Ernesto Cumpian one of the foremost authorities and renowned competitors from Eagle Pass and Piedras Negras informed The News Gram that racers from as far as San Antonio, Laredo, Acuña, Sabinas, Rosita to race in different categories, beginners, novices and open divisions in both road and mountain bikes on Sunday, May 4th.
"It is a very family friendly sport," stated Cumpian, "Because besides stayiong in shape, it gives you the opportunity to know your own stamina and abilities as compared to racers in your own category. Most of us know each other, however there are many new bike enthusiasts who come out to compete."
Several local businesses and organizations also participated in this event as was AirLife Evac whose helicopters was on hand to capture aerial footage of the race which will be seen exclusively on Alianza Deportiva this Saturday at 2:00 PM along with Luna's Friendly Pharmacy, Mall De las Aguilas, Border Federal Credit Union and Realty Executives who are all proponents of this very healthy and highly popular sport.
Cumpian and his team are reaching out to local authorities in order for the city, the county or both to come together to create a velodrome and mountain bike trail where bike enthusiasts can come together to practice this sport as they have been training solely on the highways of Eagle Pass and Maverick County which is very dangerous.
"We've been in contact with several local and state agencies in order to address some of our concerns, but we can solve many of our problems if we had a place to formally train, it doesn't have to be big and it can even be built adjacent to a baseball park such as Shelby, I believe there are some very good pictures of a velodrome on the News Gram website and the mountain bike trails don't have to be very big either."
In the Woman's Open Road category winners included Imelda Villarreal of Laredo's Team Level X who came in first, Naina Jimenez of Eagle Pass' La Vega racing placed second, Hilda Martinez Caballero also of La Vega Racing took third. La Vega's Dora Cumpian completed the Eagle Pass trifecta in fourth and Imelda Aguirre of Team Level X came in fifth.
In the Men's Open Division Beau Edwards of San Antonio's Bike Heaven came in first place, Alec Aldape of San Antonio's Team Bike World came in second, Victor Prieto of Saltillo's Team Raperz placed third, Chris Lutz of Team Bike Heaven came in fourth and Addison McCauley of San Antonio placed fifth.
In the Mountain Bike Men's Open Division, Luis Esquivel of Rosita, Coahuila's Team Jabalies won the event, teammate Jorge Sandoval placed second, Juan Martinez of Laredo came in third, Luis Esquivel, Jr. of Team jabalies placed fourth and Emerson Garrido of Acuña came in fifth.
In the Men's Road Novice Division, Roberto Melendrez, Jose Estrada, Fonz Villarreal, Jose Martinez and Jose Antonio Martinez all of Laredo's Team Revolution came in first through fifth respectively.
The Top 10 Mile Challengers were as follows: Mayra Herrera of Laredo came in first, Cristina Rodriguez of Laredo was second, Yvonne Musquiz of Eagle PAss was third, Victor Salinas of Sabinas fourth, Jose Reyna of Sabinas fifth, Miguel Guerra of Eagle Pass sixth, Oliver De La Cruz of Sabinas seventh and Mariela Paniagua of Eagle Pass eighth.
Fourteen children all raced and were all awarded with some very nice sports caliber water bottles donated by BFCU.
We can only hope that the sport continues to thrive and grow in Eagle Pass as the next Lance Armstrong may be in our very midst and we may not even know it.