Leadville 100

You may love it, hate it or both - but the Leadville 100 mountain bike race is the biggest & best known mountain bike race in the USA. This year under new ownership with Lifetime Fitness it became even bigger & Lifetime stepped up & made it even better. They are a class act when it comes to race organizing! The field did not boast TDF winners this year but with US national champion Todd Wells & UCI world marathon champion Alban Lakata & former Leadville women's' winner Rebecca Rusch the field did not disappoint.

Crystal clear sky & a full moon @ 6am on the Leadville 100 start line

The start was a cool 45 degrees at 10,000 feet but it was unseasonable hot & dry & things warmed up quickly. Six Justin's Cycling riders were entered - Jeff Hall, Kelly McGrew, Todd Baker, Mark Gouge, Ward Baker & Drew Geer. Unfortunately Ward blew up his back hours before the start & had to back out. A new start procedure has seeding which is a treat if you happen to be seeded & perhaps not if you do not have a Leadville time from the last 3 years. The neutral start, for those of you who know Leadville, is anything but neutral. It is downhill on pavement & immediately we had wrapped out our top gears & pegged our max HR. Leadville starts really fast & you need to be ready.

The field this year expanded to 1600 riders (out of over 8000 entrants plus qualifiers), the biggest ever. All the Justin's riders hit St Kevin, the first 3k climb in the top 200 & were able to navigate the field well. St Kevin is short but has 20% segments & gets ridden at 100% early in the race as riders are still jockeying for position. A brief single track respite follows before the 6k, 5% Hagerman climb where the road is wide open & you position will settle down.

This was the driest dustiest year Leadville has ever seen. The power line descent, while not overly technical had a new component this time - zero visibility. All I saw at 25 mph on loose dust was a glimpse of a tire in front of me. If it bobbled left I cheated right hoping for some trail over there.  An aerial view of the dust could would have been fantastic. The flats to the dam were fast & dry and the Columbine climb (12k at 7% with a max of 19%) was fast though very loose at the top.

Kelly McGrew heading over the Twin Lakes dam @ 40miles

The race really begins at 70 miles heading back up power line - 5k of hot heinous loose climbing, kicking up as much as 23% grade. Over the top of power line you have 2 more climbs but those are pretty tame & you know you are going to bring it home.

There is a reason they call it "power line" - hot, heinous, loose, steep & straight up the  cut under the  power lines.

All along the course random fans were yelling - "go Justin's"! There was no "go Lifetime Fitness, or go Carmichael" though those were the most common jerseys in the race. They LOVE Justin's. I also got the loving "love your nuts" comments & "kneed & squeeze baby". I have no doubts we had the favorite kit in the race.

Todd Baker at the Twin Lakes dam

On the line Mark Gouge was 100th in 8:10, Jeff Hall 104rd in 8:10, Drew Geer 148th in 8:31, Todd Baker 227th in 8:50 & Kelly McGrew 227th in 8:50 - all finishing under the elite 9 hour mark & getting the coveted "big buckle".

Leadville is a "must do" for every palmares. The new qualifiers are a fantastic addition. Plan on it next year - you may hurt but you won't regret it.

drew