Harkin, expressing opposition to laws singling out certain aggressive-looking high-capacity rifles. Young motherto-be Sarah Arnold sported assault-
rifle chic, wearing a T-shirt over her pregnant tummy spangled with outlines of guns — and pink hearts. “I thought the pink hearts made
rnold was not the only demonstrator present who defied the stereotype of gun-rights activists as “middle-aged rural, white men.” Dionne Braxton, a young, urban, black woman, set forth her reason for taking part. “I just want to know that if any-
Children fly the flag as the protest continues.
Gun-love. Demonstrator Sarah Arnold’s T-shirt covers a child due in 11 weeks. “I thought the pink hearts made the pistol grips a little less scary,” said Sarah. “That’s what it’s all about —protecting new life,” said her husband Matt, at right.
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Max Brewster had to cope with a minor form of government tyranny when, at left, Colorado State Patrol Captain John Hahn told him he could not park his customized ‘We the People” panel truck on the Capitol steps without a permit.
Recovering fast, Brewster drove away with a smile and a wave, returning to join the demonstration on foot.
thing happens, that I’m able to defend myself, that I don’t have to call 911 and wait 25 minutes for a policeman to arrive.” Adam, who chose not to give a last name, was a bearded, bespectacled, intellectually-spoken man in his 20’s. He posed his position 13
A flag of the American revolution flies over the demonstration, some of whose participants believe they may have to take up arms against their government yet again. n
Click here to see ‘Our Natural Rights...’ — a multimedia documentary from the February 8, 2013 gun-rights rally.
as a Socratic question. “Why are we here, asking politicians not to take our rights away from us? Instead, let’s go in there and tell them, ‘Go ahead and do what your going to do — and you will face the repercussions. . ..’ And leave it at that for ‘em.”
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ne politician heard the call loud and clear. Matthew Hess is running to be the next Libertarian Party candidate for Governor of Colorado, and made no bones about his position. “It’s time for gun owner’s to take a hard line. We cannot continue to compromise on our rights, because what we hold true, if we compromise upon it, makes liars out of everyone.” n 15
MUCCY
MAYHEM Over 200 cyclists took part in Denver’s first *Mile-High Urban CX Chaos cyclocross racing event
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TEXT & Photos by Andy Piper
W
hat do you get when you mix a mile of urban alleyways and industrial streets; a couple of tons of sand and dirt; a thousand yards of crime-scene tape; a few dozen heavyequipment tires; an obstacle course of logs, boards, and earth embankments; a touch of overnight snow to moisten things up — and over 200 bicycle riders? Denver’s first ever Mile-high Urban Cyclocross Chaos, or MUCCy for short.
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Sometimes the bike carries the rider — sometimes the rider carries the bike. A MUCCY racer steps his way over railway ties in the obstacle course. 18
eld on Veteran’s Day, 2012, the day-long series of rough-terrain bicycle races wove its way through Denver’s River North (RiNo), an industrial district of railroad switching yards, grain elevators, artist’s studios,
A mud-spattered rider whips through the yard full of monster truck tires.
Another racer negotiates a tight turn between walls of heavyequipment tires.
Scene of the crime. Riders make their way around the hairpin turn at the MUCCY course’s southern tip.
A rider tries to negotiate this 15foot hill on wheels — others chose to dismount and carry their bikes.
and warehouses. Most of the course was along the pavement of a three-block stretch of Wynkoop Street, but significant parts wove through muddy equipment yards, down back alleys, and — notably — through a specially-constructed obstacle course of sand pits, brick washboards, log and board obstructions, and up and down 40-degree embankments.
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yclocross has been a sport for over 100 years, originating in France in the early 1900’s along with its cousin, the Tour de France. Cyclocross just takes the action off-road - and often, off-wheels, since it is perfectly normal for a rider to carry his bike through the tricky bits, instead of the other way around. Cyclocross courses are always a mixture of pavement and rough 25
terrain, with the obstacles specifically designed to force riders off their seats and on to their feet. The bikes are therefore of the lightest possible build for easy carrying, but use wide treaded tires to provide traction in soft or wet ground, and more upright seating than roadracing cycles.
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ater, snow, ice or mud are also common features of each course, since cyclocross is a fall and winter sport, the off-season for road racing or pure mountain biking. The moisture adds texture to the sand and dirt — and usually to the riders as well. Or as the saying goes, when the going gets MUCCy, the mucky get going. n
The MUCCY course
followed a three-block stretch of Wynkoop St. in Denver’s RiNo (River North) industrial and creative district. Diversions through storage yards, alleys, and a purpose-built obstacle course of unusual surfaces defined the race as cyclocross and not road racing.
At left, riders bounce over logs across the obstacle course straight-away. 27
At the slower speeds of cyclocross, ‘drafting’ is not as useful as in road racing. But these riders bunch up anyway as they slow to make the turn out of a back alley.
Spectators at the corner of Wynkoop and 36th Street encourage the racers with cheers — and beers.
A rider makes a last pass through the muddy maze of the ‘tire yard’ as the MUCCY comes to an end. n
Out of Our Past: January 19, 2009
A youth gets a hand up to a higher viewpoint during the 2009 Martin Luther King Day Marade and rally in Civic Center Plaza. Click here to see a multimedia presentation about Denver’s 2013 Martin Luther King Day Marade. 34