Fully Loaded: Fifth Time’s the Charm in the Colorado Trail Race

As the pastel colors of dawn grew bolder on the forested mountainsides around me, I turned onto pavement and breathed a literal sigh of relief – the incredibly difficult first 130 miles of the Colorado Trail Race were done. With nearly 25,000 feet of climbing topping out at over 13,000 feet, those miles of singletrack are some of the most taxing I’ve ridden anywhere. This time around, they took 26 hours with just a quick hour-long nap on the alpine tundra at 2 am. Lengthy snowfields, stubbornly resisting the summer’s heat after a record-setting winter, provided an additional challenge with far more steep and slippery hiking than usual.

The buzzing of my tires on asphalt cut through the early morning silence. I stopped pedaling and coasted to nearly a stop. My body, arms and legs were exhausted and ached with fatigue. My mind flew ahead, thinking about the rigors of the remaining 400-plus miles and 50,000 feet of vertical between myself and Denver. I knew the route all too well; I’ve raced the Colorado Trail on four separate occasions over the past decade, and with just a single exception, I quit early each time. In my one finish, I reverted to fast-touring mode halfway through, after realizing I was lacking the drive and focus for over four straight days of racing. This trail has challenged my mind and body like no other has, and once again, I found myself seriously doubting my ability to get it done.

I pulled out my phone as I struggled along the quiet highway, curious to see the location of the lone rider ahead of me, last year’s winner Timon Fish. Riders all carry GPS trackers, but as is the case for much of the 540-mile-long route, I didn’t have enough service to load the tracking website. But a few texts from friends popped up offering encouragement. I texted one back, expressing my lack of inspiration for the remainder of the route. For me, that inspiration is my source of motivation to continue racing. She quickly replied with all the same advice I had given to her in the past when she found herself in similar situations during ultras. One piece of advice stood out:

“It always gets better.”

It was a bit embarrassing to realize that I had been ignoring what has often been my most powerful mantra in tough times. It alwaysgets better. I shoved some cookies and cheese crackers into my mouth, began envisioning just why the experience was going to get better on the upcoming 40 miles of relatively mellow bladed gravel roads, and started to pedal with gradually increasing intention.

At the turn onto a gravel county road, I could see a figure in black sitting against a gate next to a loaded bike. It was Timon. If he was stopped, either he had blown up or something was wrong. I rolled up and could immediately tell from his expression that his race was over.

“I started to feel some concerning chest pains last night,” he explained. Timon and I had spent much of the night riding and hiking across the tundra together, tackling the highest and most exposed part of the route as temperatures dropped below freezing. We hadn’t talked all that much, but we both had seemed to find a bit of comfort with someone else also pushing through such a demanding and remote section of trail beneath a moonless sky.

Wisely, Timon had backed off and ultimately decided that he would drop down to the nearest town. There are some things that just aren’t worth pushing through in any race – chiefly anything involving the heart or lungs not operating properly or having blood where there shouldn’t normally be blood. Timon, with disappointment painted across his face, commended me on my riding and wished me well. I rolled on, feeling a mix of concern and sadness. I myself had dropped out of the race at that exact location four years prior, and I could empathize with what it feels like to have a body rebelling against such a massive and unrelenting effort.

Day 2: Regaining momentum

Hours later, feeling a broad smile spread across my face, again proved to be powerfully energizing. After a scorching half a day on dirt roads through unprotected sagebrush-covered valleys, seeing a narrow singletrack snaking its way through a shady aspen grove was exactly what I needed. It didn’t matter that the trail was steep and strewn with rocks the size of my fists and head. I eagerly started up the climb with completely renewed motivation and strength. I had backed off slightly on the gravel, and my body felt rejuvenated. The next 20 miles of the Colorado Trail cut across a series of steep ridges and traverse Sargents Mesa in Saguache County, on persistently loose and rocky moto tracks. This section is often described by bikepackers as painfully slow and abusive with at least as much hiking as riding. To me, the trail felt just like my backyard mountains in Arizona’s chunky Central Highlands. Much of my training had been on terrain like this—steep old mine roads and moto trails, all heavily eroded by countless summer monsoons—it’s become one of my favorite types of riding.

I spent the remainder of the day laboring contentedly across Sargents Mesa, skittering down fall line descents and pushing up the next climb. Despite the area’s remoteness, the trail almost felt busy. I encountered backpackers every few minutes until dusk. Some stepped aside and watched curiously as I negotiated yet more loose rocks. Many others asked if I was racing and cheered me on emphatically as I passed, even if it felt like I was just hiking alongside them at the moment. This area no longer had the deserted, forgotten feel that it did when I crossed it nine years prior, but I thoroughly enjoyed it all the same.

Darkness fell as I began climbing off the mesa and into the southern end of the Sawatch Range. Adding a layer of clothing and switching on my lights, I pushed and carried my bike up a 1,500-foot ascent intermittently cluttered with microwave-sized boulders. Riding wasn’t really an option, but I was motivated, knowing that this peculiar transition would bring me out of the foothills and up into the alpine before crossing the range crest and descending into the Arkansas River Valley. From there, the riding would become substantially faster and less demanding, and somewhere in there lies the mid-point of the Colorado Trail.

Somewhere around midnight, I paused within an island of spruce and fir trees. Nearly at treeline, it probably was time to stop for some sleep. My body was nowhere near exhausted, but small patches of dry, soft needles beneath the larger trees looked perfect for bedding down. And up ahead was a stretch of alpine riding on the popular (albeit not at midnight) Monarch Crest Trail, followed by a long, slow, splashy descent out of the mountains. That was all best left for the morning, so I chose the driest ground I could find, changed into some dry pants, and reclined beneath my thin down quilt. I pulled a granola bar and a once-frozen burrito from the remainder of my depleting 15,000-calorie-strong pile of food purchased in Silverton, choked them down, and set my alarm for 90 minutes. I was soundly asleep within seconds.

Day 3: Backing off and settling in

The theme of day three was buff, flowy singletrack in and out of the countless drainages that descend from of the towering peaks of the Sawatch Range and into the Arkansas Valley. The dark, starry sky above the Monarch Crest Trail finally gave way to the first light of dawn as I finished the slippery descent from treeline to nearly the valley floor. From there, the rhythmic undulations of well-traveled trail provided a few hours of the first legitimately relaxing singletrack of the entire route, that eventually dumped me out at a popular hot springs resort. I couldn’t help but stop in the little store for a coffee, some Gatorade and a couple small breakfast pizzas (apparently plopping chunks of scrambled egg on a sausage pizza qualifies it to then be called breakfast pizza)

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I eagerly bit into the warm, savory pizza and checked the race tracker on my phone. It looked as if I had a lead of 7 or 8 hours over a trio of riders who were currently negotiating the wilds of Sargents Mesa. A bit shocked, I leaned back against the brick façade of the store and let my body completely relax. Now halfway through, it seemed like I could actually let off the gas a bit. Challenging Jesse Jakomait’s mind-bending Durango-to-Denver course record of 3 days and 21 hours was not in the cards for me this year. The snowy San Juan Mountains on the first day had been a few hours slower than normal, and even trying to simply match Jesse’s pace, much less claw back time on it, would have required a level of focus and commitment that I simply didn’t have. So with the comfortable lead I had established and no need to dig my body into too deep of an energy hole, I consciously decided to back off the pace a bit.

The remainder of the day was mostly fast, buff trail and a bit of dirt road. I stopped quickly in the bustling tourist town of Buena Vista to grab another 6,000 calories. I took advantage of my slightly more relaxed pace and the relatively low elevation (9,000 feet) to try consuming extra calories every hour, and I gradually began felling more energetic throughout the day. By 11pm, though, I had dropped out of the mountains toward Leadville and felt my momentum grind to a halt. Completely unengaged on mindless paved roads, my brain was trying hard to fall asleep. Before long, I gave in to my head’s pleading for a rest, and bedded down for a couple hours. Pedaling through molasses is both inefficient is frustrating, and I knew a bit of sleep would help tremendously.

Day 4: If you’re going to slice a sidewall . . .

Slowly climbing Tennessee Pass in the early morning darkness, I could not manage to get my body to settle into any sort of rhythm. The air temperature hovered just above freezing, and all the undergrowth hanging into the trail drenched my legs and feet. My muscles were cold and achy, a few saddle sores on my back side were quite uncomfortable, and my stomach was very uneasy from my dinner burrito. I struggled across Tennessee Pass and then pushed my bike up the steep lower pitches of Kokomo Pass. Ever so gradually, the mountains surrounding me gathered a soft glow, and my body sputtered to life. Getting back above treeline revealed yet more energy. Beyond the pass, snowfields snaked down every gully from the rounded ridge crests, flowers just emerged from the melting banks were already blooming, and a narrow ribbon of trail wound around the head of the basin toward another pass before plummeting down to the ski village of Copper Mountain. Continuing on, I felt completely transformed from just an hour prior, and once I hit the long descent, I had regained the sense of flow that comes only after having been on the bike nearly continuously for days on end.

I paused a few times on the downhill to peel off clothing layers and to chat with hikers and bikepackers traveling in the opposite direction. The trail was feeling downright busy again, and everyone I encountered was notably cleaner and more cheerful as I got nearer to the start of the trail in Denver. Washington D.C., Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Oregon – these folks had come from all over the country to experience the Colorado Trail.

By the time I passed under a chairlift near the base of the ski area, my hands and feet ached from yet another 3,000+ feet of rocky, root-ridden descending. Suddenly, my bike also protested, and the rear tire burst with a loud hiss and a spray of sealant. I had sliced nearly all the way across the sidewall in dramatic fashion. I hopped off the bike and stared in disbelief as my tired mind slowly analyzed the situations. I stepped forward to pull a tube and repair kit out of my frame bag and then paused.

“There mustbe a bike shop in Copper,” I muttered to myself.

I looked downhill to my left and saw someone in an apron wheeling a bike out of a storefront. He added the bike to a rack of rentals, propped the door ajar, and disappeared back inside. I trotted down the trail, wondering how I could have managed to slice a sidewall within sight of a bike shop. No more than 20 minutes later, I was rolling on a brand new tire toward a gas station to by food for the final 24 hours of riding. More burritos, more Pringles crushed into a ziplock bag, more Snickers and cheese sticks and nuts and granola bars. Sweets were no longer sounding particularly appetizing, but options are unfortunately limited in gas stations when you’re in need of 6,000+ calories to go in a hurry!

With the toughest passes and segments of trail completed, I suddenly was feeling like the end of the race was near. My lead was holding steady at 7 hours, my body felt great, and just a couple high passes remained before the final 90 miles or so of notably easier pedaling. The stout climb up over the Tenmile Range disappeared quickly despite a couple miles of hiking, a passing storm drenched me in the valley beyond, and I spent the evening working my way up and over Georgia Pass and its many marginally rideable miles through cobbly glacial deposits. On the other side, the lush grasslands of South Park extended for miles, illuminated occasionally amid flashes of distant lightning.

I bedded down for the night beneath a dense spruce tree, pulling my foil emergency bivy over thin quilt as a light rain began. Hoping that a bit more sleep would help me from slipping into the world of peculiar hallucinations, I set my alarm for 2.5 hours. I felt as if I was on the threshold of that realm of sleep deprivation, and I didn’t want to let myself fall through the doorway.

Day 5: To the edge of the Great Plains

It’s a rare thing to start a day at midnight sharp. I was eager to wrap up this journey, and my body warmed up to the damp, chilly riding quite quickly. I crossed Kenosha Pass and soon dropped into South Park’s Puma Hills. Trail gave way to dirt road and then pavement on the final Wilderness detour, and as soon as I hit asphalt in the dead of night, my brain completely shut down and demanded sleep once again. I laid down along the road for a 5-minute nap, and did the same an hour later, and an hour after that. The completely unengaging riding was nearly too much for me, and I longed for trail. Fortunately, the route soon turned onto a rugged gravel road, and a few hours later, the return to singletrack prompted my head back to full alertness. Tens of miles of rolling descents flew by, excited hikers and bikepackers just beginning their trips toward Denver cheered me on, and my legs felt strangely powerful for it being the final miles of the race. Periodic glimpses of the Great Plains extending to the eastern horizon offered reassurance that the end was near.

The eastern terminus of the Colorado Trail and the unchecked sprawl of the Denver suburbs came into view just as late afternoon storms built overhead. A dozen or so fans stood across the trailhead parking lot cheering me in. After finishing so many other ultras in completely deserted finish lines, it was touching to see so many people there waiting to congratulate me. And after all my failed attempts at racing the trail, wrapping up such a smooth ride felt especially rewarding. I rolled to a stop after 4.5 days of racing, tried to find the words to share a few anecdotes from the adventure, and then dug into a plate of home-made peach cobbler muffins sheepishly handed to me by the youngest fan there.

After dark, “Cookie Mike” Neal from Breckenridge, Colorado finished his ride in 2ndplace. A day later, Alexandera Houchin of Cloquet, Minnesota, was the first female in (she also won Tour Divide a month earlier, completing both events on a singlespeed) sporting her contagious smile after finishing despite a 26-hour push to the end. I spent a couple days recovering and relaxing with other racers amid the incredibly kind hospitality of a family who lived near the trailhead. My body felt surprisingly good overall, but it would take a few weeks for my energy levels to return to any semblance of normal.

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In the next edition of Fully Loaded, Kurt will explore what he goes through to prepare for a successful ride in singletrack bikepacking ultras like the Colorado Trail Race.

The Colorado Trail Foundation, its countless volunteers and supporters, and their land manager partners deserve our deepest gratitude for developing and maintaining such an amazing and rugged backcountry trail and welcoming all non-motorized user groups. To learn more about the Colorado Trail, the opportunities it offers for short and long adventures alike, and how to support the Foundation’s ongoing work, please visit www.coloradotrail.org.