As one of the most accomplished U.S. road cyclists ever, Bend’s Chris Horner knows he owes much of his success to the older riders who mentored him when he first started bike racing.

“If it wasn’t for four or five of the masters (30 and older) guys in my club, I would have never made it,” Horner recalled. “They would drive me to the races, they would pay for my gas. I’d stay at their houses. Those masters riders took me under their wing. I just want to return the favor.”

Now, the 51-year-old Horner — after a career that included seven Tour de France starts and a victory in the 2013 Spanish Vuelta — is launching the Horner Cycling Foundation with Bend’s Molly Cogswell-Kelley, the former longtime events and financial development director for the Mt. Bachelor Sports Education Foundation.

The mission of the new nonprofit is to “create a junior road cycling team that is inclusive, accessible to all socioeconomic statuses with the focus on skill development, team building and fostering a life-long love of cycling.”

Master riders welcome

While the focus is on developing young road cyclists into pros, Horner made it clear that masters riders are welcome as well.

“We NEED masters riders in the club,” he said. “We want the culture to be the masters guys taking care of the young kids and showing them the ropes and helping out however they can throughout the season.”

Horner finished as high as ninth place overall in the Tour de France, in 2010, and won the Spanish Vuelta in 2013 at the age of 41, becoming the oldest winner of any of cycling’s grand tours. It’s been difficult for him to give up bike racing at the highest levels, but the sport has remained his main career.

The last four years, Horner was a Tour de France commentator for NBC Sports, and he has a YouTube Channel called “The Butterfly Effect” that is all about bike racing and has 65,000 subscribers. Horner is no longer a part of NBC’s Tour coverage, which freed him up to start the Horner Cycling Foundation with Cogswell-Kelley, who will handle the day-to-day operations of the nonprofit while Horner focuses on training the riders.

“We just thought it was a nice little balance,” Cogswell-Kelley said. “I know a lot of kids in the community from my old job at MBSEF, and I used to run the mountain bike program. So I have experience working with parents and youth.”

The Horner Cycling Foundation is organizing the Bend Criterium Series, which will run five Wednesdays from June 21 to July 19 at Bend’s Pacific Crest Middle School. Horner and former pro rider Bart Bowen will conduct a criterium clinic before the first race on June 21. For more information, visit hornercyclingfoundation.com. The new foundation will also conduct the Thrilla Cyclocross Series in the fall.

Another mission of the Horner Cycling Foundation is to keep the sport of road cycling going in the U.S. As mountain biking and gravel cycling surge in popularity and road race sponsors dry up, road cycling is getting left behind. The Cascade Cycling Classic, which lost its title sponsor in 2017, was once a major event every summer in Central Oregon, but has not been held since 2019 after getting canceled in 2020.

Cogswell-Kelley had a big role in helping MBSEF run the Cascade Cycling Classic each summer.

“It is an unbelievable amount of work,” she said. “One of the main reasons we let go of the CCC is doing a race in July now in Bend is impossible. It was so many different variables. The burnout was really high.”

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Cogswell-Kelley and Horner stressed they have no plans to resurrect the CCC, but they do want to get youngsters involved in road cycling.

“You see juniors on electric bikes but you don’t see them on road bikes,” Cogswell-Kelley said. “We really want to change that. And we’ll make sure that safety is No. 1.”

Turning juniors into pros

Horner said he does not want to see road bike racing disappear in the U.S.

“The road cycling scene throughout the U.S. is on the hurting side for sure,” Horner said. “I’ve enjoyed my time racing and of course loved my time in the Tour de France and winning in Spain and doing the biggest races in the world. But you can see the steppingstone coming from the U.S. to get to Europe is quite a big step because of the lack of racing and the lack of guidance of pointing enough riders in the right direction, too.”

That’s where the Horner Cycling Foundation comes in. Horner said he wants to make sure everybody has a good time, first and foremost, but he really wants to develop junior cyclists into pros. He also wants to give underprivileged youth a shot at road bike racing.

“The bikes are more expensive, gas, hotel bills …” Horner said. “It’s complicated for a kid who is financially strapped. So we would love to find some kids like that to come in and do some cycling.”

With his YouTube Channel and the Horner Cycling Foundation, Horner said he is “full-time cycling again.”

“And that’s what I want to do,” he said. “It really is what I am. It runs deep. Bike racing is what I think about most of the day, so I might as well just keep it going and have a good time.”