by Missy Votel

 

If a grueling, multi-day mountain bike race is held in the woods, and no one really knows about it, does it still hurt all the same?

 

The unequivocal answer from those who have done the semi-underground Colorado Trail Race: Like a mother.

 

“The first thing I ever said after I finished last time was, ‘I’m never doing this again,’” recalled Durango cyclist and 2011 CTR finisher, Joey Ernst.

 

Next Sun., July 21, Ernst, fellow Durangoan Ian Altman and about 50 or so hearty men and women, with varying degrees of selective memories, will line up in front of Ernst's Main Avenue bike shop, Velorution, at 4 a.m. to begin anew the days-long sufferfest to Denver. Now in its seventh year, the self-supported, self-timed race has flown mostly under the radar. With no official registration or sanctioning, it's gained a cult following among the growing bikepacking fringe. These "enthusiasts" (some would say masochists) include those who enjoy riding on loaded-down rigs until they fall over from exhaustion and wake up hours later in a field clutching a tire pump (true story).

On the SPOT To check the progress of racers in this year’s Colorado Trail Race in real time, go to: http://trackleaders.com/ctr13

And what makes this year’s race even more punishing is that the 550-mile slog, with approximately 75,000 feet of elevation gain, will go in reverse. This means racers will face the brutal 85-mile climb to Silverton right after wolfing down their 3 a.m. breakfast burritos (Carvers has offered to open early for the racers.) Oh, and since it’s self-support  – as in no aid stations, no pit crews, no warm towels, no strategically placed caches of Snickers – there’s going to be a bit of a time crunch. The store in Silverton – the only place to resupply until Buena Vista some 140 miles away – closes at 8 p.m., something Ernst knows all too well.

 

“Last time I made it to Silverton after the store closed and ended up having to eat a bunch of hot dogs at one of the bars,” he recalled. “I hate hot dogs.”

 

Race organizer and founder Stefan Griebel admitted it’s going to be “massive, in-your-face” right off the bat.

 

Add to that the 30 pounds of gear that most riders will be hauling, as well as the arrival of the summer monsoons, and “massive” may be an understatement.

Kevin Camp’s 2012 rig, including dry bag and sleeping pad rolled around the handlebars./Courtesy photo

 

Griebel, who sounded remarkably sane for someone who will be racing the CTR for his third time while juggling three young kids and a high-energy job, said he plans to “take it easy” and sleep more during this year’s race. “I can’t afford to be out of it for two weeks when I get home,” he said. “My wife said it’s not me being gone on the race that’s hard, it’s me being gone when I get back.”

 

And speaking of sleep, or lack thereof, that seems to be the key to winning, let alone finishing, the CTR.

 

Griebel, a Dolores native who now lives in Boulder, said when he and fellow riders Scott Morris and bikepacking legend Mike Curiak dreamt up the idea for the CTR in 2007, they envisioned a race that maybe – if the winds were right and the stars aligned – could be done sub-five days. Since then, that number has been put to shame by Jefe Branham, of Gunnison. Branham, who not only won the race its inaugural year (beating Griebel in the last 20 minutes after Griebel's hands went numb) finished last year in a record 3 days, 23 hours and 38 minutes (that's an average of 137 miles a day, fyi.)

 

“He had three hours of sleep,” said Griebel. “Somehow he has figured out how to suffer amazingly well.”

 

 And therein lies the mystique of the CTR. It’s not how fast you can go, but how fast, for how long, in the dark, uphill, both ways, in the rain and hail, while hallucinating. In other words, it’s all about one’s suffer threshold. There’s no glory, no prizes, no podium. Just lots of guts, a self-policed honor system and three simple rules: racers must ride self-supported, under their own power, along the entire CTR route; no pre-arranged support, with the exception of mail drops to post offices; and don’t break the law (which includes no riding in wilderness areas.)

 

And speaking of the law, Griebel would like to point out that despite its informality, the CTR is “100 percent legal.” No Forest Service permit is needed for events of less than 74 people.

 

Altman, of CT Jamboree fame who raced the CTR for the first time last year, said the code of honor makes the race unique. “Everyone is so empowered by the rules, and they are really supportive of one another,” he said. “No one’s going to leave someone in the woods if they crash.”

Ernst said the low-key feel of the race (and perhaps a slight predilection for pain – he’s a singlespeeder), draws him. “I generally don’t like racing, but this is not your normal race,” he said. “I’m just out there to ride. I do it because I love mountain biking and I love camping.”

 

Unlike Griebel, however, Ernst said his tactic this year is to sleep less. However, he will have the added luxury of gears (all 10 of them, as he did in 2011) as well as full suspension. His motto: eat real food, not "chemicals," and prepare for the worst. “I’m bringing four days of food and lots of rain gear,” he said. “My intention is to be self-sufficient. It could start snowing, and I’ll live.”

 

While it’s a common strategy for the more serious racers to want to shorten the misery and go light and quick, it’s a fine line. If crossed, it can have disastrous results. Blogs and barroom lore alike swirl with horrendous tales of racers forgoing sleeping bags, rain gear, food and warm clothes all in the name of weight, only to be shut down by hypothermia or worse. And then there’s hitting the dreaded "wall," since, after all, it is a race.

 

Often, racers push themselves to the point of delirium, creating a vicious downward spiral where they are not just incapable of knowing when to stop, but knowing how to stop.

 

Last year, Chris Neumann, of Woodland Park, was attempting his fourth CTR, when things went horribly wrong. After riding for 55 hours straight, with a three-hour “rest” in Silverton, Neumann became disoriented in a storm near the High Point. He ended up ditching his bike and wandering off the trail, a mere 8 miles from the finish. “I got scared and began screaming for help. I heard voices but could not understand why they would ignore me. I saw houses with people looking down on me from their decks. I saw junked cars in the creek bed and knew this couldn’t possibly be the CT. I roamed in circles for at least an hour in a panic,” he recalled in a chilling post (www.bikepacking.net/forum/index.php/topic,4460.0.html.)

 

Fortunately, Neumann had enough wherewithal to hit the panic button on his SPOT emergency beacon and was escorted out safely by La Plata County Search & Rescue a mile from the finish.

 

And while, thankfully, stories like Neumann’s are the exception, the stakes are almost as high as the altitude, which averages about 10,000 feet. Which could explain the dinosaur sightings.

 

Although Ernst said he never hallucinated, there were moments that made him wonder. “At one point, I was out by myself in the middle of nowhere in the middle of the night, and I heard someone blaring Bob Dylan,” he said. “It was ‘Like a Rolling Stone.’ I guess it could have been a hallucination.”

 

Another local rider, Kevin Camp, a mechanic at Hasslefree Sports who completed the 2012 CTR, said he suffered a bizarre late-night bunny attack near Copper Mountain.

 

"I must've been sleeping on his house," he said. "I kept shoeing him away. At one point, he jumped on my belly and was an inch from my face. I couldn't scare him off. He wasn't some big jackrabbit, just a cute little bunny."

 

While Camp insists the incident was real, when he compared notes with other riders in the area, he too had a twinge of self-doubt. "I think they thought I was starting to lose it," he said. "But it was real. I swear."

 

Killer bunnies, numb appendages and sleep deprivation aside, most agree there’s something that will keep them coming back for more.

 

For Ernst, it was the pizza that his wife rode up to the Junction Creek trailhead on the back of her bike upon his finish. For Altman, who has multiple sclerosis, it’s about proving the benefits of a healthy and active lifestyle. For Camp, it was all about the adventure. And for Griebel, it’s about inspiring regular weekend warriors that you don’t have to be a pro to finish, in fact most racers are amateurs, including record-breaker Branham. (*And most importantly, this includes the ladies. Several women have raced and finished the CTR, including local rider Cat Morrison, who regularly beats most of the guys, and Eszter Horanyi, the women’s record holder with a kick-ass time of 5d05h27m.)

But mostly, it’s what the CTR is not about that is so undeniably appealing.

 

“This is not for prizes, not for money. It’s all about the experience,” said Ernst. “As with anything that’s really rewarding, you usually forget the tough parts.”