West Elk Classic Ride Report

Strava says I rode 134.1 miles, managed 11,306 feet of climbing, averaged 17.2 mph and reached a maximum speed of 50.1 mph.  I placed 5th out of the 16, 55+ finishers. Around 190 started and 124 finished. Overall I was 59th. My official time was 7:51:52 (official time stops at the top of Kebler pass). As usual the data misses the point.

It was absolutely incredible and I had an amazingly solid ride. Tigger (cross bike) was at home in the pack and on the dirt. Attached are a couple of pictures from the day.

I lost the lead bunch on the first steep sustained climb and after some time struggling against a 25 mph wind without help, forged an alliance with 2 others, Joe and Richard. Unfortunately, my buddy Steve crashed hard about 35
miles in. His bike was destroyed and his body is still recovering. No broken bones thank goodness. He's already pedaled a few miles.

Here is a link to a video overview of the ride (footage from this year):

http://youtu.be/Tfr7pjmUkSY

The caliber of rider is high. I stopped at most of the rest stops to fuel. The climb to Kebler pass seems to go on forever but I managed to keep rolling and smiling as best I could. As soon as we hit the dirt our alliance of three dissolved and I pushed on ahead. The video shows some of the beauty along the ride but actually does not do it justice (you won't see me in the video). I would do this ride again but I'm thinking it would be really fun to get a big group together to do the Bicycle Tour of Colorado in June of 2015.

Just as amazing were the 4 days of mountain biking and 3 other road rides Steve, Dallas and I did prior to the race. On the Friday before the Sunday race we rode in the mountains for more than 4 hours topping 11,000 feet in elevation and climbing for miles on a soul-crushing pitch just for starters. This was on the mountain bikes and included some of the sweetest flow, impossibly rough steeps, creek crossings and the gnarliest downhill switchbacks you'll ever see! It was fan-freakin-tastic! The route we used is known in Crested Butte as Reno-Flag-Bear-Deadmans.

Cheers,

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--joe

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