By Scott Streater

The National Park Service for the second time has rejected a request to route a professional bicycle race through Colorado National Monument despite lobbying by some of the state's most prominent elected leaders.

NPS Director Jon Jarvis said in a statement this week that "closing the park to accommodate a commercial bike race" is not a proper use of the national monument, and that Superintendent Joan Anzelmo "made the right call" last December when she rejected the initial proposal to run a stage of the 600-mile Quiznos Pro Challenge bike race through the western Colorado park.

The race proposal had raised a number of thorny policy questions, and some feared that if NPS allowed the race through the monument, it could open hundreds of other park units to similar large-scale events, violating the Park Service's primary mission to protect and preserve park resources for future generations.

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