Forty-eight adventurous mountain bikers started this year’s Great Divide Mountain Bike Race, leaving Banff, Alberta, on June 11. By the time event rookie Patrick Tsai rolled into Antelope Wells, N.M., 28 days later, he was the 23rd and final finisher of what is — no matter what they’re saying about that race in France — the hardest bike race on the planet.
It wasn’t the loneliness, the 20-hour days in the saddle, the rain, snow, mud, lightning or brutal climbing that threatened the self-supported riders most this year as they traversed 2,745 miles along the Continental Divide. Almost two weeks into the race, Vermont racer Dave Blumenthal was killed when he collided with a truck on a remote road outside Steamboat Springs. Despite the first death in the 12-year-old race, many racers continued pedaling through the pall.
Matthew Lee, 39, notched his sixth win, finishing in 17 days, 16 hours and 10 minutes and establishing his undeniable title as the world’s best endurance mountain biker. Lee, a light-is-right racer from North Carolina who rides a barely laden Cannondale weighing around 30 pounds, logged more than 160 miles of off-road riding each day, for 17 days in a row. North Carolina’s Cricket Butler won the women’s title in 26 days, 9 hours and 36 minutes.
Three Colorado racers, all first-timers in the Great Divide Race, started and finished. Marshall Bird of Woodland Park and Mathew Arnold of Boulder took sixth and seventh, respectively, finishing just shy of 22 days. Fort Collins racer David Goldberg finished 10th in 22 days, 9 hours and 42 minutes.
Olympic veteran retires.
Jake Fiala, a former U.S. alpine speed skier from Frisco who made the switch to ski cross in 2008, recently announced his retirement from the U.S. Freestyle Ski Team effective at the completion of the 2010 season.
Fiala, born in Prague, immigrated to the U.S. in 1978 with his parents and moved to Colorado to focus on ski racing. He made his World Cup debut at Aspen in 1998, before making the transition to freestyle 10 years later.
As an alpine racer, he competed in three world championships and the 2002 Olympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City. He returned to the World Cup in 2008 at a ski cross race in France, where he placed ninth. He added one more top-10 finish and several top-30 finishes to his resume during the 2009 season.
Jason Blevins and Scott Willoughby, The Denver Post
