Breck Epic, Part II

Wednesday July 7

The old timers dug this flume by hand with just enough grade to keep the water running. We are pointed uphill, but it doesn’t feel like it at all. The wheels are spinning and it is all good. Too close to the uphill side and you will bang a pedal. Too close to the downhill side and it’s quite a slide. Churning through the trees with a huge smile on my face, and suddenly I realize what happened.

I burned up a ton of calories on Monday. Then, instead of refueling, I sat in the ER. Then I had to hang out and wait for dinner. I should have been eating. The recovery food/fuel was at the finish which I bypassed by going straight to the ER. Then we went out to dinner and had a nice meal, but it was something my grandmother could have finished without much difficulty. So Tuesday morning, after a little climbing, I had suffered a plain old-fashioned BONK. Damn. Seems pretty obvious now, but at the time I had no idea what was happening to me. Bless Caroline and her magic burrito for pulling my toasted taco out of the wilderness and a death spiral of despair.

The flume trail ends in a long rock garden of loose and jagged rocks that I just push right through before being dumped out into a very narrow alpine valley full of flowers and a crystal clear and numbingly cold stream carving it’s way through the middle of it. I cross the stream, stop and look back up the valley. Truly an amazing piece of work. On the steep rocky descent that follows, I catch a glimpse of a big bleached spinal column. Very cool. Must have been placed there by the Tourism Department or Central Casting. Aid One is at the bottom of the hill and I feel good. We climb up a valley just like the other, only larger. First through some trees and then up into the alpine meadow, back into trees and then it begins to open up. It’s not a bike race, it’s an ant colony. Slowly moving along it’s trail, looking for a picnic just on the other side of that little hill. “That little hill” being Little French Gulch and the Continental Divide. Fortunately we were warned about the false summit, but it was still a long slog.

A short pause at the top to appreciate the scenery all around, take a quick picture or two and then it’s on down the other side. I ride about twenty yards before I see the trail crosses a snowfield. I hit it with total optimism, but the angle of the trail does not coincide with the fall line. I want to follow the trail but the bike follows the fall line. After sliding about half way across it with my bike still attached to my feet, I get up laughing and try to walk, holding the handlebars and using the bike as a crutch. But the wet snow is too slippery and there is just no purchase.

A long steep, rocky winding descent through scrub bush follows. You can go as fast as you like; as fast as you dare. Roughly speaking, the lead riders are doing twice my speed, a fact I think about a lot as I pick my way through tough technical sections and vicious uphill climbs. Finally a rocky old double-track dumps me at the bottom of Georgia pass and I start the climb back up the Divide on a decent dirt road. It’s a good climb but I am out of the saddle and trying to stay in a high gear while maintaining good rpm. It’s long and hot, but very satisfying.

Aid Two at the top of Georgia Pass…
Another descent, another long hot climb, (then more of the same) and I've finally completed a major stage. It always feels good to crank it across the finish line, even if it is with only fumes in the tank. But this was especially sweet given the magnitude of the stage, the "Queen Stage," and the bad start that I had gotten two days earlier.

Thursday July 8

Ok, so I’m tired from yesterday, but todays ride up the Wheeler Trail, along with the Circumnavigation of Mt. Guyot that we did yesterday, is a ride I have really been looking forward to. For a long time I've looked forward to being up on that ridge between Peak 7 and Peak 8 on Ten Mile Range with Breckenridge below and Copper Mountain to the west.

So we roll out exactly at 9:00 behind the local police car who guides us up to the ski resort and then pulls off as we all begin winding back and forth up the narrow trail on the face of the ski hill. Then back down again and onto an access road that has us all flying at top speed. We climb through the woods on Burro Trail, past Aid One and up above tree line. The mountain is just huge, steep and open. All sense of proportion is gone. Mt. Quandary, a 14,000 foot peak, is to the left. It is a very long push up a very steep hill. The trail is too narrow for both pusher and bike. Low scrub makes it even more difficult. The air is noticeably thin.
At one point, I manage to move forward by pushing the bike, grabbing the brakes, then pulling myself up.

After I finally get to the top, it turns out that we traverse the Ten Mile Range for a while before dropping down the other side. The top of the Range is surprisingly wet. Bogs, flowers, rocks, mud, three or four snowfields to cross. It was no easy traverse.

Finally down the backside which is mostly rocks the whole way, a couple of beautiful sections as we enter the trees, but lots of narrow gulleys, lots of rocks and some pretty hairy drop-offs to the left. Finally we then hit the Recreational Path which follows right along the pounding river as I open it up to crank from the base of Copper Mountain up to Frisco. Thank goodness I put that big ring on.

After about 7 miles of that, it's up the Peaks Trail back to the Breck ski area. The Peaks trail had some sweet rolling sections, lots of cool log bridges and other neat features, but by then I just wanted to find the finish. We rode through one section of clear cut, which was a real eye-opener.

Six hours and thirty six minutes later, I finally hit the finish line. Totally worn out, but happy to have killed it. It was a long painful downhill coast from there back to our base at UBE. Another massage (starting to feel almost spoiled now), another feast and I'm finally starting to feel like I'm in my game. Bad start, but better late than never.

Friday July 9

Last night Mike Mac the (amazing) Race Organizer admitted that he had never riden the Wheeler trail. He said that whenever a local rider rode it, they'd come back and say "That suuuuucked!" Friday we forgave him.

Riding the single track down to Baker's Tank, climbing up Boreas Pass Road. Swoopey flume of the Gold Dust trail... It was a short but grand and glorious day. Another ride to the other side of The Divide.

Even though it started with me not being able to stand on the pedals, my left leg just couldn't handle it, I found that if I sat and spun, that I was ok. So the initial climb up the pavement on Boreas Pass behind the police pace car got me going enough so that I just kept going...

Aid Station One was at the top of the pass and I was heading down the dirt road on the backside just as the leaders were climbing back up to the pass. They were just heads down and working it. Very cool. After riding the same thing as Jeremiah Bishop, Alison Dunlap, Travis Brown, Garth Prosser, Cristina Begy and others, I had been sort of wanting to see them out on the course, not just post race and hanging around the venue. I wanted to see them doing what I was doing.

Just some beautiful, swooping flume trails on the downside before we climbed back up the dirt road on Boreas. Using a slightly higher gear I managed to make decent time and stay in front of the small group of injured one-legged old ladies riding single-speeds that were my only competition at the very back of the pack.

Also, knowing that this was the last major climb and I was done was a beautiful thought. Not just done for the day, but done for a while. Done until I could recover and felt like wanting to ride again. Or done until August when I needed to ride with and keep up with my 88 year-old father. Hopefully he won't drop me.

Epilogue

The awards dinner on Friday night was fun. Great food, good people, lots of free swag, though I didn't score much of that. The drive back to Denver that night in Jimmy's car "suuuuucked" as he has a manual transmission and I had to lift my left leg with my hands to get it to operate the clutch. Needless to say, the leg was pretty well shot, but I hoped it wasn't permanent.

Jimmy got me into an aisle seat for the flight home and I managed to hang in there. The family was at Hershey Park on Sat night, but the pouring rain started just as I hit the sack and it was nice to listen to it as I lay (twisting in agony) in my own bed, the first time in more than a week. It was sort of comforting to be back in the land of 92% humidity.

I went to work on Monday, but the normally short walk from the train to the office was long, painful and very slow. Finally started to come around on Tuesday with some extra sleep and an easy day at home.

I guess the moral of the story is this, when the water is fast and deep and cold, you need to swim like hell or else you're just gonna get pounded on the rocks downstream anyway! So do your best and enjoy the ride! (I don't think that's a Randall Patrick McMurphy quote, but it certainly could be. He was on my mind all week.)

Looking west towards Copper Mountain from Peak 8 at the top of Ten Mile Range in Breckenridge.