STEAMBOAT SPRINGS ? The Colorado Classic, which kicked off its four-day run Thursday, is unlike any previous professional bike race held in Colorado: It’s for women only.

And unlike any other professional women’s sports almost anywhere, the purse this year is bigger for the women than for the men who raced in the 2018 competition, almost unheard of in professional sports.

(Meanwhile, the US Women’s Soccer team has been trying to negotiate pay equity for a team that has consistently outperformed its male counterparts for years but with far less money).

RELATED: Olympic silver medalist dominates Stage 1 of Colorado Classic cycling race

This year’s purse for the Colorado Classic, now in its fourth year, is $75,000, which is $5,000 more than was paid out for the men’s racers in 2018. Race organizers are also paying for lodging, meals and other team support. The purse is four times what was paid to the women racers in last year’s event. 

According to the race organizers, more than half of the racers hold down two or three jobs, and 17% aren’t paid a salary by their teams. Half earn less than $11,000 per year.

Compare that to the average pay for male racers who aren’t superstars, at between $40,000 and $200,000 annually. Superstars in the men’s professional cycling ranks can easily earn upwards of $5 million per year, not including prize money or endorsement contracts. 

VF Corp. — parent of such outdoor and activewear brands as The North Face, JanSport and Timberland — took over sponsorship of the Colorado Classic last February, timed to coincide with a move this month of its corporate headquarters from North Carolina to a temporary location in the Denver Tech Center and a permanent location in downtown Denver.

During a press conference Wednesday in Steamboat Springs, former world champion Amber Neben of the women’s team Cogeas Mettler Look said that “to have a women’s only, 2.1 race in the U.S., it’s been a really long time since we’ve had one of those.” 

(A 2.1 race is the highest designation in the world professional cycling tour.)

“What’s special right now is you see more support on the women’s side,” Neben said. “There’s more and more opportunities for women, creating more depth and that creates better racing. I love what Colorado is doing to bring people out and be a part of it. I think it’s pretty innovative.”

The Colorado Classic is the only women’s 2.1 race in the Western Hemisphere in 2019. The sponsors believe the race will make a sea change in women’s cycling, with “longer, more challenging routes, higher prize money, unprecedented team support and daily live TV streaming coverage from start to finish.”

Some racers are wearing a “we ride” bracelet or a tattoo during the four-day contest, which is to raise awareness about gender disparity in cycling, and to accelerate the movement toward equal opportunity, pay and support for women in all sports.

Gov. Jared Polis declared July 17 “Colorado Classic Equity in Cycling Day.” In his proclamation, Polis said “the Colorado Classic has been instrumental in bringing pro racing back to Colorado, and we are proud to support their bold move in becoming a women’s-only bike race.”

The race, he said, “reflects what our state is known for — innovation and inclusion — while showcasing Colorados’s diverse outdoor health and wellness lifestyle.”

This year’s race lacks a standard feature found in men’s cycling: podium hostesses, women compared to “window dressing” at most international professional men’s cycling events. It’s an issue that has become increasingly controversial within professional cycling.

The race instead celebrates the accomplishments of cyclists, including Boulder’s Connie Carpenter-Phinney, the first woman to win an Olympic gold in cycling, at the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles. Her son, Taylor, rides for EF Education First, a professional team based in Boulder.

The 96 racers represent 16 teams, including five international teams and four top 20 UCI-ranked teams, including the fifth-ranked Canyon SRAM team from Germany. (UCI, or Union Cycliste Internationale, is the world governing body for cycling.)

Thirteen racers count Colorado either as their home or are originally from Colorado, including California-transplant Erica Clevenger of She-Air Twenty20. Clevenger is the 2017 Collegiate Cycling Road Champion and a PhD candidate in environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden. 

Thursday’s race took cyclists on an 85.6 km/53.2 mile loop from Steamboat Springs south along Colorado 131 to Oak Creek. The course then turned north along Colorado Highway 27, where racers competed for a sprint purse of $2,100.

The race then moved north to Colorado Highway 33, over a section of unpaved gravel road, to Colorado Highway 43 and back into Steamboat. 

An early breakaway by Rachel Langdon of Fearless Femme, Emily Newsom of TIBCO-SVB and Ariadna Gutierrez of Swapit/Agolico led to Langdon winning the sprint prize at Oak Creek. The three racers were caught by the peleton (the main group of racers) with 25 miles left to go.

And then the race was on for the finish. Chloe Dygert-Owen of Sho-Air Twenty20 went off the front of the peloton in the race’s final kilometers. One of the nation’s best time trialists (that’s known as the “race of truth”) she won the race by 48 seconds over second-place finisher Whitney Allison-Schutz of Hagens-Berman/Supermint Bib and Australia’s Brodie Chapman of TIBCO-SVB.

Dygert-Owen also took the best young rider’s jersey and the jerseys for race leader, mountain points and sprint points leader. Fresh off two gold medals in the Pan-Am games for track and road racing, she hopes to represent the United States in the 2020 Olympics in Japan.

Regarding the purse, Allison-Schutz said after the race that “it’s an honor to be recognized for the professional athletes that we are. This race will set the bar for other events, … showing a belief in female athletes and the work we put into our training and our entire career as athletes.

Having supporters “acknowledge that we are worthy of the same prize purse that men would receive is huge,” Allison-Schutz said, adding that it inspires her to race as hard as she can and to encourage her teammates, and “yes, the prize purse is pretty great.”