2022 Bailey Hundo June 18, 2022

Not a lot of info on the internet or race guide on the course conditons/description. Anybody have suggestions on tires for this course? I can’t even find how much singletrack actually exists with limited passing opportunities. Course times for a 65 mile (the hundo is in km, not miles, this changed a couple years ago) race are anything but fast. Any beta would be appreciated. I wish I could pre-ride the course, but that isn’t in the cards. Thanks,

Buff creek is generally very fast kitty litter, you won’t need a huge tire/knobbies. Hardly anything very technical at all.

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Where have you seen finishing times? My training has fallen off since I got a new job, and I’m starting to worry I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. Debating switching down to the 50km…

https://my3.raceresult.com/172894/RRPublish/pdf.php?name=Result%20Lists|Results&contest=0&lang=en

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What tires do you normally run? I’ll be running Mezcal 2.35 rear and a Bontrager XR4 2.4 front. You don’t have to run a trail tire like the XR4 but that’s what I had on for general training riding around my local trails and am not going to take it off for this race. The soil can be really loose on this course in some places and I prefer a wider front tire that won’t wash out so easily when I’m tired and not hyper focused. In contrast, I 100% would change the tires to something much faster rolling like 2.25 Conti Race Kings for a race like Leadville but I would never ride those at the Hundo.

A lot of other dry condition tires could work, but I’d err on the 2.35-2.4 side not 2.2s. I’ve been meaning to try 2.4 Aspens and bet they’d be good here.

The course is a mix of terrain, some double track and even a some road to get you down from Bailey and on to the Colorado Trail, then into a whole slew of trails in the Buff Creek area. Some are the classic buff creek decomposed granite “kitty litter” which is usually nice but can be very loose on descents, other trails are more rocky, others more just “normal” single track. Then there is double track mixed in to connect you to some of the various trails. Search youtube for “little scraggy trail” and you can find quite a few videos of one of the more defining trails of the race.

Hard disagree. The course is not “very fast”. I agree that the overall terrain is not “very technical” on an absolute scale, but it is technical in comparison to the overwhelming majority of courses used for endurance events. People often say that Silver Rush is the hardest LT100 qualifier, the Hundo 100K course is considerably harder than Silver Rush. It’s almost 20 miles longer so of course that’s a big part of it, but it’s considerably more technical too.

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I usually run rocket rons, and a 2.4 nobby knick on the front if I thinknits gnarly. For leadville, also happy with race kings but would never have then near loss stuff on purpose. I tossed on last weekend the OEM 2.35 rekon race set my bike came with, and am trying them out right now up in the high mountains. They are terrible in mud, which is why i took them off after the 2nd ride last year. I have a pair of aspens (2.25 for the rear, and 2.4 for the front), but the lack of tread concerns me with this much single track and the “kitty litter” especially in the corners. If I get an opportunity next weekend to pre ride the course, I was going to try the recon race out and if they felt sketchy throw on the rocket rons… thoughts?

Isaac

I’m riding something much closer to the Ron/Ralph but I’m doing the event for a long training day and fun not for maximum speed and placement. I haven’t ridden Rekon Race’s and overall I won’t pretend I’m one of the XC tire gurus on these boards but I think they’d be fine. It shouldn’t be muddy, the area drains well and the kitty litter sections better with moisture. The usual problem there is being overly dry and loose in late summer.

If you live and ride in the high country then you should be fine on any of these trails in terms of technicality. I don’t want to overstate it, it’s not gnarly it’s just a good amount of single track and that single track is predominately solid blues (with optional black features) vs many other endurance events being mostly fireroads with some occasional greens mixed in.

My last piece of unsolicited advice is take the note in the race guide seriously about the Little Scraggy Trailhead aid station and ensure you are loaded up with fluids there. It’s a long way to the next one and 2 bottles wasn’t enough for me last year, though it was a hot day. Probably would have been OK if chugged a bottle at the aide station and then took 2, but leave that one well hydrated.

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Hopefully you guys had a good day out there. Lucked out with the cloud cover, hotter than hell yesterday in the metro.

ran the recon races, wished on every single descent for something with more bite (nobby nics would’ve been perfect). Tires washed out constantly, and had to over brake, turn, pedal up, repetitively. Near the top of Little Scraggy, they wouldn’t even bite into the trail, and just spin. Conditions were very dry and loose. Not sure what the recon race tire would be good for. I took them off again. Conditions were optimal though with the mostly cloudy conditions, and not too hot. Not sure how many riders got DQ’ed due to their choice to take a shortcut, the 2nd overall finisher got a DQ, and Strava shows lots of folks that took the shortcut…

Soil conditions were typical for buff creek, that’s just how it is there. It’s loose but I prefer kitty litter loose over moon dust loose any day.

Interesting about the DQ’s. My bet is it was just people following the route on their head unit that the organizers told everyone to download. There was a right turn at the top of Baldy on both loops where it told me and everyone else around me who had the route on their Garmin to go right when the actual course was straight* (*turns out it wasn’t). Fortunately I was in a small group on the first lap and someone knew to go straight and ignore the false turn.

The route looks correct to me in RideWithGPS so maybe the problem is on how Garmin head units were interpreting it through that section. After ignoring it for a few minutes it eventually snapped back to saying I was on course.

That’s a real shame about the course marking. At the Sandy Wash Aid Station we had a few riders complain about course mismarking; if I were depending on this ride as a qualifier I would be upset, too. Unfortunately, this is a homegrown race and most of us are just volunteering for the day, doing the best we can to make it a fun and safe day.

I agree Buff Creek is always soft and many riders came off that section with a dusty backside from sliding out. Buff Creek has some great terrain, though, especially if you like climbing in sand! LOL.

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The volunteers are great! Thanks for volunteering. The aid station I stopped for water at looked well stocked and organized, with helpful people. The trails are fun, but deserve blocky nobby tires.

Someone took down the arrows and a few people who were in that lead pack that took the ‘short cut’ of 5 even stopped, let the people they passed take their spots back, then waited a bit for gap to open up. The winner had a huge fit and three people (I think) voluntarily DQ’d themselves.

Buff Creek is ok. The kitty litter is horrible. Great event though.

It’s a great place early or late in season to rack up the miles on singletrack while Breck and Winter Park are under snow though. I’ll give it that.

I think I am totally confused on the course (I’ve got the tires figured out for next year though!), the race guide seems to line up with how my Garmin took the linked file. See image below. Am I looking at this wrong? The little connector in the circle is the part that has confused me, as I went right here, and not everyone did. On the 2nd lap, a few tree trunks where dragged across the connector, with fresh signs.

You’re right, that’s the spot. I went back and looked at my Strava and the group I was with missed that turn on lap 1. My and one other person’s Garmin said to go right, but there was no course marking and the rest of the group insisted it was straight as we could see a steady stream of people up in front of us.

The connector trail took approx 2 minutes on lap 1 and the actual route through there took me 6 minutes on lap 2. Looks longer than that, but the connector is a steady but relatively gradual climb vs the actual route there has a descent followed by a gradual climb. I have zero recollection of the course being any different in lap 2.

So organizers are vindicated… sort of. That turn definitely should have been marked. Bummer for those racing for placement I suppose because you’ll never know if someone had a few minute edge on you on first lap. At most it might have moved me from 8th to 9th in my AG. :person_shrugging:

Yup, the course files that the organizer distributed were correct. For longer races like the Hundo it’s critical to either memorize the course or use a GPS and course file. Trail markers and course marshals are unreliable. Last year a marshal sent me the wrong direction at a turn. Thankfully my Garmin screamed “Off Course!”, and I turned around without losing much time.

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Eh. There’s how many turns at the Hundo? That’s not realistic to expect people to memorize them given we’re in the 2nd year of a new course. Adding on top of that my Garmin told me I was off course probably 10 times if not more because A) GPS accuracy can be shit in the woods and B) there’s multiple minor trail flow re-routes that seem to throw it off. If it tells me I’m off course for more than probably 5 minutes I know something is indeed off, anything under that is in the noise.

I’ll always load a course map if one is provided but if you have a trail intersection with a straight path and right fork with no markings that is on the organizers. Not that I’m criticizing them, it’s a great event and I’m thankful for all who put it on but mistakes happen.