2026 LEADVILLE 100 MOUNTAIN BIKE RACE
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| 2026 Willow Fire |
On the evening of June 28th, 2026, the air in our valley turned hazy and the unmistakable smell of smoke soon followed. After a record dry winter followed by a dry spring, we all knew that fire was not a question of if, but more where and when. This one was about 50 miles away just on the western flank of Leadville. It became known as the Willow Fire and it encompassed over 6,000 acres of beautiful forest. Included in those acres was a portion of the Leadville 100 mountain-bike course.
During the initial days of the fire, the safety of the residents and businesses of Leadville was of paramount importance. However, for those of us who participate in the Leadville races every year, there was also selfish concern about the status of our races. For a period of time, even though it looked like the fire was under control, there was real doubt whether there would be any races this summer . . . especially after the Silver Rush 50 races were cancelled in early July. Thankfully, the fire continued to be contained and the decision was made by the race organizers in mid-July to go forward with the races. "Phew" on so many levels.
With the races back on, the next big question was what they would look like. The fire had basically shut down Turquoise Lake Road, Hagerman Pass Road, Sugarloaf and Powerline for the forseeable future . . . probably until the first snow. For the Stage Race, Lifetime actually had two of the stages on the opposite (east) side of town. Speculation ran rampant for several weeks as we awaited the announcement of the "new" 100 course for 2026.
Nine days before the 100, the Leadville Race Series announced the course changes. The route would be about 4 miles shorter and would lose about 2,000 feet of climbing without Sugarloaf outbound and Powerline inbound. There would be more pavement and the Columbine turnaround would be extended to the old turnaround prior to 2021. The race was ON!
As I said above, there was certainly a selfish hope that the race would somehow happen. For many of us, Leadville is the only race we do every year and we spend January through July training for that one special day in August. This was to be my 19th Leadville 100 and we were already excitedly looking forward to the huge family bash we'll have next summer when I (hopefully) become one of less than 20 people out of over 17,000 that have toed the line for this race since 1992 to earn my 2,000 mile buckle. At nearly 60 years old, I don't have many years left to be in physical shape to do this race and I didn't want to lose a year. AGAIN, I just want to reiterate that my selfish desire was absolutely secondary to what was best for the folks living in Leadville.
I trained fairly hard and consistently through June with Peloton rides through the winter, a few days a week of strength-training, and some big rides once the weather got nice. But I completely lost my mojo in early July when it appeared the race would get cancelled and went 7-10 days in mid-July with minimal riding. When the race was announced as a go, I crammed in two hefty weeks of riding before starting to taper about 10 days from race-day.
I would be riding a new bike this year. An Obie Exie full-suspension with bluetooth shifters and a dropper-post. This was my first new bike in 10 years and my first bike with a dropper post! This was supposed to be a Leadville beast and would hopefully help me shave some time from the prior years. I enjoyed it on pre-rides and couldn't wait to race it on race-day.
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| 19 Years of First Descents' Jerseys |
For the 19th year, I would be doing the race a fundraiser for First Descents. This year FD had 26 riders in the race and we had collectively raised about $250,000 as of race weekend. I think this fundraiser has raised nearly $3Million overall for FD over the 19 years. Pretty damn impressive.
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| 2026 Team First Descents |
Race morning was a crisp but a not too cold 42 degrees with some patchy clouds in the sky. Temps for the day were not expected to rise out of the 60s and I was thrilled with that. I didn't really set any time goals as I had no idea what times would look like on the new course.
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| With Bailey at the Start |
I arrived to my Orange corral at 6:15am with plenty of time until our corral start time of 6:40am. After the usual week of tapering and pre-race anxiety, I was ready to start pedaling. On the pavement descent down to the dirt, I was shocked by how many riders were effortlessly passing me right and left. I even tried to get on the wheel of a few riders and got dropped. This was strange. On the dirt to the base of St Kevins, I felt like I was riding in quicksand as riders continued to pass me in large numbers. The climb up Kevin's was the usual slow grind and the 3-mile rollers to Carter Aid seemed slower than normal. I reached Carter at exactly an hour. So I wasn't imagining things. This was significantly slower to Carter than my typical 52-55 minutes.
Next up was the first re-route section, a 7-mile pavement stretch that was mostly descent. Once again, other riders were flying by me without even pedaling. What the hell? This new bike was supposed to be a X-country racing machine. Were my brakes rubbing? Something was wrong. On the road to Pipeline, I was passed by dozens more riders. When I would try to get on the tail end of a paceline, I couldn't hold it without having to expend a huge increase in effort. These were groups of riders from the last corrals. This made no sense. I stopped at a mechanics tent at Pipeline and had them check my brakes. They found no issues. Fuck. Had I just gotten weak and slow overnight?
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| Twin Lakes Outbound |
I reached the top of Columbine at 5:05, chugged a few small cups of coke, stuffed a handful of potato chips into my mouth, and headed back down. I actually enjoyed returning to the old turnaround. Great views and a little less intense transition from climbing to descending.
Had a scary moment on the descent below the goat trail as there was a guy in front of me going full-tilt at 40 mph who seemed a bit wobbly with his bike-handling. As I was about to move right to pass him, his front tire caught a rut and he pancaked hard into the ground. I was able to barely get by him without crashing into him and by the time I was able to come to a stop some 50-75 yards below him, the guy was screaming in agony and was surrounded by 5 or 6 other riders. There was nothing I could add by climbing back up to him, so I continued on, slightly shaken up.
I arrived back at Twin Lakes at about 5:55 and told Lisa that I thought it would conservatively take me around 3 hours and 40 minutes to get back to the finish. That would mean a 9 hour and 35 minute finish. On the climb out of Twin Lakes, First Descents' new CEO Alex Acetta caught up to me and actually rode ahead of me for a few hundred yards. This was Alex's first Leadville 100 and he hadn't even signed up for the race until May. While he is a great athlete and experienced biker, his cheerfully passing me definitely woke up my inner-competitor and I naturally upped my pace . . . especially since I knew that I had some extra effort to spare since we wouldn't have to deal with the Powerline climb at mile 78.
Over the next few miles, I put a big gap on Alex, put my head down, and kept grinding out the miles. I reached Pipeline at 7 hours and hit the entrance to the Powerline climb at 7:20. Damn was I ecstatic not to have to deal with that beast today! Another great thing was that the normally ferocious headwind during this stretch was just a light breeze today.
I did some calculating and started thinking that I could get in under 9:20 if I put the hammer down the rest of the way. So I hit the 7-mile pavement climb to Carter Aid with the same zeal that I usually reserve for the St. Kevin's climb late in the race. I alternated between sitting and standing, passed some 30 riders on the climb, and reached Carter Aid at 8:15. In my sub-9 years, it was 52 minutes to the finish. In my current fitness, I knew it would be just over an hour. Fortunately, that gave me 5 minutes to spare as I was developing some cramps beneath my knees and would have to fight through them over the last 10 miles.
There are three short punchy climbs between Carter Aid and St. Kevin's summit and I had to get off my bike and walk all three. Not my first time having to do that. I rode down the Kevin's descent pretty defensively as finishing without a crash was far more important than finishing under 9:20. Worked the bottom dirt in tandem with a kid from the Fort Lewis College mountain-bike team and hit the final dirt at Leadville Junction at 8:54. I didn't have to crush the last few miles to get under 9:20. 26 minutes was plenty of time. But I also didn't want to cut it too close, so I kept a solid pace, reached the bottom of 6th at 9:13 and crossed the finish line for buckle number 19 at 9:17.
With the new course, I was a full hour ahead of 2025. With 45 minutes of that being the shorter course, I felt pretty satisfied that I was able to drop the equivalent of 15 minutes or so from my 2025 time, especially considering my undetermined tire/bike rolling-resistance issue.
Despite no Powerline, I was fried at the end of the race. My right leg was killing me where the cramps fired up after Carter Aid, and I felt every bit as exhausted after this "Leadville Lite" version of the race as I did after prior finishes. Maybe it's age. Maybe I had to work harder because of whatever was going on with my bike. Whatever, I wasn't getting a big-buckle, so it made no difference in the end.
Can't wait to come back in 2026 for #20! Pretty crazy to have gotten to this point. Definitely not the future I expected in 2007 after completing my first LT100.
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| #19 Finito |
POSTSCRIPT - Two days after the race, I let my curiosity get the better of me and I performed a simple bike test in my neighborhood. On a .65 mile pavement descent with 185 feet of elevation drop, I descended twice without pedaling on this year's race bike and did the same on my last year's race bike. My old bike descended both times about 4% faster than the new bike without rotating a pedal. I asked ChatGPT whether that discrepancy would be even more pronounced on flat pavement where I couldn't even hold the tail end of a paceline without a massive increase in output. Chat responded resoundingly yes. I then asked Chat to calculate my time-loss in just the first 40 miles and it came back with 10-12 minutes. I feel a whole lot better that I wasn't imagining things out there.
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| Current Buckle Haul - 17 silver, 2 Gold and one 10,000 Mile |
