Big Mountain Enduro: Crested Butte, Colorado

Crested Butte = big days on the bike, lots of wildflowers, hike-a-bikes, dry and rocky terrain, big transfers, yummy tacos, and extraordinary van camping.

On a whim, we left work late Tuesday afternoon, drove to Boise for a quick eat at "Fork", and continued on to CB in record time: 18hrs, including dog stops, and stretch breaks. We came in hot mid-Wednesday afternoon with the plan to have hopefully just enough time to get rid of the near-constant altitude headache and nose-bleeds by raceday (living at 500 ft elevation doesn't help!). Rumor has it you either need to A) Live at altitude B) Sleep in an altitude tent C) Have at least two weeks to acclimatize properly D) Come in hot as you're in the "hole" on day 4. We chose the latter, as our attempt with an altitude tent in the middle of the summer with no AC in the house failed miserably the year prior.

Why not work a 12 hour day before you get on the road? 

The hardest part about race weekends as a "privateer" , of sorts, is practice logistics -- in what order to practice the stages, how to approach them (hike/pedal up from the bottom, try to find someone to shuttle with), while trying to avoid the heat, save as must energy as possible and still properly see each stage. Whether you drive 30 minutes or 18 hours to race, you want to see every track, and give yourself the opportunity to do as well as possible. Seeing said tracks helps... a lot.

With that said, Crested Butte seems to be the exception to the rule -- the distances are large, the elevation great, and the climbing significant enough to make it very energy-consuming to pedal everything for practice. Without a shuttle, you're walking the line of truly benefitting from seeing the course vs. being so beat on race day, to a certain extent. Across the two days of practice, without a shuttle, we saw 3 of 4 stages, with stage 4 (the last one) being our blind stage. On race day, it turned out to be about a two hour hike-a-bike to on race day, in addition to the half hour of pedaling....

​Consensus was that we made the right decision based on our situation. Friendly reminder to bring a moto for car retrieval in the future (Kosher as long as you're not riding trails on a moto -- not cool in a race scenario. Roads only!)

Big Mountain Enduro knows how to put on an event -- super dialed registration, event coordination, timing, the works! Both days pros met at 6:30am to load shuttles for the transfer to the first stage.

Stage 1: Cement Mtn to Rosebud
Stage 2: Doctor Gulch 
Stage 3: Reno Ridge to Deadmans
Stage 4: Double Top into Warm Springs

Stream Crossing anyone? On the way to Doctor Park...

By the end of the weekend, I found myself not proud of losing my pedal panties on day one, but happy to have picked up the pace on day 2, made up some time and end up on the podium in 5th.

Nick had a few lies downs throughout the weekend, and ended up mid-pack. Regardless, what an awesome time in the woods with the ladies and gents! You can never have a bad time when your on your bike with fellow shredders -- The energy is contagious and the stoke high! Thanks for another great weekend, Colorado!


See you back in the PNW!
Kim & Nick Hardin