Eagle County bus drivers compete fiercely, and for fun, to see whose skills are the best at Bus Roadeo

Luis Leal kept a careful watch over Amy Phillips as she guided an ECO bus around hundreds of cones, tennis balls and barrels.

Phillips, Avon’s mayor and the Eagle Valley Transportation Authority board chair, and Leal, ECO Transit’s road supervisor, were participating in the 2024 Bus Roadeo at the ECO Transit maintenance service center in Gypsum on Wednesday, May 29. The event provided an opportunity for Eagle County’s bus drivers to show off their driving skills and engage in friendly competition while navigating through an obstacle course.

Members of the public were also able to get behind the wheel of an ECO bus and try their hand at the course.

“Is it your first time driving a bus?” Leal asked Phillips. It was.

Though he joked about feeling nervous, Leal’s disposition betrayed him: He was relaxed, laughing with Phillips as he gave her advice about how to drive the course.

Support Local Journalism

Donate

Leal’s calmness transferred to Phillips, who navigated through the obstacles with ease. “I’m buying myself one of these (buses)!” she said.

Drivers compete

The event featured cooperation across agencies — ECO Transit and Eagle Valley Transportation Authority staff, but also Eagle County staff and staff from the towns of Avon, Vail, and Beaver Creek Village showed up to participate in the event as drivers and volunteers. Some also brought their friends and family members.

“It was really fun to see the team coming together and everybody helping,” said Dayana Herr, the marketing, communications and customer relations manager for the transportation authority.

16 bus drivers participated, from ECO Transit, Vail, Avon and Beaver Creek. The drivers had to navigate around eight obstacles made up of cones, tennis balls and barrels designed to test their bus maneuvering abilities. One obstacle mimicked a bus stop where drivers might pull toward a curb to pick up passengers. Another tested drivers’ ability to park the bus by backing it into a space. Yet another obstacle challenged drivers to stop within 6 inches of a cone while approaching at speed.

In the morning, the course was overseen by 24 volunteer judges who observed each bus carefully as drivers worked their way through the obstacles. Perfectly navigating the course without touching a single cone, tennis ball or barrel would earn a driver 600 points. Points were taken off for each point of contact.

The winner, ECO Transit driver Matheau Pulver, earned 455 points. Sam Gervais, a driver for the town of Vail, came in second with 446 points. Matt Fortelka, an ECO Transit driver, earned third place with 443 points.

Pulver and Gervais will have the opportunity to compete against the best drivers from around the state at a similar roadeo organized by Denver’s Regional Transportation District in September. Winners from that competition will move on to a national competition.

Months of preparation

ECO Transit’s Bus Roadeo is the passion project of Juan Reyes, an ECO Transit road supervisor who organized his first event years ago as a driver. The competition was put on pause when Reyes took some time away from ECO Transit and stayed on hiatus during the pandemic, but it returned last year under the oversight of Reyes with the support of Larry Tenenholz, ECO Transit’s interim director.

“This is my little thing that I started when I was a driver. Bus rodeos are things I love to do,” Reyes said.

While ECO Transit’s first roadeo since the pandemic served as a trial — only ECO Transit employees were involved — last week’s roadeo was executed on a much larger scale. The event took months to plan and dozens of volunteers to pull off.

The effort was spearheaded by Reyes and Leal. They ensured the course was prepared to perfection, measuring and marking the location of each cone on every obstacle, driving the course repeatedly over the last month, and even making sure the two buses used in the competition were the same.

“They measured everything to the last inch to make sure that everybody gets the right obstacles to go through and the buses also go through precisely,” Herr said.

“We worked hours and hours to make this happen,” Leal said. “I’m really, really happy (with) the way this turned out.”

Fun and talented

Drivers struck the perfect blend of professional and frivolous during the event, Herr said.

“The operators were having a blast, and they were kind of just teasing each other, like ‘Oh, I’m better than you,'” Herr said. “It’s amazing to see just how much (drivers) enjoy what they do, and they truly enjoy showcasing their skills.”

Though the course was designed to challenge the drivers, it was also an opportunity for them to display their hard-earned skills to their friends and family, transit leaders and passengers.

“This is what they do every single day. They drive these gigantic buses through snowstorms and rain and wind, construction sites,” Herr said.

For many drivers, the competition was simply part of their workday. The ECO Transit operations team helped drivers organize their schedules so that everyone who wanted to attend the bus roadeo could. Pulver, who won the competition, missed the award ceremony because he was out driving his route.

The course was not just for professional bus drivers, either. Members of the public, like Phillips, were invited to try their hand at navigating the course and driving an ECO bus in the afternoon, once the official competition had concluded. Many who did had never driven a bus before but were coached to success by Leal and Reyes.

What matters in your community, delivered daily.

Sign up for our morning newsletter at VailDaily.com/newsletter

Teaching the newcomers, Leal said, reminded him of the three years he spent training new bus drivers.

“I miss training a lot, just because of that,” he said.

After seeing the success of the 2024 bus roadeo, Leal said, “I want to do this again real soon.”

The roadeo will likely continue as an annual event under the Eagle Valley Transportation Authority after it absorbs ECO Transit on Aug. 4. The day of friendly competition concluded with an awards ceremony and a speech from Reyes.

“This is it,” Reyes said as the ceremony concluded. “Until next year!”