Hard to put into words exactly what this trip meant to me. It’s certainly not as glorious as it might look, or as I thought it might be…at the end of the day it’s cold and wet and lonely out there, and you’re sore and tired every morning, and sick of storms and cold food and wet gear. But every day I realized the incredible opportunity I have to be able to head out and live this kind of adventure in the big mountain country here in Colorado. It makes you realize how much we take for granted in our day to day lives: simple, yet incredibly vital things like shelter, running water, electricity, soft beds, heat. I stand inside the house now looking out the windows at the big storms rolling through and I get the chills thinking about my cold, dark, wet camps every night out there.

It’s a beautiful country though and any misery I may have suffered was all self-inflicted, and in some ways, to be expected. You don’t travel any sizable distance through the Rocky Mountains without experiencing Mother Nature at her most extreme. I was always praying for clear skies (and I got a few hours most days) but the storms make things awfully exciting.

Thanks to Wendy for all the support and for taking care of the kids and the dog and her job and the house and the bills…you made a dream of mine come true!

I tell myself that I won’t do this race again, two failed attempts at following the CT the full length. But this year was a success in more ways than I expected and I feel like I can finish the rest of the CT on my own some day.

But there are some pretty cool multi-day races popping up in places like northern Scotland and Israel and South Africa…hmmm 🙂

Here is my food plan for this years CTR attempt.

With the Tarryall detour this year, there will be no resupply option in Bailey. So I will carry two days of food from the start, refuel in Copper for one day of riding and then pickup previously mailed box with 4 days worth of food in Buena Vista to get me to Silverton where I will buy another day’s worth of food. Seems easy.

So in all I will be pre-packing 6 days worth of food – 4 of which will be shipped General Delivery to Buena Vista.

One day of food will look something like this:

– 6 ‘meals’ or ‘snacks’ a day

– 115 Calories/oz

– 2.8 lbs of food

– 5,200 Calories total (2400 from Carbs, rest from fat)

Where’s the coffee you ask? Yeah, I’ll be asking the same thing on Day 2!

Food	Calories	Carbs	Calories Per Meal
Kind Bar	220kcal	17gm
Larabar	200kcal	23gm
Justins Nut Butterr	210kcal	8gm
Honey Gel	120kcal	29gm	750kcal
–
Tortilla	110kcal	19gm
Tuna Pouch in Oil	190kcal	0gm
Goldfish	420kcal	60gm	720kcal
–
Honey Stinger Waffle	160kcal	21gm
Honey Stinger Chews	160kcal	39gm
Justins Candy Bar	280kcal	??
Skratch Drink Mix	150kcal	??	770kcal
–
Granola	400kcal	54gm
Whole Milk Powder	150kcal	13gm
Nut Butter	210kcal	8gm	760kcal
–
Nutella & PB Sandwich	500kcal	22gm
Hostess Apple Pie	500kcal	55gm	1000kcal
–
Trail Mix	700kcal	??
Chocolate Croissant	500kcal	??	1200kcal

Here is the gear list for the Trail Race attempt this year. See this post for the changes from last year.

I’ll be starting on August 3rd at 8am heading southbound doing an ITT, individual time trial (yellow dots on the tracker). The group start is in Durango this year heading northbound on July 21st at 4am. Tracking will be live here: Trackleaders

Bikepacking bags:

Revelate Designs: Handlebar Bag &  Jerrycan

Cleaveland Mountaineering: Seat Bag, Gas Tank

All gear (minus bike) below including bags and backpack comes in at approx. 15 lbs.

For Food plan read this post

 Bike

• 2008 Novara System 2.0 full squish
• Mavic Wheelset
• Maxxis Ardent 2.4 Tires (EXO sidewall)
• 1×9 drivetrain – 28t chainring 11/36 cassette. I’m using the Widget Single Ring system which allows me to use a smaller chainring on the front than my crank would normally allow.

 Camp

• Tarp Tent Contrail – 26oz
• Klymit 3/4 Sleeping Pad – 6oz
• Western Mountaineering Highlite Sleeping Bag – 16oz
• Spork/Collapsible Bowl

 Clothes

• Short Sleeve Jersey
• Chamois
• Endura Gloves
• Arm/Leg Warmers
• Endura Vest
• 1/4 zip fleece
• Golite Rain Jacket
• Marmot Precip Rain Pants
• Wool Socks (for riding)
• Swiftwick knee length Compression Socks (for sleeping)
• Pearl Izumi X-Alp Shoes
• Cratoni Helmet w/rear light
• Sunglasses with multiple lenses
• Cycling Cap
• Skullcap

 Tool kit and Spare Parts

• Crank Brothers Multi Tool
• Tire Lever
• Lube/Rag
• Patch Kits
• Extra Chain Links
• Fiberfix Spare Spoke
• Tire & Shock Pump
• Tubes
• Extra Brake Pads
• Extra Chainring Bolts
• Extra Cleats/Screws
• Hose Clamps
• Zip Ties/Duct Tape/Electrical Tape
• Knife
• Spare Derailleur Hanger
• Spare Jockey pulleys
• Spare Cable
• Surgical Gloves (for greasy trail side chain maintenance)

 First Aid

• Toilet Paper
• Chamois Cream
• Ibuprofen
• Bandaids/Gauze
• Antibiotic Cream
• Soap
• Hockey Tape
• Alcohol Swabs/Iodine
• Handiwipes
• Travel Toothbrush/paste
• Visine
• Sunscreen
• Tums

 Gear

• SPOT Satellite Communicator
• Delorme Earthmate GPS
• Fenix Flashlight – Helmet Mounted
• Princeton Tec EOS light – Handlebar Mounted
• Cyclocomputer
• Rear blinky Light
• Camera
• Phone
• iPod Shuffle

 Others

• Colorado Trail Foundation Data Book Pages
• 3-liter Bladder with Sawyer In-Line Water filter
• 1 Water Bottle
• ID/Credit Card
• Osprey Talon 22 Backpack

New Tent Below

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Revelate Designs Handlebar Bag below

 

 

 

 

The trail race is on again this year. For me it will be an ITT (Individual Time Trail) since I can’t be at the group start due to timing.

There are a couple changes this year. The group start will be in Durango for the first time, meaning the bulk of racers will be headed northbound toward Denver. There will still be a good chunk of riders following the traditional southbound route – me among them. Although all of us south-bounders this year will be considered ITT’ers.

I will be starting on my own, most likely, this year which will be very different from last year lining up with 65 other racers and charging up the Waterton Canyon road in a huge peloton. I will still have the SPOT tracking, will still be up on the race map on trackleaders and will still be attempting to race – except it will just be me against the clock. Lots of racers do ITT’s for different reasons: waiting for good weather windows, scheduling conflicts, wanting to do it alone, etc. For me it is simply scheduling, but I am intrigued with the thought of doing it solo.

The other big change this year is the removal of the 25 mile US-285 highway section detour and the re-introduction of the ‘official’ 75 mile Tarryall detour. This detour – among many along the CT for cyclists – skirts the Lost Creek Wilderness outside Bailey. Wilderness areas prohibit mechanized travel of which bikes unfortunately have become categorized. Maybe it’s a good thing, lot of debate around this issue. Either way this means a much longer detour on remote forest service roads: 30 miles on dirt, 40ish on pavement and 6 on singletrack to get you back to Kenosha Pass (instead of 25 relatively quick, yet hellishly dangerous miles on high-speed pavement from Bailey). This also removes Bailey as a resupply option, which means much more food needs to be carried from the start. For me, this will mean at least 2 full days of riding before any resupply, so I have to think carefully about what to carry from the start.

I have a few changes to make this year from experiences last year.

1. The bivy sack will be replaced with a real tent.
2. No stove
3. Mail drop food to Buena Vista

For number 1, it hit me on the first night of the race last year. A monstrous thunderstorm lashed all night on the first long night. I spent the whole night holding my bivy sack up off my face to stem the tide of water flowing INTO the bivy sack. Needless to say, in the morning I was weary and raw and wet. No way to spend the night. Also, I hated the thought of rain moving in as I set up camp. With no real shelter, it was very tricky to get changed into ‘camp’ clothes (meager to say the least while bikepacking) and get into the bivy during a rain event without getting wet (call me a wimp, just not before you spend a night at 10,500 feet in an alpine bivy sack in a torrential downpour, with rolling thunder and violent lighting…all night). So a tent it is. This one in particular. It weighs a good 10oz more than my bivy, but I will make up for that with #2.

For number 2, it hit me as I threw away my stove in Buena Vista after not using it once in the 3 days it took me to get there. I had brought a small Esbit stove with fuel tablets, a GSI mug, spork and lighter. All told, probably $50 bucks worth of gear – but useless weight to carry so it went in the trash in one fell swoop (I kept the lighter). Plus, the fuel tablet packets had broken in my seat bag and coated everything with a fine white powder. This year, I have assembled food and some ‘meals’ that don’t need any cooking whatsoever.

I realized on the first night, that the nature of the race leaves you exhausted and numb at the end of the day and you want nothing more than to just climb into your sleeping bag and sleep. In the morning, you are cold and stiff and want to get moving. For me there was no time for cooking. Shove in some food and sleep. In the morning, shove in some food and get rolling.

For number 3, it hit me as I stumbled around the City Market in Buena Vista trying to find 4 days worth of calories to shove in my bags for the next section of trail. From Buena Vista to your next resupply in Silverton awaits 200 miles of remote backcountry travel. For most, this is a significant roadblock, many racers drop out in BV, or Mt Princeton, or US-50 into Salida as I did. The realization of that monumental stretch of nothingness is enough to scare the uninitiated into retreat. It even looms above me now as I think about the trail. I’ll have to keep it out of mind until I am there and then just move forward mile by mile. It doesn’t help that the last half of the trail is the hardest half.

So for this year instead of stumbling through the store in a dazed, confused state (‘Should I buy this entire box of cereal because it has 1500 calories in it?’, ‘That summer sausage sure looks good?’) hoping that I buy enough calories, and stuff that I can actually eat on the trail, I will send a box through general delivery containing 4 days of carefully prepared and packed food. I will pick up that food at the post office, shove it in my bags and be off. There is a tradeoff here though: on one hand I get the piece of mind of knowing that I have enough food, good food, and carefully planned calories for each day; on the other hand what if the post office has just closed when I get there? I will have to wait until the following morning to get my food…and that could kill any momentum (or it could be just the rest I need before the next stage). Who knows.

As you can see, this stuff never leaves you. I think about these kinds of things daily. Will it always be like this? Will the CTR always be at the back of my head, random thoughts on how to do things better popping into my subconscious like popcorn kernels bursting into shape? Probably. That is the curse of the Colorado Trail. But I can think of worse curses.

For those interested the bike will not change. I apparently do not know how to save money – it helps to actually have any to save. 🙂