From Red Kite Prayer by John Wilkerson

The story began in the early-1970s when a 19-year-old Mo Siegel founded a small herbal tea company, Celestial Seasonings, to supply local health food stores. Siegel and his hippie friends, who handpicked herbs and wild berries for their teas, were environmentalists, and after their nascent business passed a million dollars in sales, Siegel decided he wanted to generate awareness of cycling’s environmental benefits (and also publicize the company’s best-selling tea, Red Zinger), by organizing a bike race.

The Red Zinger Classic started out as a modest two-day, three-stage event, with a short time trial, a hilly road race through Colorado’s Front Range, and a criterium in North Boulder Park. It had a tiny budget of $50,000 but heaps of enthusiasm from Siegel’s Boulder employees and local volunteers. The inaugural edition, in 1975, was the one that attracted Phinney to the sport. It did the same two years later for Michael Aisner, a journalism student at the University of Colorado’s Boulder campus, who was moonlighting as a DJ for a Denver radio station and stumbled into a career as a promoter. It happened like this….

Read the full history at Red Kite Prayer

While this year the Tour de France will not be heading up the grand l'Alpe d'Huez but we can still celebrate America's first victory up that climb 20 years ago which was done by Boulder cyclist, Andy Hampsten. Andy became the first American to win the prestige Tour de France stage up Alpe d'Huez. Some have tried to celebrate Andy's performance in the past with the painting of Flagstaff, aka l'alpe d'Flag but city officials killed it quickly.