Professional road cyclists will race through Colorado Springs, Breckenridge and Denver next summer during the Colorado Classic, an event organizers hope will be more durable than its predecessors.

The Aug. 10-13 stage race — with pro cycling’s highest profile teams, a two-day women’s race, public riding events, live music and a rolling festival — will blend the best elements of Colorado’s lost Red Zinger Bicycle Classic, the Coors Classic and the USA Pro Challenge.

“Sustainability is the goal here,” said David Koff, the chief of RPM Events Group, an investment team that includes Denver’s Gart family and local philanthropist Ben Walton, grandson of Walmart founder Sam Walton.

The Colorado Classic — with specific details still pending — will be the latest iteration of professional cycling in the bike-loving Centennial State and the U.S., where stage racing has struggled to thrive. It will marry the spectator-friendly urban criterium circuits of the long-gone Red Zinger and Coors Classic with the Pro Challenge’s television-friendly traverses of Colorado’s high country.

The four-day race will feature 18 domestic and international, six-man teams racing 300 miles in circuits that start and finish in the same location. The women’s race will begin in Colorado Springs on Aug. 10 and conclude the following night under lights in Denver. The men on Aug. 11 will race a second stage in Breckenridge and the third-and-fourth stages will begin and end in Denver’s River North Art District.

Like the Pro Challenge, the Colorado Classic has been designated by cycling’s governing body, the UCI, as 2.HC, the highest rating outside of UCI World Tour races like the Tour de France. The Colorado Classic joins the May 14-21 Amgen Tour of California, the July 31-Aug. 6 Tour of Utah and the inaugural Aug. 24-27 Tour of the Commonwealth in Virginia as the country’s highest profile professional bike races.

“Coloradans love pro bike racing,” said Derek Bouchard-Hall, the chief of USA Cycling, in a statement. “We’re extremely pleased that the Colorado Classic will continue the state’s proud tradition with both men’s and women’s events.”

More information about race routes through Denver, Colorado Springs and Breckenridge, as well as musical acts, public participation events and the traveling festival will come soon, Koff said. Those specifics will reveal how the Colorado Classic will defy a national trend that has seen all but two U.S. multi-stage professional bike races die.

The viability of the Colorado Classic “will be apparent” when those details emerge, Koff said. “We have focused on all elements on the cost side to try to make this more sustainable.”

One of those elements is public participation. In the coming weeks, RPM will announce amateur events that coincide with the elite race.

“We think that’s an exciting way to help connect pro cycling with your average daily cyclist,” Koff said. “It fits with our investors’ approach. We view this as a large-scale community event with participation being a major part of that.”

Koff said the RPM team is “well on our way” to securing television coverage of the race, an essential yet pricey ingredient for success. International event coverage of the Pro Challenge splashed images of Colorado’s high country across millions of television screens worldwide, helping elevate host cities like Aspen, Vail, Steamboat, Breckenridge and Denver as a destination for coveted international tourists.

“We expect to have the same type of coverage that similar races have had in the last five years,” Koff said.

The Pro Challenge debuted in Colorado in 2011, with local benefactors Rick and Richard Schaden covering a nearly $10 million loss that first year. By 2015, a team of deep-pocketed sponsors — like Lexus, UnitedHealthcare and Pepsi — helped stem the losses of the statewide production. But the race still foundered, despite luring a reported 1 million spectators and delivering more than $130 million in economic impact to the state.

The Pro Challenge pushed big crowds into host communities that enjoyed robust bumps in tourist spending that lingers even without the race. Local organizers see that as a sign that the Pro Challenge boosted Colorado’s profile as a cycling destination.

The Schadens ceded ownership of the race in 2015 but Pro Challenge chief Shawn Hunter was unable to keep it afloat, giving rise to the RPM Events Group. Ken Gart, the governor’s unpaid boss of all things bike in Colorado, organized the group with hopes of cherry-picking the successful elements of the Pro Challenge minus the crippling cost of producing a race that roams several hundred miles of Colorado roadways.

“I can’t wait to once again show off this wonderful state to the world during the Colorado Classic,” Gart said in a statement. “The Colorado Classic is being developed to appeal to not just cycling fans but a wide array of Coloradans and visitors to the state.”