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| In this still from the film “The Rider & The Wolf,” bikers depicting Mike Rust and his brothers race down a Colorado highway on penny-farthings. Mike and his brothers often would ride the iconic bikes together before Mike mysteriously disappeared from his home near Sagauche in 2009./Photo courtesy of Grit & Thistle Film |
Without a trace
Film looks at life and disappearance of mountain bike legend Mike Rust
by Tracy Chamberlin
Carl Rust wasn’t so sure in the beginning. After all this time, why would someone want to make a film about his brother? Maybe it was a fishing expedition.
JusttheFactsWhat: “The Rider & The Wolf” screening |
“At first, I was real skeptical,” he said.
Salida filmmaker Nathan Ward, on the other hand, didn’t understand why everyone wasn’t talking about it. A local legend gone, mysteriously disappeared in the night. The case had gone cold and the memories were fading.
“Then I decided, I guess I would be the one to tell the story,” said Ward.
It all began on the night of March 31, 2009, when Mike Rust, a legend in the mountain biking community and member of the Hall of Fame in Marin County, Calif., returned to his home in the high desert of Saguache County.
Rust had lived off the grid for years, building his home from repurposed and recycled parts on 80 acres of open space. His brother, Carl, said he became almost a hermit.
Mike Rust phoned a friend that night, reportedly telling her he was going to track the thieves who’d broken into his home. It was the last time anyone would speak with Rust.
Tracks in the dirt, a bloodied vest and other evidence was found in the days that followed. But Rust’s remains never were.
In the beginning
Mike Rust was a pioneer. When he was young growing up in Colorado Springs, he, like all of his five brothers, liked to tinker. His brother, Carl, the oldest of the clan, said Mike became enamored with the bicycle and all the self-reliance it brought him.
His love for tinkering and finding freedom on his own two wheels eventually took Rust to Crested Butte in the 1980s when the mountain biking scene was in its infancy. He worked in some local bike shops before taking the sport southeast to Salida, where he opened up Colorado Cyclery with Don McClung in 1985.
 Mike Rust, on one of his bikes, headed out for a trek across the mountain passes of Colorado. Since the film “The Rider & The Wolf” premiered at last year’s Telluride Film Festival, an anonymous caller has contacted authorities and offered a lead in the case of Rust’s disappearance./Photo courtesy Grit & Thistle Film |
McClung and Rust designed and built bikes together called shorties, named for their short wheel base. They also developed short chain stays and other innovations that were key to the sport’s evolution, and the reason Rust was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in 1991. In later years, the Hall was moved from Crested Butte to Marin.
Not only did Rust help bring mountain biking into the modern era, he celebrated cycling’s past with his love for the penny-farthing, also called the high wheeler or ordinary.
First patented in 1869, ordinaries were the first two-wheelers to be called bicycles. The images of these bikes, with one large front wheel and a much smaller rear wheel, are unmistakable and iconic.
Rust not only worked on them, he traveled over mountain passes and miles of the Colorado high country in several Ride the Rockies events in the early 1990s. All on the historic penny farthing.
He even got all his brothers on the high-wheeled cycles, riding them together in a St. Patrick’s Day parade in Ireland.
“Then he sort of makes a big turn and lives the life of sustainability,” Ward explained.
In the mid-1990s, Rust bought 80 acres of rural land in Saguache County, settling into a simple, green lifestyle long before it was hip to do so.
This is where he lived for more than a decade before his mysterious disappearance in 2009.
“The Rider & The Wolf”
Carl Rust said he was amazed with Ward. He said the filmmaker once took hours to set up a shot of some riders flying down the road, seen through the leaves of a yucca plant. He wondered how all the time and effort spent on only a few seconds of footage could be worth it. Then, he saw the film.
“He has a very photographic eye for things,” Carl said. “I can’t get over some of the shots he made.”
Growing up in Salida, Ward knew of Rust, McClung and Colorado Cyclery. He didn’t know the rest of the Rust family, however, until he first met with Carl to discuss the film. The two spent a long time talking, and when the discussion ended the project began its 2½-year journey from concept to screen.
The result is “The Rider & The Wolf,” a feature-length documentary on the life and disappearance Mike Rust. It plays locally during the Durango Independent Film Festival, showing at 9:30 a.m. Fri., March 4, at the Gaslight and 12:30 p.m. Sun., March 6, at the Animas City Theatre.
Ward said the first half of the film focuses on Rust’s impact on mountain biking, including his innovative new designs as well as his love for the old ones. The second half tells the story of his disappearance in 2009 and the search for answers.
The film includes lots of archival footage from the early days, as well as a reenactment of Rust’s disappearance, which Carl said wasn’t easy to film.
“It was pretty close to the bone,” he explained. “Our family gets through our hard times with humor – maybe black humor, but humor nonetheless. We tried to keep it as light as we could.”
 The man, the myth, the legend on one of his fabled adventures. Mike’s older brother Carl said Mike was enamored of the bicycle and all the freedom it brought him. However, the free and reclusive life he lived left few clues in his disappearance./Photo courtesy Grit & Thistle Film |
Carl first saw the film at its premiere at last year’s Telluride Film Festival. “It was a lot more emotional than I expected,” he explained.
What helped him get through that first weekend, and all the ones since, has been the people. “The crowds have always been really supportive,” he said.
Not just during the screenings but also in moving the case forward.
Since the film’s premiere, Carl said, an anonymous caller contacted authorities and offered a lead in the case. As a result, what are most likely Rust’s remains were discovered on Jan. 8, just a few miles east of his home.
The Colorado Bureau of Investigation is currently examining the remains and performing DNA tests to confirm they’re a match. But, the family has no doubts. Some personal items were found with the remains, Carl said. “There’s no doubt in our minds that it’s Mike’s,” he explained.
The film doesn’t include the recent information, but Carl and Nathan Ward plan to follow the film with a Q&A session, when they’ll discuss all the latest developments in the case.
Carl said it might seem strange, but he and the family are pleased with the latest development. No longer does he wake up thinking about all the places they could have searched. No longer does he wake up in the middle of the night, wondering “What if?”
“To know where his remains were and eventually find out how he died,” Carl said. “Just that resolution was a huge weight lifted off all of us.”