A Moto in Every Yard, Bike Racks on Every Porch
Crested Butte is the quintessential U.S. mountain town. If you imagine for a minute a charming small town in the Rocky Mountains, a single main street lined with historic buildings, nestled against huge green mountains, blue skies and sun shining down... you are imagining Crested Butte. Even after driving the mountain passes and plains of Colorado for many years, the first sight of CB and her landscape is a jaw dropping moment.
If you happen to be a mountain hound, you also know what a heavy reputation CB has for expansive trails and fat snow. In Colorado, there are a lot of towns with great access to mountains— big summer climbs and descents, and much to explore when the snow flies.
What separates CB from every other mountain town in Colorado are its remoteness, attitude, and immense network of mountain bike trails. There is no four-lane interstate roaring through the center of town, no Prada store, the ugly ski condos are confined away on the ski hill, and clunker bikes rule the streets. Trails wind out from town across almost every high peak. And high peaks are everywhere. Many of the surrounding peaks are 12,000ft or higher, and you can roll far into the wilderness on old mining roads and beautiful trails.
CB is arguably one of the birth places of mountain biking, and features more miles of singletrack than anywhere in the U.S. What better place for a 5-day enduro race?
Ripping Colorado’s Best Trails
Colorado's own Big Mountain Enduro organized this whopper: a 5-day enduro (the first of its kind in North America) promising 20,000+ feet of descending over the week, impressive vert and big miles on the bike. BME had made it clear that CB, while famous for its buff singletrack, had plenty of more challenging terrain that we would be racing on.
As the shuttle bounced down the rough road at 6:30am Wednesday, winding its way to the first climb, excitement was in the air, but also some worry— exactly how big were these days going to be? The first 3 day’s climbs were over 5,000 feet each! The handful of locals on the bus informed us we would be racing on a few classic descents (Doctor’s Park, Teocalli Ridge), but there were also trails few people had ridden (Roaring Judy, Star Pass.) For many of us, these were totally new trails and landscapes. But imagine it… 5 days and nothing to do but ride a bike on the best trails. Oh, and chow and drink beers afterward (Not Bud Lite). Rough life.
The super steep climb up Crystal Peak (Trail 583) to Stage 1, and this was just the beginning.
Arriving at the top of Stage 1 - Star Pass, after a two hour hike (see trail down there on the right?) Race official moto parked at the top to lug gear and inspire maxiumum motor jealousy.
Climbing to Stage 2 - Teocalli Ridge. That's Teocalli mountain ahead (13208 ft) and the ridge is behind the aspens to the right.
The view from Teocalli Ridge
Basically, the days were like that. Share a joke or map with the other peeps in your class, spend a few hours climbing and/or hiking up on top of a mountain, joke around a bit more, and then bomb down thousands of feet of incredible winding trail. Try not to eat shit. Permasmiles and high-fives at the bottom. Telling stories from the stage: clipping a tree with your bars but riding it out, or the huge rock the dude in front of you knocked into the blind corner, or crashing right next to some other poor bastard stuck in a mud bog, screaming “Fuck it! Lets run for it!” (thanks Wayne) or blowing up and breaking your dropper lever and ghetto rigging it up, or riding the 30ft river crossing while everyone else takes their socks and shoes off and carries their bike (props Redstone crew).
The riding was epic. Best time I’ve had on a bike, for sure. And it was amazing to have a few days to get to know the other trail fiends from all over the U.S. and the world. Thanks for that, BME. And see you on the trails, CBUltra homies.
After heavy rains on Day 3 we had to wait a bit for trails to dry. Mount Crested Butte and the town of CB in the distance. Not a bad place to wait!
Oh yeah... Whatever USA happened too, sorry, that's all I can talk about...
