Day 10 - Breck Epic Stage 6 - The Gold Dust Trail

Last day!! Thank goodness! Yesterday was a mind blowing awfully hard day which tested our bodies to the max! Anything after Wheeler Pass and Goldammit just seems to be less painful!

They are grouping people in waves again this morning and we take off a little before 9am. Today's route is only 29 miles long and roughly 3700ft in elevation. They are starting us in waves because where we are starting is a single track that goes straight up a mountain and they need to spread out the field.

After taking stock of our injuries and pain, we licked our wounds and headed to Avalanche Sports to pick up our bikes a little before 7:30am. I can't tell you how nice it is that every morning we pick up our bikes are they are spick and span and in perfect working condition. I felt that every time I have dropped off the bike, the brakes have simply been trashed. Both Ashley and I have had not only our pads replaced several time, but have also replaced the brake rotors. Crazy to think that a ride like this would kill those parts that quickly, but amazing it does. And now I know why!!!

Got to the park and just tried to take it in this morning known it is the last day. We watched all the pros take off and soon it was our turn. Just like every other day, they started us going uphill. Damnit! I pretty much took it easy and walked a good portion of the beginning couple of miles, but rode the rest. Today was a much more relaxed day with less miles and less elevation. The first aid station was at mile 12 and then it was off to a long eight mile fire road climb. The climb was actually pretty good. Sure it was long, but you could grind it out. Well, as good as grinding can get or shall I say as good as my legs could grind. From there, it was a downhill for the rest of the way. At least more downhill than all the other days! Which when they said downhill, was EPIC for uphill!

It felt good to cross the line and know I had completed the BreckEpic. Ashley killed in 3:19 and I completed in 4:52. Ashley is such a rockstar!! After the race I was super glad to drop the bike off at Avalanche Sports and headed straight to Breckenridge Brewery and Pub to meet up with Ashley - who had already had several celebratory libations! And well deserved if I may add! We slammed back several rounds. After about 45 minutes there, Ashley's buddy Matt came by and said hello. We agreed to meet him and his friend Tom a little later in the evening.

Went back to the condo for a shower and headed to the banquet. Time to pickup our photos and belt buckles. Food was good and we hung around for most of the ceremonies, but a little after halfway through, we decided to head out to RMU - Rocky Mountain Underground - Stage 7. Cool bike shop/bar/hangout. It wasn't long and the place was poppin'. We met a young lady by the name of Keri Herman, ex-Olympian, Dew Tour and XGames skier. It was her birthday and Ashley bought her a round. She was a really sweet young lady who shared with us that she was coming out next month with her first ski design. She was so excited and we were priviledged enough to have her show the design.

We caught up with Matt and Tom and later also ended up hanging out with Mark and Sandy - from Charlotte. After several more drinks, we made our way back to the condo. Need I say we were out like a light within minutes.

Day 9 - Breck Epic Stage 5 - Wheeler Pass

Forget what I said the other day! This has been the hardest day I have ever experienced on or with a bike. The reason I state it that way is because the whole day seemed like all I did was push the frickin bike. This stage is called Wheeler Pass and that pass is at Peak 9 then followed by another climb even higher to Goldammit! Awful - totally fucking awful!!! This climb was truly soul crushing!!!

Now, the views on the top of both were amazing. You could see forever! You don't realize how far up you are until you look down and see how tiny everything looks.

Ashley finished the ride in 5:40. I on the otherhand got pulled again at the last aid station for running 13 minutes over the cutoff time. I was not able to ride the last 7 miles, but got charged an hour on my time.

Got back the condo and took a shower. Ashley drove us to the bike shop and we dropped off my bike for its nightly wash and check-up and then headed next door to Breckenridge Pub and Brewery for dinner. Topped it off with a Rainbow Peak cookies from Mountain Top Cookie Shop. Headed back to the place and basically called it a day.

I will be adding photos later in the week.

Day 8 - Breck Epic Stage 4 - Aqueduct

The pain was so extreme yesterday I was surprised I was even able to move this morning. Recovery has been a challenge during these stage races. First of all there is no such thing as normal sleep. Both of us have been waking up multiple times throughout the night and then wake up a the ass crack of dawn not able to get back to sleep. Secondly, there is no a possible way to get the caloric intake back overnight to make up and fuel the next day. Lastly, you consistently feel dehydrated - not really - but the amount of water and liquids just never feel like you are intaking enough.

Today's stage was 41 miles and 6900 feet of climbing. It was not as technical as some of the other days, but still one hell of a day. Views were spectacular! Several places were very scary.

Ashley crushed the ride in 5:16. I was pulled from the course upon arrival into aid station 3. I was apparently 18 minutes passed the cut off time. I was only 8 miles from the finish. I know it would have taken me another two hours to get there, but they only charged me an hour penalty. I arrived at the aid station in 6:48.

More pictures to come.... Too tired to upload

Day 7 - Breck Epic Stage 3 - Mount Guyot

Insane! Hardest day on the bike ever! Even though it was only 39 miles long and a little less than 7000 feet in elevation, it seemed like 30K feet!! The views were amazing! We crossed the continental divide on one of our climbs. It was the toughest climb I have ever done! I will update the text later - too tired to type our experience. Enjoy the pics!

Day 6 - BreckEpic Stage 2 - The ColoRADo Trail

Ashley and I woke up early this morning so we could pick up our bikes from Avalanche Sport before the ride. We walked to their and got our bikes a little after 7:30am. We checked our gear and rode off to the start line. The race started promptly at 8:30am.

The ride was a soul crusher. Ashley finished the race in 5:20 and I completed it in 8:07. The views along the way were down right beautiful. If you didn't pick up your head to look around you surely would have missed it. These trails are very technical so you have got to concentrate on your riding all the time. Lollygagging would definitely wreck you.

I wiped twice on the ride today. One of them I ended up cracking the Garmin mount. I hope I can find another one while we are here. I just do not have the energy to do it right now. The ride was 42.5 miles, with 6800ft of elevation. I managed to drink 8 liters of water during the ride - CRAZY!!!

By the end of the ride I was mentally and physically fried!!!! Not sure I have the physical stamina to handle the upcoming days! This BreckEpic is kicking my CLT ass!

Day 5 - Breck Epic Stage 1 - Pennsylvania Creek

Wow!!! Not much to say about today except it rained the entire time and had an average temperature of 41 degrees! Can you say cold!!! It was an amazing day! The trails were very technical!

Ashley crushed the stage with a time of 4:37. I'm hoping they will post mine tonight.

At the riders meeting this evening at 5pm, they stated that this race today was either the hardest or second hardest stage ever in Breck history. Weather and terrain conditions extended the times the normal pros would complete it in. Also, to give an idea on difficulty to the standard ride, close to 100 of the rider received a DNF. Many were pulled due to health condition. That is close to 20% of participants, which is a crazy percentage.

I did not take all the pictures that I should have as it was so frickin cold. I did record some videos which I'm hoping to add later.

We dropped the bikes off at the bike shops to do mechanicals and bike washes. We will pick them up in the am around 7:30am.

Grabbed some burgers at FlipSide in downtown and came back to the condo. It will be an early evening. Did some laundry, prepped the drop bags and backpacks. On to sleepy time.

Day 5 - And so it begins

Eyes opened wide a little before 4am this morning. Ashley and I have been twitching to get this stage race started. This morning we start at 8:30am and it doesn't look too good weather wise. It is calling for rain starting around 9am. I anticipate I will be out on the trail for 4.5 hours. It would be nice if I finished sooner, but I have a feeling it will take me longer than I have imagined.

Ashley just got up as well here a little before 6:30am. Made some breakfast and starting to get all our shit together. This is a UCI official race so it is slam packed with pros. Excited to see the field and the talent that will be here today. I'm going to attempt and GoPro some of the downhills, views and hopefully if the battery lasts, will even capture the finish.

Stage 1 - Pennsylvania Creek

Let the games begin!!!

Day 4 – Check-In Time

Definitely a rest day today. We both had restless nights again. It seems to be a common theme with people that get here from lower altitude. So it was a slow move morning. Additionally, it had rain showing all day. Neither of us wanted to over do it today, instead we wanted to lounge and take it easy.

We started with running by the bike shop around 9am. Ashley’s back tire had been leaking air slowly over the last day and this morning it was pretty much flat. Either the sealant was out or the value stem was defective. The shop resealed the tire and replace the stem just to make sure. They also resealed the front just in case. While they were fixing the bike, we headed over to Fatty’s for a quick bike. Nothing like a big pie to stave off the hunger. We bellies full we headed back to the bike shop and pick up the bike.

Off to the condo and we decided to get on the bikes for 30 minutes to stretch the legs. We rode the same route we did yesterday. After about a 20 minute uphill, we headed back down and went straight to registration. It was finally packet pick up time!!! YEAH!! Finally here. We got our numbers, aid drop bags and a ton of swag. Ashley got number 169 and I got 329. I guess it was age before beauty or it could be that his Category is ranked quite a bit higher. I think it is the age thing though!

Came back up to the room for a bit before heading back down to the BreckEpic tent to buy some cycle gear. We both managed to spend probably more than we intended to. Dropped the stuff of in the room and went back down to attend the ride meeting at 5pm. We learned there were around 500-600 riders this year. A large portion of the field is international and will be very curious to learn how many 6-Day Solo riders there are.

Growling started during the meeting so we quickly headed back to Fatty’s after the meeting and wolfed down some shrimp scampi. Sleepiness was definitely settling in on both of us. Finished the meal and straight back to the pad. Gathered some things up for the morning and went right to relaxing.

Day 3 – Test Ride

The goal for the day was to try and ride part of the Day 1 stage. Both of us woke up pretty early and simply relaxed and basically laid around for the better part of the morning. Around 8:30am we slowly started getting our shit together and were out on our bike a little before 9am. Ashley plotted out our course last night and decided to do part of the race we will do on the first day.

On the saddles and we were off. We went downhill for all of about 50m feet and then it was uphill for the next 30 minutes. We headed up the hill we were on the day prior, Boreas Pass. The grade looks very deceiving as you head up the mountain. It was definitely a heavy breather for me. However, this was going to give us a good idea of what the rest of the days will be like. When we reach the beginning of Boreas Pass park entrance, we headed into the woods. And it went straight up with all the rocks and roots the mountain had to offer. The next 10 minutes was basically a bike and hike for me. Ashley managed to ride up the hill flawlessly.

When we reached the top it was nirvana for me. The trails are fricking awesome!!! Gorgeous scenery, horticulture that can only be found west of the Appalachians, amazing trails and elevation that will break the strongest of men is what we saw today. The downhill trail ride was super fun and very flowy. We popped out of the trail head by Bankers Trail water tank tower. Then we proceeded to ride down the gravel road of Boreas Pass. From there it was straight back down to town. The ride was all of 1:20, but was definitely harder than the average ride.

Dropped of the bikes at the condo and headed to the bike shop. The shop wanted us to pick up our bike boxes today as they did not have storage for all the boxes. Threw the boxes in the truck and we headed over to Blue Stag Restaurant. Perfect spot for some very hungry boys. We had what I would call a smorgasbord of wild animals for lunch. We had an appetizer call the Colorado Trail Sausage Trio – Pheasant with Spinach, Rattlesnake & Rabbit and Smoked Jalapeno Cheddar Elk. How much better can that get, right? Well, it can by just adding some Bison chili.

Bellies full, we headed to Carvers Bike shop for some last minute items. We picked up some needed bike items and other useless shit we had no need for but looked cool to have. Left the store and headed straight back to the condo for some downtime. We both kicked back for an hour or two and checked our eyelids for holes. After we didn’t find any holes, we got motivated to do some laundry and hit the hot tub while we waited for the laundry to get done. The hot tub definitely felt incredible on the legs. Great idea by the Hunsucker! Definitely going hit hot tub again in the coming days after the rides.

As 4:30pm rolled around we were ready to get dome dinner as the guts were growling. We decided on Italian and Giamprieto as the restaurant of choice. Food was really good. Ashley had some pasta with chicken and I got a couple slices of pepperoni. Carbs are going to go a long way for us. With dinner done, we walked back to condo, but ended making a quick stop at the Gold Pan for a beer. Once home, we fell out pretty quickly.

Day 2 – Crossing the Continental Divide

Night was pretty awful in regards to sleep. Ashley and I did not sleep the best for whatever reason. I’m scratching it up to the altitude. We rolled out around 7am and hopped in the shower to get the day started. I looked up some things to do and there was a state park just a mile away called Cucumber Gulch. We figured a little bit of hiking and looking around would be best as it was calling for rain around 1pm today.

Put some grub in our bellies and we were off. The park had a gondola that took you up to the park. It also went up much further to an adventure park and to the top of the ski resort. We went into the gondola office and they had an offer that included the ride and a lunch atop of the mountain at a restaurant called “Vista House”. Rode the gondola and it was just beautiful. True beauty wasn’t realized until we got to the top.

When we got off the lift we noticed there was another house far above us and it looked like there was another lift that we could use. I asked the park attendant who stood by the lift we just got off of how we could get up there – the very top. His response was – WALK! The house was at least another 1,500 feet straight up. Ashley looked at me and said, “You want to walk it?” The only response that I had was “Sure”. However, my mind was telling me, are you fricking crazy?

And so the climbing began. I can’t tell you how many times I stopped on the way up. It was a stupid steep grade and something that normal people would not attempt. We however are not normal. It took about an hour to get to the top and the view was STUNNING! We were actually up at the height where there was still some snow. I must have taken 100+ pictures. After about 15-20 at the top we ventured back down. Although the walk down was a bit quicker, it seemed just as hard as the grade. Talk about a quad-killer.

Now that the exercise was done, we went for our lunch at Vista House. Both of us got a BreckFast Club. Let’s just say they totally hit the spot. After some grub and quite a bit of rest time, we made it back down the gondola and stopped at one of the other stations before the bottom. The stop was at Cucumber Glutch, a state park, a protected nature area that had beavers and plenty of fowl. Looked around a bit and then made our way back to the car. Since we didn’t hear back from the bike shop yet, we headed to the condo.

A little down time, some shut eye for about 30 minutes and we were off to the bike shop. We grabbed all our bike gear and went to pick up our bikes. They had assembled our ponies and we were ready to see how we would do here in the elevation. We chose an easy ride. The route was leaving downtown Breckenridge and followed I-70 all the way to Frisco, which was 10 miles away. The path we rode was a beautifully paved path with a very slight grade. During the ride both of us found things that we need to change on the bikes and shoes. We will tweak those over the upcoming days. Glad we did the ride, but 20 miles later I was happy the ride was over.