Meet Michael Fleishman | Co-Owner – Human Powered Endeavors

We had the good fortune of connecting with Michael Fleishman and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Michael, what is the most important factor behind your success?
The Lake City Alpine 50 continues to thrive because we focus on the rider more than we focus on ourselves. We created this race with an eye toward providing the small town of Lake City, Colorado with another event that would bring people to this great little town. We really try to create an environment that complements the incredible terrain and vistas that riders experience during the race. We are not a corporate event and people really appreciate it.

Alright, so for those in our community who might not be familiar with your business, can you tell us more?
Human Powered Endeavors is a pretty small outfit. It consists of me (Michael Fleishman) and John Coy. We both love Lake City, Colorado and we love the surrounding San Juan Mountains. We both had an independent vision for putting on a bike race on the historic Alpine Loop. It is a 50-mile loop that tests the rider’s lungs and legs. Starting a business is never easy and it takes time to gain a reputation and traction. We are in our fifth year of the race and we have no major aspirations to grow the race that much larger than our current cap of 150 riders. However, we want to continue to provide our riders with an amazing experience each year, and each year we believe we are doing a better job of that.

I think what sets this race apart is that as owners, this is a side project and neither of us feels beholden to have to make more and more money and lose the flavor of what makes this race different than many.

I guess we just want people to come experience the race for themselves so they can see how different a race can be.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
We just had friends come to visit Lake City, Colorado. We just drove up to the top of 12,800 foot Engineer Pass and went sledding on the crazy amounts of snow. We love taking people to hike 14,000 foot peaks, of which there are five of them in our immediate area. Gotta take friends to San Juan Soda company for some good ol’ soda fountain-era ice cream and grab a beer at the Lake City Brewing Company. Lake San Cristobal is a must for some moose viewing and paddleboarding the Lake.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
The Lake City Alpine 50 exists because we have an amazing group of volunteers that make it happen each year and generous sponsors that allow us to continue to provide our riders with a blissful day in the mountains.

Website: www.lakecityalpine50.com

Instagram: @lakecityalpine50

Facebook: lakecityalpine50

Image Credits
Joy Pankratz