Wolf Creek Pass – Swapping saddle for seat in the minivan waiting atop the summit of 10,850-foot Wolf Creek Pass, Mike Janelle is a man of few words.
“That hurt,” he says matter-of-factly. No one argues.
Never mind that Janelle, a professional mountain-bike racer from Avon, makes his living pedaling through a summer full of steep climbs up mountains the world over. Or that he shared this particular sufferfest with teammate Toph Leonard from Edwards, playing some warped version of musical chairs as they alternate stints in the saddle and grind out a meticulous cadence over the Continental Divide to the rock ‘n’ roll beat broadcast from rooftop speakers mounted to the “Go Fast!” support van behind them.
Everyone present feels Janelle’s pain. They all have been there. And they’ll be there again.
“There,” in this case, is Thursday, Day 3 of the 24th annual Race Across America, a grueling, transcontinental bicycle journey from San Diego to Atlantic City, N.J., that pushes cyclists to mental and physical extremes, testing the limits of human endurance as participants not only ride more than 3,000 miles, they race them. For members of the solo division, that typically means finish times of eight to nine days. For team riders such as Janelle and Leonard’s four-man Team Beaver Creek- Vail, the event would be crammed into five days, 18 hours and 15 minutes, for their first victory in the race.
“It’s been quite an experience already, and there’s still a lot to go,” teammate Brian Smith said last Thursday. “It’s crazy to think about how much is still left to go. I just try to think about one leg at a time.”
In its 23-year history, fewer people have completed the Race Across America than have scaled Mount Everest. The event was dubbed the “World’s Toughest Race” by Outside Magazine in 1993, easily beating out the Iditarod sled dog race, the U.S. Army Best Ranger competition, the Raid Gauloises adventure race and the Hawaii Ironman Triathlon.
Measuring 3,052 miles, the RAAM route returned to Colorado this year, passing through Cortez, Durango, Pagosa Springs, Alamosa, Trinidad and dozens of smaller towns separating the sweltering desert heat of Arizona and windswept plains of Kansas on Thursday. Beyond the beautiful, for spacious skies and amber waves of grain, it was those majestic purple mountains of the Centennial State that got the riders’ attention.
Here they faced their stiffest climbing challenge of the week, introduced at Mancos Mountain and Hesperus Hill and formally indoctrinated with the 8 percent grade through the thin air at Wolf Creek Pass. A more gradual climb at La Veta Pass to the east led riders to the twisting roads of Cuchara Pass, topping out just under 10,000 feet. All told, riders would climb nearly 110,000 feet throughout the week, roughly the equivalent distance from earth to the edge of outer space.
Home-state advantage
The Continental Divide arrives about 900 miles into the race, none too soon for Team Beaver Creek-Vail, a group of mountain biking regulars who specialize in steep climbs.
“The whole team’s strength is in the hills because we’re from Colorado,” said captain Zach Bingham, who opted to work with the 10-person support crew after being diagnosed with hepatitis only two weeks before the race. “Once we leave the mountains, the advantage goes to the other teams’ favor. We’re not as used to the heat or the humidity out East. There’s still plenty of ‘hard’ ahead.”
In Colorado, however, the advantage was securely in the hands of the home team. Carrying a three-hour lead over their closest competitors into Pagosa Springs, Team Beaver Creek-Vail hit the uphill just before 7 a.m., benefiting from cool air and calm winds to increase their lead as Janelle and Leonard alternated short sprint intervals over the mountain. By the time they hit the Kansas line, Smith and teammate Jimi Mortenson of Eagle had extended the lead to more than four hours.
“For me, the hardest part is the mental aspect of it,” Leonard said, “psychologically breaking through and knowing what your body can take and how you can handle it. The scariest part was the end of the first day.”
Tragedy on the road
Leonard and the rest of the team faced another mental challenge as they raced through Colorado last week. In the 2003 RAAM, Leonard’s first attempt, teammate Brett Malin was hit by an 18-wheel truck during a transition and killed as they passed through New Mexico at night. The devastated team, which also included Bingham and Adam Palmer of Eagle, dropped out of the race, returning last summer to dedicate a second-place finish to Malin.
“We talked about finishing the race without Brett. We thought that might be something he would want us to do,” Leonard said. “But we were all just shot. We couldn’t even deal. So we just went home and planned to come back and win it in his honor the next year.”
Ultimately it took the team two years to achieve their goal, losing out last year to Team Action Sports after forfeiting their lead on the final day. The drama of this year’s race was exacerbated as the team passed through the check point at Trinidad, only an hour after solo racer Bob Breedlove of Des Moines, Iowa, became the second cyclist killed in the race. Breedlove reportedly fainted on his bicycle 26 miles west of Trinidad and died in a collision after swerving into oncoming traffic.
“It was the second time we’ve seen death on this race, and it really sobered us all up quick,” Bingham said afterward. “It struck right home. The three of us (who had raced with Malin in 2003) looked at each other and were like, ‘Not again.”‘
After taking some time to gather themselves, Team Beaver Creek-Vail regrouped and pushed across the nation at an average speed of 22.5 mph for their first RAAM victory.
“What a relief,” Bingham said from the finish. “Everyone has just been so wrapped up with the task at hand, it hasn’t really had time to sink in. But we’re incredibly motivated. We’ll be back next year and the year after. We love this event.”
Staff writer Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-820-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
