Chile Pepper Challenge bike ride canceled

A popular annual bike ride that has raised money for numerous non-profit organizations has been canceled. The Chile Pepper Challenge is a tradition for many bikers across the borderland, but this year, organizers were unable to get the proper permits.

” It’s one of the major bike rides in El Paso, over, if I remember correctly from their website, about 900 to a thousand bike riders,” Leticia Jimenez, who heads a local bicycling group called Las Picosas, said.

When she heard the news that the ride was canceled, she reached out to New Mexico state police.

“The state department requires support from either the Dona Ana Sheriff’s Department or the New Mexico State Police and both groups were not willing to provide that,” Jimenez said.

She said that she spoke on the phone with state police and they told her that they were concerned about bikers who disobeyed traffic laws in the past. ABC-7 reached out to state police for a comment, but they have not yet responded.