Routt County Commissioners continued Tuesday a discussion around a proposed permitting process for large events that utilize county roads.

Debate from the commissioners primarily centered on a proposed 3,000-participant limit for events and whether the volunteers who work the event and spectators who watch it should be included in the count.

The continued conversations come in the wake of complaints voiced by some county residents over the impact of events on local roads, including SBT GRVL.

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Commissioner Tim Corrigan noted Tuesday the set of proposed rules stem from negative feedback conveyed by residents after the SBT GRVL cycling race last year.

“Let’s face it. We are trying to be agnostic about who this applies to, but let’s face it: It was (SBT GRVL) that brought this forward, and my sense of it was that the negative impacts, for the most part, were actually created by the participants,” Corrigan said.

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SBT GRVL started in 2019 with 1,500 riders and quickly grew to 2,500. By 2022, a lottery capped entries at 3,000 participants, where it remains today.

The event is one of the largest gravel bike races in the world, with four courses ranging from 37 to 142 miles that start in Steamboat, loop through the Yampa Valley and wind along county roads through Routt County ranching communities.

Corrigan said Tuesday he thought the limit on participants should be constrained to the count of individuals partaking in the event — not spectators or volunteers.

“It wasn’t the support staff that was helping with the event that was creating the negative impacts, and far as spectators go … there is just nothing you can do about spectators,” Corrigan stated.

Corrigan noted the practice of counting participants, volunteers and event-staff “seemed really complex” and suggested a better avenue would just be to reduce the number of participants.

Commissioner Sonja Macys disagreed, arguing “the distinction for me are the ones who are on-site, on course, and I think the way they would be counted is, I am certain there is a volunteer registration and signup.”

“Let’s just say we are talking about an aid station or people who are doing whatever they are doing to manage spectators at a designated area — I think those would be appropriate to count,” she explained.

Macys and Corrigan turned to Commissioner Tim Redmond to help break their disagreement over what the definition of a participant should be. Redmond said he understood both sides of the issue but felt the participants were the individuals who made the real impact on residents.

“I look at 3,000 riders and that is the real impact that concerns me,” he said, adding that he suggested lowering the allowable number of participants for an event without the figure including spectators or support staff.

Redmond said that, if the participant number was reduced and event organizers could show that the impact of the event could be mitigated, he would be open to increasing the number again.

“Quite honestly, I would look at 2,500, but honestly if we could run 3,000 people … and don’t create those impacts, then I would have no problem with 3,000 people, but at this point in time, I saw 3,000 people creating problems in my county,” he said.

County commissioners made no decision on enacting the policy at their meeting and agreed to revisit its language at a future meeting. Before adjourning, they accepted public comment, which included remarks from Micah Rice, the race director for SBT GRVL.

“This is not an easy process, and you have a lot of balancing to do when it comes to trying to get everything into account,” said Rice, adding comment on the question of including volunteers as part of the participant numbers. “We don’t have a massive problem with that when we talk about volunteers who are not considered medical or traffic control; that only tends to be a handful of people who are working at aid stations.”

Rice said the issues flagged by county residents in relation to the 2023 event “were really due to some problems with our courses and not necessarily with the fact that it’s 3,000 versus 2,500.”

He added that the 2024 routes for the race have been designed to alleviate the impact on local residents.

“We fixed all of those problems, and that is going to have a much bigger impact on lessening the rider impact, the participant impact, than just reducing by 500 people.”