Only the fittest survive Breck
Epic’s six-day race is all about purity of sport
BRECKENRIDGE» Just about every body part is bloodied. Legs, knees, elbows. Even a giant scrape down his chest that Devon O’Neil can’t precisely connect to a specific crash.
He was on the ground more than a few times during the Breck Epic, a grueling six-day mountain bike stage race spinning more than 240 miles and climbing more than 40,000 vertical feet on the alpine singletrack above Breckenridge. The race finished Friday afternoon with several hundred participants completing what is considered the most demanding mountain bike race in the country.
“This is the burliest representation of hardcore mountain biking,” said O’Neil, a Summit County mountain athlete and writer covering the race for Bike Magazine along with teammate Dave Gelhaar. “It seems like all the strongest riders from their different towns and regions around the world are attracted to this race.”
For the last nine years, bike boss Mike McCormack has cultivated the race he founded with a carefree vibe that mirrors the freespirited sport of mountain biking. In 2009, he told the 100 riders in the inaugural race his three rules: be nice to each other, don’t litter and wear a helmet. The rules haven’t changed now that he’s hosting more than 500 racers in what has become one of North America’s most grueling tests of cycling endurance, drawing the best of the knobby-tired tribe in a weeklong sufferfest and celebration.
McCormack, with his signature cowboy hat, puffy jacket and flip-flops, is a soft-spoken boss but he can wield a big stick. Even though his race is not sanctioned by cycling’s governing bodies, don’t even think about signing up if you’ve ever been crosswise with anti-doping officials. And don’t bring your racer ego either.
“It’s about being nice to other people. It’s about maintaining the vibe and it’s about not leaving your integrity on the course for a handful of seconds off your time,” said the race director who built singletrack next to paved trails in his hometown of Eagle so school kids could taste the freedom of pedaling dirt. “You don’t have to do that here so we shouldn’t.”
That’s not to say that riders aren’t racing. The Breck Epic draws the best of the best, with a field of heavyhitting pros testing their talents in a race like no other. This year was likely the deepest field with riders rallying for one of the world’s few mountain bike stage races. The pros aren’t getting points for the season like they do in a sanctioned race, but they are vying for serious bragging rights.
“I initially came here because I wanted to ride the trails in Breck but I only like to do it every couple years because it’s really, really hard,” said Durango mountain biking legend and Olympian Todd Wells, who on Friday slipped to second place behind Howard Grotts, the 24-year-old Durango phenom who finished just ahead of him at the Leadville Trail 100 race on Saturday, the day before the start of the Epic. Canadian Geoff Kabush was third. In the women’s race, the top three finishers were Erin Huck of Boulder, Katerina Nash of the Czech Republic and Evelyn Dong of Utah.
Last year Wells won both Leadville and the Epic in a back-to-back performance that confirmed his status as Colorado’s preeminent mountain bike racer. This year he finished a step down from the top of both podiums.