Missoula Named Host City For 2017 – 2018 USA Cycling Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championship

After many years of attempting to bring a USA Cycling event to Missoula, Destination Missoula and the Missoula Tourism Business Improvement District (TBID) are excited to announce that Missoula has been chosen as the host city for the 2017 – 2018 Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championship.

"I am extremely proud of our team at Destination Missoula/Missoula TBID and the Missoula biking community for the passion and hard work that went into securing this event for Missoula," said Barbara Neilan, executive director of Destination Missoula and the Missoula TBID. "Missoula is the perfect venue because of our challenging terrain, incredible community spirit, and exuberance for all things outdoors. It is not easy to pull off an event of this magnitude, but I have no doubts that Missoula will knock it out of the park."

The Destination Missoula and Missoula TBID team spent many hours with USA Cycling Vice President of National Events, Micah Rice, and showcasing Missoula’s intense cycling culture along with the community’s obsession with the outdoors to ultimately bring home the bid and bring the USAC to Western Montana.

"We are very excited to bring the 2017-2018 USA Cycling Collegiate Mountain Bike National Championships to Missoula, Montana," said Rice. "Missoula has a strong mountain biking culture and some amazing terrain and we know the college racers will have a great time."

The support from the Missoula cycling and racing community has been paramount. Ben Horan, race director for the Missoula XC, worked very closely with the Destination Missoula and Missoula TBID team to present competitive course maps to the USAC to prove Missoula is the perfect destination for these events.

"We’re super excited to be able to offer the National Championship for Collegiate Mountain Bike Racing," said Horan. Missoula has a really strong cycling community that’s really embraced the high level racing we’ve had the opportunity to present. The fans at the Missoula XC are the best in the US, and I think they’ll really appreciate having the opportunity to get out and support the professional racers of tomorrow. Most of our organizing committee raced in college as well, and can’t wait to give back and bring a great event to town. Collegiate racing is MTB at its best."

For more information on Destination Missoula visit http://www.destinationmissoula.org or to learn more about USA Cycling please visit http://www.usacycling.org.