Leadville 2009 on a Tandem
My name is Dan and my wife's name is Bevin, we are a couple of everyday people who enjoy cycling especially tandems. Last fall we decided to make the move from road tandems and bought a MTB tandem with the goal of registering and completing the Leadville 100 in under 12 hours. Here's my recollection as to how that day unfolded.
It was 6:20 and we lined up near the very back on 6th avenue in Leadville Colorado and about 38 degrees. We had time splits taped to Bevin’s handlebar for each aid station for both an 11hr and 12hr race, this will prove helpful later. For reference, if you break 12 hours you receive a silver “rodeo style” belt buckle. If you break 9 hours, you get BIG “rodeo style” belt buckle. If you break 7 hours you are either Dave Wiens or Lance Armstrong. Realistically I thought we could do 11:30.
The next thing I know, the shotgun goes off. Two minutes later we crossed the start line. After a cold but uneventful ride down the pavement and a right turn onto dirt, the race actually begins. A few more miles and we begin the grind up St. Kevin (pronounced St. Keevin). This climb would otherwise be ride-able by most moderately skilled mountain bikers, but today with riders shoulder to shoulder moving about as slow as you can in the granny gear, it’s a challenge. We managed to ride the whole thing despite numerous riders dismounting right in front of us. It was nothing short of a miracle, did I tell you we were on a tandem?
We proceeded up the rest of St. Kevin at a snail’s pace due to the volume of riders. By the time we reached the pavement, it was raining and cold. The pavement was fast despite the rain, a few miles later and we were on the dirt road to Hagerman pass.
The second climb takes you up Sugarloaf to the first real challenge of the day, Powerline. Powerline can be challenging on a good day, but today it is raining and cold. It is a double track that has some rocky spots and some deep gullies. There are 2 or 3 short ups on this descent and when shifting down our chain sucked. I don’t know exactly what was going on (it had to be the mud on the chain), but we could not use any of our 3 lowest gears. So we walked those couple of ups, fortunately we did not break our chain, we somehow managed to backpedal before it got jammed. About three fourths of the way down, some idiot comes screaming by (recklessly) and not 15 seconds later, he’s down (karma). We managed to keep the bike upright, no small feat on the big bike, in the rain/mud. So we’ve completed about 20 miles and its freakin cold and we’re wet. If this continues, its gonna be a LONG day!!!
We blow through the first aid station at Pipeline. We were 1 minute ahead of our 12 hour pace (uh oh) mechanical difficulty coupled with the rainy Powerline descent had slowed us up. We continued to have problems in our lowest 3 gears. Fortunately the section between Pipeline Aid stations and Twin Lakes aid station is relatively flat, only one climb that required our low gear – so again we walked. As we’re walking and pushing the bike I ask Bevin to push from the front so that I can try spraying the chain(s), chainrings and cassette with my water bottle hoping that we can resolve our muddy chain issue. The troubling part is that if we can’t use our low gears, it could mean our day ends with us NOT finishing…
We roll into Twin Lakes aid station (#2), the crowds are nuts! We continue to get major props (tandems are quite novel at a race like Leadville – 5 total this year). It is warmer now. Time check – we were exactly on our 12 hour pace, more uh oh, disappointing. We roll through the aid station looking for our crew, pink balloons, where are the pink balloons? Amongst a sea of spectators and crew, we finally spot Lori and the pink balloons. Lori by the way is awesome!! We stop, exchange camelbaks, I attempt to wipe down the chain(s) and lube as well. Several minutes later, and we’re off, heading for Columbine (about 3k feet of climbing over 8 miles. About 2 minutes out of Twin Lakes and what do we see? Lance FLYING down the left side of the trail. This dude looks intense!!! He’s all business. Followed closely by the motorcycle (film crew?). About 5-7 minutes later we see Dave Weins. We both shout, “Go Dave!” and he says something back to us, words of encouragement. This is one cool dude.
So as we are climbing the first mile of Columbine and the rain starts again. About this time I realize that I left my rain jacket sitting with my crew back at Twin Lakes. UGHH!! If this rain continues up all the way up Columbine, which climbs to about 12,500 feet, I’m hosed. I can’t stop thinking about the potential for hypothermia. About 15 minutes later the rain stopped. YEAHH. We continue our long climb and surprisingly we were slowly passing quite a few people. About 2/3 of the way up Columbine, the road changes from a graded dirt road to a steeper and rockier road. The uphill riders are now walking, we continue to ride, but have to call out to the walkers to give us a line. We don’t have a lot of room b/c the downhill riders are coming down quite fast on the left side of the road (double track). We manage to ride this entire section, very cool. It was not much longer and we hit the really rough road, now we’re walking too. It is a slog. The air is thin and the footing is not great either, but we are moving. Looking off into the distance we see our destination and it looks like a trail of ants heading that way, only the ants are riders walking and later riding as the get closer to the Columbine aid station.
It is windy at the top, surprisingly not bitter cold (remember I have no jacket). We made up almost 20 minutes on our 12 hr split on the climb and that made us feel good. We stop at the aid station, I slam a cup of coke, some PowerAde and a handful of Fritos. I am gone for 30 seconds using “the facilities” and come back to the bike only to find Bevin getting interviewed by some camera dude. I’m not sure if she got to say much b/c she was trying to eat. I tell her we gotta roll and we’re off. It’s a short uphill leaving the aid station before the descent. Again people are walking…What is up with this? We have to call out to get people to move over so that we can ride and not get hit by oncoming traffic. We successfully ride the short up and then we start the descent, this is usually pretty loose good sized rocks, but there is actually a good line and the dirt is pretty tacky due to the rain. Then we FLY down the rest of Columbine passing everyone. “On your left” was the only thing coming out of my mouth. When we arrive at Twin Lakes again, we had made up another 8 minutes on our 12 hr split (means we were actually approaching 11:30 expected finish). Quick change of camelbaks and we’re off to Pipeline aid station.
Leaving Twin Lakes, going through the crowds was cool. “Go tandem” is echoed again and again. We begin a short climb after and begin talking to some dude (Bevin says we “talked him off the ledge”). He says, “Are we gonna make it”? To which we say something like, “if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, 12 hrs should not be a problem”. He’s in a bad spot mentally, but with words of encouragement, he continues on with a strong pace and pulls away from us. We proceed on towards Pipeline. The miles are ticking along, 65-70 miles and we’re feeling the miles and time on the bike. I think there was a small tailwind. We pull through the aid station looking for the pink balloons, where is she? We get all the way past the official aid station and are about to give up and stop to get our own drinks, but there she is, again Lori rocks!!! We stop, I again lube the chain, we change camelbaks and Bevin has Lori do some re-arranging of the cleat on her shoe to relieve a “hot-foot” issue that she was having – good news is that it worked. We’re off, now we have 4 hours to finish. Our 12hr split only requires 3 ½ hours, so we’re lookin good.
Leaving Pipeline, there’s a hard crosswind that turns into a headwind after we turn the corner heading back towards the Powerline. We had a bunch of people riding our wheel and I eventually pulled off to make someone else do some work. We settle in on the back end of a 6 person train. It was a nice break, but not too long and the road turns up and I decide to sit up and not kill ourselves trying to stay on. Big crowds again at the bottom of Powerline.
I don’t know how to describe the Powerline, but the bottom section is virtually unrideable and that it is a tough climb that seems to go on forever. I say virtually unrideable, b/c we rode all but the last 100 feet during our pre-ride, but on race day, everyone walks (except Lance). Walks SLOWLY, is a better way to say it. The grade gets up to 22%. The other thing about Powerline is that there are 3 or 4 “false summits”. It is both mentally and physically challenging, especially after you’ve already ridden 80 miles and those false summits mess with your head. We ride most but walk a few sections. I was surprised again as to how many people were walking sections that we rode. But I chose to walk a couple of sections that Bevin wanted to ride – two reasons; 1) I was beginning to bonk and 2) as a result, my driving skills may have been impaired and I did not want to dump us on the ground. Bevin was hurting too and the walking sections were harder on her than riding, so I did my best to ride where I could. We finally summited after what seemed like an eternity.
We bombed down Sugarloaf and exited to the graded dirt road. At this point we were tired and had lost motivation to push hard knowing that we just had to keep moving and we’d easily achieve our sub-12 hour goal. We coasted down this road and did not pedal (mistake #1, more later). We made it to the pavement, short downhill and then a 3 mile climb to the final aid station. We stopped at the aid station for at least 5 minutes (mistake #2), ate watermelon, dumped camelback and filled with PowerAde, had a cup of sprite and we were off. Bevin had some Fritos and some dude offered her a PBR to go with her chips – funny. But we did not stay for beers.
We got moving again, but not moving fast. Made it up a couple of short climbs, again people were walking, but we rode. We BOMBED down St Kevin, the trail was in great shape due to the earlier rain. We soft pedaled the flat dirt road (mistake #3) and exited to Leadville junction. A mile or so of pavement into the wind, we did not work hard (mistake 4). The last 3-4 mile is called the Boulevard. It is rocky at the bottom and then a gradual climb back to the start/finish. We cruised along and did our thing, we got passed by more riders on this section than the rest of the course. We turned on to the pavement and someone said 8 tenths of a mile. We picked up the pace a little for the last ½ mile and managed a 11:23 minute finish. This was amazing!! Someone put medals around our necks and we got off of the bike and I gave Bevin the BIGGEST hug and told her I loved her and that I was so proud of her (and us). We took 4th place in the tandem class (out of 5)
Oh back to the mistake(s). The third place team was only 4 minutes ahead of us…Wow, if we had any idea we would have ridden our last 15 miles very differently. I have absolutely no regrets, in all seriousness, the “mistakes” were not actually mistakes, but its one of those things if you knew then what you know now…we could battled for 3rd. We rode our race and 11:23 is better than I could have ever hoped for, so I am ecstatic with our achievement!
It was a LONG day! Bevin said it’s the hardest thing she’s ever done and I agree. I did Leadville by myself 5 years ago and managed a 10:03 finish. The tandem was harder, but it was amazing. I cannot put into words how proud I am of my stoker, wife and best friend. She is a rock-star! Completing Leadville on a tandem is exponentially more fulfilling than on a single bike. The fact that we chose to take on this challenge and absolutely conquer this 100 mile beast (together) is freakin awesome!!!
Let me finish this rambling report by quoting the Race Director Ken. He’s a great guy and gives an inspiring speech the day before the race. After he got done telling us how much its gonna hurt and how thin the air is and how much we’ll want to give up, he said a couple of things.
1). Paraphrased, “It WILL hurt, but it will only hurt for 12 hours. If you quit, it will hurt for a lifetime”.
2). “You are better than you think you are and you can do more than you think you can”.
3). He made everyone chant, “I commit, I won’t quit!”
I had to resurrect those thoughts a few times on Saturday.
That's it. We came to get a couple of belt buckles and we did. Thanks for reading.
