High Altitude Sucks

[Gunchie]

As an endurance racer in CO as always get the same question over and over again, "have you done the Leadville 100?" I've always gotten the impression that the Leadville 100 was all fire road and the only difficulty was the high elevation. This is why famous road racers can come and dominate. I'd like to see them dominate in the Breckenridge 100 which tests your endurance AND SKILL, but that's a whole other topic. After being asked so many times if I've done the roadie-thon I finely got so tired of hearing it that decided to try out one of these Leadville races. Instead of paying $275 to enter a lottery to do the race were I'd probably lose out to someone that would DNF on the first quarter of the race just so I could attempt to do a race with thousands of people in a small town that no were near accommodates this many people, I decided to do the shorter less expensive one, the "Silver Rush 50". The race site says it's the Leadville 100 with all hard parts and none of the easy. Talking around to different people that have done both they claim the 50 is actually harder since it's on actual trail and not fire road. The route is actually completely different from the 100 and doesn't even touch the same trail. The starting line was about at 10,000 feet, and the first 10 miles was all climbing up to 11,900. About 3/4 of the trail was pretty rocky and wasn't the old mining roads described in the 100 mile version, but still nothing stood out as being overly technical. As I approached 20 miles in this out and back race the trail turned into really steep washed out downhill. Although this was extremely fun coming down, it sucked hiking up since it was in such bad shape you couldn't ride it (it was entertaining seeing all the guys you know spend more time riding the road then on a trail attempting to go down it... lots of scared faces). Hiking a mile uphill with your bike in high altitude is not a testament to how tough a race is, but rather how crappy the trail maintenance is and what a poorly made unsustainable trail looks like. It's sad to see the Leadville races pull in so much money but see none of it go back into the trail, but instead into the pockets of a greedy corporation called Lifetime Fitness who now own all the races up there. On the way back there is one last big climb that is about 1,000 feet up and peaks at 11,900. The thin air just killed my lungs as I slowly made my way up this long, long climb. The reward was pretty awesome with a 10 mile downhill that I originally climbed at the beginning. Here's all the tech info: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/100209414

The moral of the story is if you're going to race an endurance race in CO then there are whole heck of a lot better ones then any of the Leadville races that are so heaped because Lance decided to do one a couple years back. Not to mention you won't have to deal with unsustainable trail you have to hike and high elevation which isn't a testament of good training, but only that you have the time to train in high elevation. I ended up fourth in my age group on this one so it wasn't a terrible day, but I was not impressed with the race and won't be returning next year. And please, quit asking me if I've done that roadie-thon called the Leadville 100! No, and never plan to!

[mcwrath]

I have been to Leadville. Im not sure I will ever find a reason to go back.

[Vibrato]

4th is a great finish! Good job man!!

A while back MTBR had a discussion on how much single track was in various MOUNTAIN BIKE races. Leadville is 100 miles and nobody on the mtbr forum claimed more than 2 miles of it was singletrack, most wondering where that 2 miles was cause they missed it. Personally, I think leadville is popular among the less technical mtb people and that's cool, it's promoting MTBing no matter how you look at it. As I understand it, it's mostly double track, jeep roads etc. That doesn't mean it's a cakewalk, but some people who tout doing leadville as their all time highest accomplishment can't do the sport loop at sylvan without taking a long walk. Not that us more interested in technical stuff people don't take a quick, unexpected walk on sylvan now and then- we do, just sayin.

Its a cool race for mtb'ers that are into that kind of thing, and 100 miles off pavement is tough no matter what you're riding. If I ever got in I'd do it just so when asked, I could say "yeah, I did it" and then explain why it actually sucked- or -why its a LOT better than it's reputation depending on which it ended up being.

Right now the race I wanna do is Syllamo's revenge, but they only accept something like 350 riders and it fills up in one day. K-rud and I have missed it the last 2 years. touted as a 50 mile race, 48 miles of rocky single track. (1 mile of double track at the start and the end.) I imagine it as being 50 miles of the last half of Blue Mound. THAT makes me excited and scared at the same time!

(Plus I don't think it starts at 10,000 ft. And since I'm sitting at about 480 ft right now, that makes a huge difference on how much fun it'll be! I'm old and my lungs are almost as bad as my legs!

[Gunchie]

4th is a great finish! Good job man!!

A while back MTBR had a discussion on how much single track was in various MOUNTAIN BIKE races. Leadville is 100 miles and nobody on the mtbr forum claimed more than 2 miles of it was singletrack, most wondering where that 2 miles was cause they missed it. Personally, I think leadville is popular among the less technical mtb people and that's cool, it's promoting MTBing no matter how you look at it. As I understand it, it's mostly double track, jeep roads etc. That doesn't mean it's a cakewalk, but some people who tout doing leadville as their all time highest accomplishment can't do the sport loop at sylvan without taking a long walk. Not that us more interested in technical stuff people don't take a quick, unexpected walk on sylvan now and then- we do, just sayin.

Its a cool race for mtb'ers that are into that kind of thing, and 100 miles off pavement is tough no matter what you're riding. If I ever got in I'd do it just so when asked, I could say "yeah, I did it" and then explain why it actually sucked- or -why its a LOT better than it's reputation depending on which it ended up being.

Right now the race I wanna do is Syllamo's revenge, but they only accept something like 350 riders and it fills up in one day. K-rud and I have missed it the last 2 years. touted as a 50 mile race, 48 miles of rocky single track. (1 mile of double track at the start and the end.) I imagine it as being 50 miles of the last half of Blue Mound. THAT makes me excited and scared at the same time!

(Plus I don't think it starts at 10,000 ft. And since I'm sitting at about 480 ft right now, that makes a huge difference on how much fun it'll be! I'm old and my lungs are almost as bad as my legs!

No doubt that the Leadville 100 is a challenge. 100 miles of flat dirt rode isn't a cake walk by any means either. Back in the day when the Leadville 100 was just a homegrown race without the heap it was cool. Now it's so commercialized it's sickening. We all have seen what Granny Gear did to 24 hour races. Maybe if people stop thinking that it's just the best 100 miler ever to do and stop doing it then Lifetime Fitness will back out because it's no longer be profitable and it can become cool again... like what happened to the 24/9 which is now the Wausau24.

[Gunchie]

Right now the race I wanna do is Syllamo's revenge

Looks fun... I'm in! Other great one not too high in elevation is the Gunnison Growler. The race sells out in minutes though so good luck getting in.