Colorado-Born Sepp Kuss Just Won the Vuelta. None of His Hometown Friends Are Surprised.
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Sepp Kuss, 29, won the Vuelta a España on Sunday, and became the first American man to win a Grand Tour since Chris Horner’s victory at the 2013 Vuelta. In fact, no American man has even led a Grand Tour since Horner.
But Kuss’ victory feels more significant than the 10-year dry spell. Kuss grew up in Durango, Colorado, population 19,000. A place that’s so drenched in cycling and mountain biking that it’s hard to imagine anyone there has been talking about anything but Kuss for weeks.
People who know Kuss from Durango seem to think of him as a little brother. He’s polite but always ready to joke around. He’s focused but seemingly always smiling.
So while this Vuelta win is great for American cycling, and great for putting the U.S. on the map of what’s possible, it’s also a big deal for every kid in every small town quietly being the best at something, knowing that someday others might take notice, but really just enjoying the journey.
For professional mountain biker Payson McElveen’s podcast, The Adventure Stache, this week he talked to former WorldTour rider and all-around adventure guru Lachlan Morton. Despite their own recent huge accomplishments, the two beamed with emotion around Kuss’ win.
“Beyond what I think it’ll do for cycling in the U.S., and I feel like it does need that boost, but just on a personal level, I remember he beat me when he was just a kid—a mountain biker. We were at Redlands, in a hill top finish, and he sprinted around me. I had just come back from WorldTour, I was on Jelly Belly. And I was like, who is this kid? He was just this kid having fun riding his bike, you know? And it seems like that hasn’t changed all the way through,” Morton said.
Durango is a bit of a magical place when it comes to creating bike racers and life-long lovers of all things adventure. That’s thanks in part to Durango Devo, a youth cycling development program that puts its focus on having fun, building character, and being part of a community. Winning races is a byproduct.
That said, a lot of winners have gotten their start in Devo. Olympian Howard Grotts and 2023 Cape Epic winner Christopher Blevins came up through Devo. As did professional off-road cyclists Sarah Sturm and Ellen Campbell.
So when Kuss took the lead of the Vuelta in stage 8, a little corner in Colorado was likely making a heck of a lot of noise. Right away interviewers started asking him if he could win the whole thing.
As is his nature, he humbly said, “One day at a time.” But then the race entered the third week and hope kept building. Somewhere along the way, Kuss himself decided to believe. He wanted to win the thing.
And while there was a bit of in-team controversy, with teammates Jonas Vingegaard and Primož Roglič sprinting ahead of Kuss diminishing his overall lead in the second week of the tour, eventually they came together, they protected Kuss, and supported him to the victory.
Since the win Kuss now has more than 272,000 followers on Instagram, and more than 138,000 followers on Strava. Over the last 4 weeks, according to his Strava, Kuss has averaged over 600 miles, with more than 51,000 feet of climbing per week. So far this year he’s clocked 18,025 miles of biking, and climbed 1,794,682 feet.
That probably doesn’t surprise folks in Colorado. Kuss is a local legend in every way possible, and he still holds some of the fastest times in towns all around his home state, including Boulder, training ground to more than a few of the best pro cyclists.
Some of Kuss’ epic Colorado segments include Lickskillet Road, a ridiculously steep one-mile gravel stretch that most can’t even stay on their bike for. Gold Hill, pretty much all of Boulder’s favorite weekend climb. And more epic mountain segments like Engineer Pass, an adventurer’s high altitude delight not far from Durango. Just to name a few. (His KOM list on Strava is 137 pages long).
Kuss and his wife live in Andorra now, and rarely get back to Colorado. But there’s a good reason that he gave Durango a shout-out from the podium in Madrid. He knows that in Durango, he’s not just an American cycling hero, he’s family.
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