I’ve descended power line ~5 times in the last week or so. it’s in good shape, especially up top. I actually PR’d the descent and I wasn’t even pushing near race pace. Traffic can slow you down on race day, but it should be fast. Hopefully we will see a little more afternoon rain today and tomorrow to firm things up.
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Good luck to everyone. I just got into town today and immediately ran into Dylan Johnson at packet pickup. Made sure to give him his comeuppance for disrespecting my all-intensity-all-the-time training approach. Jk, he was chill and entertained a conversation with me, mostly expressing his concerns about racing at such high altitude coming from the east coast.
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The Expo is much bigger this year with a lot more brands represented. Got to chat with Sofia Gomez Villafane at the Specialized booth, which was super cool. Alex Wild was hanging around too. Sarah Sturm was at packet pickup, so lots of the elite riders around.
Josh Poertner was at the Silca booth, so it was cool to be able to talk to him about his stuff, especially their new sealant and some optimizations they have made.
There is a sense of excitement and anticipation amongst everyone, including the pros. The weather forecast looks great and the course seems to be riding fast. After going back and forth about this, I think Keegan has 12 minutes in him compared to last year and goes sub-6 and takes a run at the record. It’s going to be a great day. Good luck to everyone out there. I’ll be one of a handful of riders in a full Enve kit, so shoutout when you pass me!
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Good luck to everyone racing tomorrow! Get carbed up and get to sleep!
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Best of luck to everyone at Leadville…have great races, all!!!
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Top 3 prediction
- Matthew Beers
- Keegan Swenson
- Howard Grotts
Is there a link to follow live timing? I’m on Athlinks but no results are loading.
EDIT: It’s working now. Here’s the link for anyone interested
https://www.athlinks.com/event/219291/results/Event/1018674/Course/2248653/Results
Keegan wins in 6 hrs, flat……and by 14 minutes!!!
Dude is just next level right now.
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And Hannah Otto wins with a jacked up shoulder 
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Watching the finish on the IG story it looked like he was going to get a 5:59.59
Still, smoking fast!
No sign of Alex Wild on the coverage.
Awesome ride from Hannah Otto. TR adjacent dominance.
Wow…good for Hannah with a rough lead up to the race. She said docs told her she would be in a lot of pain racing, but wouldn’t do any damage to her shoulder.
Really impressive!
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Not to diminish Hannah’s win, but Sofia DNF’d with a mechanical and I think she was in the lead at the time. She broke her wheel and walked down the entirety of Columbine pushing her bike on a raw, cracked carbon rim. Was probably 2+ hours of walking. I went to ask her if she needed anything then saw the rim and was like yeah… can’t fix that.
I personally had an ok race. Picked up my second big buckle @ 8:48 but I think I had put in the work to do better. Unfortunately very high levels of personal stress due to death in the family derailed my past few weeks so it ended up being more show up and hope for the best rather than a dialed race day.
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Officially 6 hours and 1 second, and only 2 people have ever gone sub-6. I wonder if he’s regretting sitting up for the finish line photo.
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I’m pretty sure I saw Sophia walking down columbine, she had no rear tire and a badly cracked rim. I don’t know if she lost the tire and rode the rim till it broke or what. I think only one gal was in front of her at the point I saw her and she was pretty far down from where all the chunk is, so I’d bet she rode a broken bike down that descent for a while. I didn’t see her in results, so I assume it’s a dnf.
My day had some problems also, but nothing terrible. I got a leak in the rear tire descending power line. Basically adding air multiple times and riding a very flat tire most of the way between power line and twin lakes. I only lost maybe 10 minutes, but burnt some energy trying to stay on pace and losing groups as I added air. I tried to get back on sun 9 pace going up columbine, but just didn’t have the fitness and the day kind of unraveled from there. I was 35 minutes slower than last year and I’d say the course this year was ~15 faster. Still a decent day, it is very satisfying to finish that course at any pace.
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Sorry to hear about your loss, but great job going out and grabbing a second buckle.
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90% sure I was riding in a paceline with you to TL. I was in bright orange kit at the request of my crew to be easier to spot. I remember staring at your soft rear tire and hearing you mention it had a slow leak.
Bummer about the mechanical, glad you were still able to enjoy the day! Based on how poor I felt the first half of the day I thought there was zero chance I could break 9 again but the afternoon clouds and 200mg of caffeine (yay drugs!) were able to salvage it somehow.
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The clock is not official. It’s usually someone who pushed a button and not chip timing.
Congrats on the sub 9. My apologies if you were one of the people stuck behind me on the single track. My tire was super squirmy at that point and I couldn’t keep up with the guys in front of me.
Pro’s don’t usually race off chip timing, usually gun time.
Obviously they have chips for timing, but one would hope the clock and start were coordinated.