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Director's Message:
It’s tempting to romanticize the last Queen’s Stage Race.
We could wax on about how it’s the end of an era, how it marked a turning point in the story of RPI, how the mountains will never be quite the same. But let’s not do that. The Queen’s Stage Race doesn’t need a eulogy. It needs a standing ovation.
Because the truth is, we’re not closing a chapter—we’re flipping the page. And what comes next is going to be wild.
In 2026, RPI shifts. New weekend. New flow. New routes. Same soul. By moving the event to the weekend after Labor Day, we open up the entire experience. Less traffic. Less competition for trail time. Cheaper lodging. More solitude.
The Baked Potato will go further east and higher into the sky than ever before. We’re adding a fourth route—Twice Baked—a 126-mile beast that combines the best of what’s come before with the altitude, attitude, and isolation that defines this place. Make the time cuts, and you’ll have one hell of a story to tell. And we’re shifting the main event to Saturday, which still gives you a day of mindful post-race reflection before packing up and heading home.
But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
This week—the one we’re all here for—is the result of the same quiet magic that’s always powered this machine. A deeply weird, fiercely loyal, problem-solving crew of professionals, part-timers, and people who somehow still think this is a good way to spend a long weekend.
This crew does not have “gravel event production” on their LinkedIn profiles. They fix medical devices and analyze data and run dispatch for fire departments. And then they come here—on their vacation days—to change your flat, track your progress, hang your course markers, and hold your hand (literally and metaphorically) when things get hairy.
They are amateur radio nerds. Retired medics. Retail clerks. Software developers. Moms. Mechanics. And they are the reason any of this works.
They get 90 seconds of glory—if that—before the sweep truck rolls by and the ribbons get pulled from fenceposts. You don’t see them, but you feel them. They’re the reason you find a bottle of water when you didn’t think you could make it to the next aid. The reason you know where to turn. The reason you come back.
So before we chase podiums or KOMs or completion medals, let’s raise a metaphorical glass (and maybe a literal one later) to the ones behind the curtain. To the ones who make Rebecca’s Private Idaho feel like something bigger than a bike race.
Let’s make this final Queen’s Stage Race the best one yet.
Then next year, we go Twice Baked on the new event weekend of September 12th, 2026.
See you out there,
Carlos Perez
Executive Producer, RPI
