Steamboat Pilot & Today

You just ran the Steamboat Marathon? Bah, humbug.

You pedaled Emerald in a rusty, one-speed cruiser? Still not impressed.

You drove from 13th Street to Third Street without a brush with death? Really?

Now, THAT is something worth bragging about - especially if you stopped at the downtown post office, too.

It's not Triple Crown time yet, but if you're living in Steamboat Springs, you've noticed that downtown is jammed. Enormous trucks are everywhere. So is dirt.

Unlike last year's predictions of a Rainbow Family wildfire, or Y2K, the perils of summer construction fostered a fearsome forecast that is coming true.

It's messy down there. It will be for months.

Main Street Steamboat Springs is admirably making the best of it, by decorating hardhats, hosting live music soirees on the courthouse lawn and calling the whole thing a "Downtown Renaissance." I love the murals hung on construction fences.

But while a Renaissance may be coming, it's not here yet.

The hard times have to come first.

In order to spur the European Renaissance, for example, 14th-century Italy had to first suffer through a little thing called the Black Death. Don't get me wrong - downtown construction is no plague. But it sure isn't a cultural and intellectual revival, either.

So I'm going to hop on the Main Street bandwagon and propose a new summer event.

That's right, Steamboaters, put aside your Running Series spandex and your Town Challenge bikes. The real race of the summer is the 2007 Crosstown Clusterfest, coming soon to Lincoln Avenue at lunchtime.

Cars entering the Clusterfest will line up and rev their engines - preferably while drivers are talking on cell phones - at the 13th Street traffic light, near Bud Werner Memorial Library. After the light turns green, the first contestant to tag the neon-pink sign at the Rabbit Ears Motel wins.

But there are tasks along the way.

All contestants will be required to purchase at least one take-out food item from a downtown restaurant; conduct one piece of business at either City Hall or the Routt County Courthouse; and navigate the ever-tricky Jaywalking Pedestrian Slalom course. All tasks must be completed between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., prime Clusterfest hours.

Collecting mail from the downtown post office will be worth bonus points. Bailing out and taking Oak Street or Pine Street will lead to deductions on a per-block rate.

Race fans will view the spectacle from atop construction cranes.

For those who choose not to race in the Clusterfest, fear not. There's plenty to do while you're caught at a red light behind a smoke-belching dump truck, waiting for the traffic guy to wave you around a big pile of dirt on Yampa Street, or searching for a downtown parking spot. You can plan what to cook for dinner. Compose a song in your head. Teach yourself how to whistle.

Or maybe you can just look forward to the Renaissance.