I was in my office on Boulder Wednesday afternoon wondering what I was going to write about this week when the phone rang. “Art Valencia here,” said the Spanish-accented voice on the other end of the line. “Do you remember me?”

“Of course,” I replied, “Tour of Baja.”

I met Art in the early 1980s at the sorely missed Tour of Baja in Mexico. Art was the promoter of the weeklong event (and its main benefactor) for seven years. So, yes, I remember Art. He’s now 68 and retired, but still enjoying the many bikes that always hung in the garage of his suburban home near San Diego. “I’m still climbing mountains,” he told me.

But this isn’t just a story about Art and Baja. It’s about the next step in the development of American road racing, which had finally gotten its first rider on a European pro team (Mike Neel in 1976), and was soon about to explode with the emergence of Jonathan Boyer, then Greg LeMond, into the continental peloton.

Art Valencia, though, reminded me of a couple of associated events.

One was reading about the first 1000-mile Tour of Baja in 1975, won by the top U.S. amateur roadman John Howard (who won the national amateur championship four times between 1968 and 1975). The other was a trip I made to the 1984 Tour of Baja with Michael Aisner, the promoter of the Coors International Bicycle Classic in Colorado.

Put together the names John Howard and Bicycle Classic and you come up with the Red Zinger, the Colorado stage race established in 1975 by Mo Siegel, the founder of Celestial Seasonings, a modest organic tea company in Boulder. Red Zinger was (and still is) one of its best-selling teas. Howard won the first two editions of the Red Zinger, a race that would transform cycling in this country.

Up until that time, the only stage races in America were weekend affairs, such as the two-day Tour of Texas (it must have had very long stages!). But within three years, the Red Zinger had expanded to seven days, with stages along the Front Range and through the Rocky Mountains to Vail and Aspen, with national teams from Belgium, Colombia, Great Britain, the Netherlands, New Zealand and Switzerland.

Aisner came from the world of marketing and he quickly saw the event’s possibilities. His ambitions outpaced the sponsorship potential offered by Celestial Seasonings, so Siegel sold the event for one dollar to Aisner, who snagged the Coors Brewing Company as the new title sponsor in 1980.

While Colorado’s bicycle classic was coming of age, so was a young California racer named Jonathan (“Jacques” or “Jock”) Boyer. Born in Moab, Utah, Boyer grew up on his father’s ranch in Idaho and learned how to race a bike in Monterey, California. Boyer followed in the wheel marks of Neel and George Mount to Europe, and made a name for himself in French amateur racing with the U.C. Creteil-Lejeune team in the late 1970s.

Boyer turned pro in 1980 with the Puch-Sem team. After a decent finish at the Tour of Switzerland, he returned to the States to compete in Aisner’s first Coors Classic. By then, the race had several tough mountain stages in the Rockies. Boyer was in his element, but couldn’t quite match the incredible climbers from Colombia (who would go on and become the only first and only amateur racers to compete at the Tour de France).

Boyer stayed within touch of the Colombians, and then on the last day went on the attack (with the help of several American criterium specialists) in the circuit race around North Boulder Park. Boyer lapped the Colombians and gained just enough time to win the overall title.

Instead of returning to Europe to compete in some more stage races, Boyer decided to stay at home and take long, long training rides at altitude to prepare for the world pro road race championship. The world’s that year took place at Sallanches, in the French Alps, on a course that remains the toughest there’s ever been for a single-day race.

The 20–lap, 268km pro event was a race of attrition. I walked the Sallanches course that hazy Sunday, and watched much of the race on the Domancy hill, standing with thousands of French fans cheering for their favorite, Tour de France champion Bernard Hinault. I was rooting for Scottish climber Robert Millar, who was prominent at the front all day, while keeping an eye on the American newcomer, Boyer.

The 5km-long, switchback Domancy hill was much steeper and narrower than L’Alpe d’Huez, and proved to be a perfect course for Hinault. The French star eventually dropped his last rival, Gibi Baronchelli of Italy, the last time up the grueling climb. Baronchelli hung in to take second, a minute back, while Boyer finished in a seven-strong chase group that sprinted it out for third place, 4:25 down on the winner. Only 15 of the 107 starters reached the finish.

This bronze-medal sprint was taken by the Spaniard Juan Fernandez, while Boyer came in fifth. Besides this being the highest-ever American finish at the pro road world’s, Boyer was declared the U.S. pro road champion (the only other American in the field, George Mount, did not finish), and he was presented with the first USPRO stars-and stripes jersey.

In fact, that was the year (1980) when East Coast race promoters Dave Chauner and Jack Simes bought the Professional Racing Organization name from Denver official Chris van Gent. Van Gent had created the PRO in 1968 in the expectation of bringing back six-day racing to America; but it was never operational until Chauner and Simes bought the name to establish pro road racing in this country. And, yes, that’s a story that will have to wait for another column.