Crested Butte Classic 100

The first weekend in October was a great one with me racing the Crested Butte 100. I have NEVER ridden in Crested Butte and was excited to go over and do much of the trails in one day on a hundy ride. Sure we didn't cover all the trails but I definitely received a good dose of what is there.

The ride started a bit after 6.30 am in the dark cool fall morning air. The temperature was hovering around 35-40 degrees. It looked to be about 75 people to start.

We rode three loops starting and ending in Crested Butte at the Brick Oven restaurant. Loop one was about 25 miles taking a bit over 2 hours riding up Kebler Pass to Dyke trail an back via Kebler and Wagon Trails. The third loop took over 4 hours and over 30 miles long sending us out on the Lower Loop up the Slate Du’Huez forest service road onto Washington Gulch/403 Trail (super fun downhill on the 403), up Schofield Pass and onto the 401 Trail and back to town via Gothic Road. Damn that was a long loop. The third loop was 20 something miles with the ride ending on Deer Creek but first going out Brush Creek to Strand Hill single track, Canal Trail back to Brush creek and up to the start of Deer Creek. There was some hiking for sure on the single speed. On the final loop I was riding with Brian Powers from Cheyenne and a local rider named Pete. All of us on singles. I did manage to fall towards the end of Deer Creek puncturing my left elbow pretty good. Bummer. It's still pretty swollen.

I ended up finishing in 10 hours 50 minutes and 14 seconds. 95 miles and 12,044 feet of climbing per my Garmin 705. I was set up with a 32x21 gearing but maybe a 20 tooth in the rear would have worked a bit better for all of the road segments. Looks like I placed 3rd overall single speeder behind Danny Powers and Matt.

It's always a good time to see all the bad ass endurance guys at these events. Nice job to everyone.I'll be back to ride more of Crested Butte.

Here is link to a sweet video Chris Miller shot of the riders throughout the course:
http://www.facebook.com/n/?permalink.php&id=100001561868504&story_fbid=220161444712313&mid=4f48bceG42a1919bG1e78a95G52&bcode=cQAWyjVh&n_m=jeffnlaura2001%40hotmail.com