The seven days of racing at the Leadville/Breck Epic double-header in Colorado is always a highlight of the summer race season.
This is the third straight year I've done the Leadville/Breck Epic doubleheader and I wanted to try and keep the podium streak alive at America's toughest stage race but it wasn't going to come easy with a stacked field this year. The first couple of stages were tough dealing with the Leadville hangover, rolling in 10th both days. Stage three the check engine light came off, setting a personal best on the Mt Guyout stage going up and over two 3600m passes, rolling across the line in 5th. Descending on the new Fox suspension on my Kona Hei Hei came in handy on the rugged Colorado Trails as I caught a couple riders.
Stage four was another personal best, this time spending the day in a group with some of Americas best marathon riders, Lance Haidet, Zach Calton and Taylor Lideen. We were the chase group behind the two Olympians (Riley Amos and Howard Grotts) with young gun Matthew Pike also in there. The boys were ripping the descents and through all the feed zones. It was a lot of chasing back for myself but eventually I’d roll in 7th, saving GC time on a stage I typically suffer on. Being the only rider in the top ten without feed zone support was a challenge but I want to give a huge shout out to the Breck Epic neutral feed zone volunteers that kept me in the race, quickly finding my drop bags and handing off bottles while I blazed through trying to stick with the group. The volunteers at Breck Epic are amazing!
Heading into stages five and six, Chris Mehlman, who was sitting 6th in GC just behind myself, offered to have his Mom also feed me, which was an amazing show of sportsmanship and sure made the last two days a bit easier!
Stage five over Wheeler pass (3800m) on some goat trails is a wild ride I always look forward too. It's quite similar to the riding in Nepal with the high altitude and rugged trails. The engine was firing good but I unfortunately broke one side of a pedal smashing it off a rock a few miles into the race. This meant a lot of sketchy remounts over the next few hours of hike/bike riding. Sometimes I'd think I was clipped in on the descents only to have one foot shoot off the pedal. I’d hang in there for 5th on the day, moving up to 4th overall as Riley Amos pulled out, putting his focus on the Rainbow jersey at World XC Champs in a few weeks time. It was great having his world class presence at the race this year coming freshly off an American male record at the Olympics with a 7th in Paris.
Stage six was the final day of this years race with most of the GC settled, although Lance and I were still battling for 4th with him sitting just 2.5 minutes behind. We were going to get our moneys worth racing all the way to the line! Going on the offensive early, I’d ride with Howard Grotts briefly, before he kindly asked for track as he easily bridged up to the two leaders. It’s not often I get to ride with Howard, but whenever I have I’ve been blown away with his calmness, positive energy, and unbelievable Herculean strength on the bike. It's no wonder he has so much respect, is an Olympian, and has won races like Cape Epic, Leadville and USA Championships.
From here it was a great race day riding in 4th/5th with Lance, a local young gun named Lasse was driving the pace, and ex-road pro Rob Britton would briefly join us motoring up the climbs. Heading into the final few miles Lance and I had a tight battle going for 4th. Taking the final singletrack first, ripping full speed trying to hold him off, it was game on. It looked like a sprint finish was imminent. With one mile to go we came flying around a corner, slamming on our brakes as Robbie Day frantically waved us down. What we saw next was a nightmare seeing race leader Howard Grotts unconscious on the trail after crashing hard into a tree.
All racing stopped as we waved down the next riders, Lasse went ahead to call for help, other riders stabilized Howards body, then I’d head out to the road to lead the medical team in. How everyone handled this situation was amazing. Race brains shut off immediately and everyone went straight into helping our fallen comrade until the medics came. I have the utmost respect for everyone there, the riders, the Breck Epic medical team, the search and rescue, it was all hands on deck in this awful situation. Once Howard was looked after and on a life flight to Denver, we would silently ride the last mile to the finish line. Their were no celebrations, just a meeting with the race director Mike as we all agreed to neutralize the stage. At this point none of us really cared about the race as our thoughts were with Howard. The final awards this night were very quiet.
We are all with you Howard Grotts. You are a lion on the bike and we know you’ll use that same strength to recover from this.
This was a sober reminder how quickly things can turn at any moment in a sport like mountain biking with such high speeds. The best rider in the race took this one, it could happen to any of us at anytime. Mike McCormack the director of Breck Epic has setup a go fund me to help Howard and his family during this time. As Mike says, if we all pitch in $5 bucks, that will be an enormous stack of bills to help out the Grotts family.
The link is here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/ygg72s-support-howard-grotts-road-to-recovery.
Next up is a few rest days in Colorado to soak in some more high altitude before heading back north to Canada for three days of gravel racing at the TransRockies Gravel Royale. Following this will be a return to Jasper to clean up after the Wildfire this past month then start preparations to head over to Australia to defend the World Solo 24HR Title September 27/28th.
Over and out from Colorado.
