Breck Epic - 2014

Wow, what an experience. I was super stoked on it after finishing, but the more I look back on it the better it gets. I would say I'm mildly obsessed with this race now, and it's my favorite cycling event hands down. If I had to give up all the other races throughout the year to just do this one race, I think I would do it.

Finishers get a photo taken immediately after stage 1 and a mat to frame it and your number plate, as well as a huge belt buckle.

The trails in Breckenridge are pretty incredible, and the trail network they have there is mind boggling. SO MANY trails. Whose land are they all on? I imagine lots are on public land, city owned or national forest area, but I think some run through private land as well. It's great that landowners are willing to allow that on their property, and great that the cyclists are able to maintain good relationships. You can also see a lot of work put into their trails; big manmade berms on lots of the trails and handbuilt flow sections (rollers, tables, etc.). We spent a lot of time on "roads" too, and even those were awesome. The roads ranged from wide open dirt roads we saw rental cars tackling, to steep, rocky, loose roads that would be worthy of some fun crawler vehicles.

I have been wanting to do the race for a few years, but with the time commitments it takes to train along with the financial commitments it takes to get there and having 2 young kids at the house, it just wasn't possible until this year. I turned 30 this year, and used that as leverage to finally convince Raine to let me go as part of our summer vacation. I jokingly told my Devo guys that they should come with me; and what do you know they all signed up! Richard and I were committed to the full 6-day race, and Justin and Patrick signed on for the 3-day Epic-curious event. We found and secured an 8 bedroom house in Breckenridge that could house all of us and our families; 8 adults and 9 kids (ranging from 1-10 yrs old). I didn't realize it until after the race, but this whole thing was almost a year in the making. We signed up in September 2013, started training, booked the house around January, acquired equipment throughout the year, and it all came together pretty well. I felt very blessed to have these awesome guys sign on to this epic adventure with me to celebrate my staying alive for 30 years, as well as having their wives and families along for the trip. They're my best dudes, and I'm blessed to call them friends and love them like brothers.

Richard, me, Patrick & Justin after stage 6

Below is a brain dump I posted a few days after the race with some additions now that I've had more time to reflect on everything. I wish I'd had the time to put some thoughts down every day after finishing the stage, but as explained below time was at a premium with everything required to ramp down from racing and prepare for the next day.

The race was a really good vibe all week. Pretty serious racing up front, but good support and fun for everyone.

I started at the very back of the group every single day. This wasn't on purpose, just the way it worked out getting myself and those staying/racing with me out of the house and down to the line. Plus I didn't really want to stand around too long in the cold waiting. Starting at the back probably really hurt me as far as placing goes, since it was nearly a minute before we in the back even moved at all and the front of the group was well up the road by the time we went under the banner. I would try to move up some on the opening road section, but the group was so large it was hard to squeeze through and it took a considerable amount of effort to move forward. There was usually a very steep climb early in the stage as well, so then you're stuck in the back group wheel to wheel. I think this may have actually helped my pacing though, since it limited how hard I could go early on and kept me from blowing myself up. Every single stage I was moving forward all day, passing people on the uphills and downhills, never really being passed myself. This was a pretty good motivator as well, as I always had someone to chase and passing people kept the positive energy going. It feels good to be fast, at least faster than those around you at the time.

All week I tried to ride about a medium pace, never really pushing it. Having never done 6 days in a row like this, as well as being at altitude, I had no idea what to expect as far as how I would recover and be ready for the following stages. Turns out I didn't have any trouble, my legs felt great every day and I was able to maintain my energy levels with plenty of post-race eating back at the house. I never had any moments where I thought I couldn't continue all week. I wouldn't say it was "easy" but it was smooth sailing all week: I had no trouble completing the race. Looking back I wonder if I went TOO easy, but I think playing it safe and riding more on the enjoying it side of things than suffering all week was proabably a good move.

Stage 1 (34.8mi, 5,300ft) was the roughest stage I think. As Mike Mac (race promotor) put it, they put this one up front "to expose any weaknesses in your equipment choices early on." As I said I started way in the back. It felt great to be passing people and moving forwards all day, going both uphill and down. This stage had several hike a bike sections and some rough loose rocky descents. Mike's description was appropriate. Towards the end of the day I caught up with a lady who was going pretty good, she had flatted earlier but turns out she won a couple of Women's Open stages and finished on the podium in the end. I was all over her on the descents, but she got away a little on the last climb that I wasn't expecting; I thought we were going straight down to the finish so I'd kinda stopped eating and was low on energy. The stage finished into Carter Park, with a really fun flow section and some big berms. My time for this stage was 3:50. I felt like I had a good day, but finished 22nd on the stage over an hour off the 30+ leader. Wow, this was humbling and crushed any aspirations I had of chasing a top finish.

Stage 2 (37.6mi, 5,500ft) was one of my favorites. I initially thought it was my favorite stage, but after reflecting for a while I've concluded it was probably 2nd on the list. There was still some hike a bike and a very long singletrack climb on the Colorado Trail (2.4mi @ 9%, all rideable singletrack), but you were richly rewarded with some really, really fun riding. I was able to ride the whole Colorado Trail climb except for once I got hung up behind someone, and here I also decided to stop for a natural break. This was the only time I had to do that all week during the race. There were a couple of big singletrack descents on the Colorado Trail as well as some flowy contour benchcuts that hurt my face from the stupid grin plastered on there. I think this was the stage I saw the first casualty, one of the lead men being backboarded out with a dislocated shoulder. I finished in 4:12, 19th on the day and moved to 19th on GC.

Stage 3 (36mi, 6,300ft) was tough. I decided to take this day slightly easier than I had been, and maybe ride with some friends for a while. I did so on the opening road climb and first steep singletrack climb, but I lost them shortly thereafter. The first climb we hit was singletrack, and we got backed up quite a bit at the first technical spot. After that we climbed up a flow trail with eleven huge bermed switchbacks and a few rollers; it was a bit aggravating climbing UP this sweet trail, but it turns out we got to descend it to the finish at the end of the day. After this we worked our way to French Pass and across the Continental Divide at 12,000 ft. This culminated in a 1.3mi climb at 14.5%; much of it hike a bike. This was the first time we were hike a biking above treeline and you could see the line of pushers stretched out ahead all the way to the summit. After this the descent off the backside was REALLY fun, high alpine singletrack above treeline. If you've never gotten any of that, you need it. The rest of the stage was a little milder, with another crossing of the divide at 11,760' and some fun singletrack riding. I finished in 4:52, 23rd on the stage and slipped to 21st on GC. This was no doubt a product of taking it so easy early on the stage and getting held up behind that big pileup. I could've easily been much farther forward and had a better result, but as I never really "raced" all week I guess this was par for the course.

Wednesday, Stage 4, was Justin & Patrick's first race day. Unfortunately Justin had a crash early in the day and suffered a concussion. He soldiered through 28 miles, but was unable to finish the stage and couldn't start stages 5 & 6.

Stage 4 (42mi, 6,400ft) was the longest of the week and another really fun one, which only included one hike a bike up Vomit Hill. Looking back, I think I would pick this as my favorite stage. If I could go back and ride one stage again, I'd pick this one. I went up the road a little bit off the start as I wanted to see what I could do on this stage as it seemed like it would suit me well. After the first big climb and descent I had continued to move forward and was feeling great, thinking this was going to be a really good day. Unfortunately I then took a wrong turn and rode a mile uphill off course. I lost several minutes, but worse than this I lost the momentum of being further forward in the field and had to repass TONS of people I'd already gotten around. I tried to make the most of it and stay steady and keep moving forward like every other day. We rode some fun singletrack over to Keystone, then a very long climb back up to the Colorado trail. This climb was 6.5mi long at 5% grade. I felt like it was really good for me, as it was shallow enough you could keep a little momentum instead of grinding along in the lowest gear. Then we got to descend the CO Trail singletrack climb from Stage 2: 2.4mi @ -9%. That's SINGLETRACK. Not jeep road, SINGLETRACK. WOW this was fun!! I got to descend most of it solo at almost hair on fire speed, only getting slowed down for a couple minutes at the bottom. I was only about a minute slower than the lead group on this descent, and if I hadn't gotten held up I think I would've been pretty close to the top of that leaderboard. I finished in 4:40, 16th on this stage and moved up to 18th on GC. This stage was 6 miles longer than stage 3, but I finished 12 minutes faster. Part of this was due to stage 3 being a much "slower" stage with all the hike a bike, but I also felt really good on this day.

Stage 5 (28.4mi, 5,000ft) was my least favorite (and probably everyone's). There just really wasn't much fun to it. We started immediately into a very rocky, technical, 8% singletrack climb, then a short jeep road climb, then onto a hiking trail to the top of Wheeler Pass. Most of this was hike a bike for most people, if the steepness didn't get you off your bike the occasional unrideable rock garden/creek crossing would. This finished with a 2 mile climb at 14.5% to the top of Wheeler Pass at 12,500ft. After we topped the ridge we went slightly down through a very wet, technical rocky singletrack before climbing another ridge back to 12,500ft. After this ridge was the big downhill to Copper Mountain ski resort. This downhill was the sketchiest thing we rode all week. Deeply rutted, wet, muddy, rocky and incredibly steep: 3mi @ -15%. For the first time all week I walked parts of this descent. It was just too burly for me and I couldn't get myself going well enough to feel confident. Mike had called it "a descent for the bold" and that day I wasn't up to it. I went faster than a lot of people, but still didn't feel very good about it. After this decent we rode the paved bike path down to Frisco, then straight into a 3mi dirt road climb with some hike a bike sections. At the top of this we got into several miles of singletrack that would normally be pretty fun but at the end of this day I couldn't muster much enthusiasm and just wanted to be done. I finished in 3:49, 17th on the stage and moved to 17th on GC. Not long after I finished the temps dropped 20 degrees and we got sprinkled on a few times waiting at the finish; this was the closest I got to getting wet on course all week. We got very lucky in that respect.

Stage 6 (31.9mi, 3,600ft) was what we'd been looking forward to all week. This was the fun day, with fairly easy climbing and fun descents. ZERO hike a bike. I decided this day I was done racing, and I would ride with Richard since we'd both been doing the 6-day race all week but hadn't ridden together other than under the start banner. He wanted to try to go all out and move up a spot on GC, and I knew that riding together that day would be much more memorable for many years than the difference between a few midpack spots on the GC. We started at the back as usual, and I towed us forward on the road section, passing tons of people in the gravel on the side of the road! I said "on your right" more times than I can count. We still got caught in a big bottleneck when the race went into the first singletrack, but once we got into the climb he rode strong and continued to do so all day. I let him lead the descents while I filmed with my GoPro on, and I would pace us up the road climbs. The last climb was 6.5mi at 4%, so I was able to cruise and pull the GoPro off the bars to shoot some video of the scenery and us rolling up the last climb. I'm still working on a video edit from the whole stage, but here's some of the best quips from the climb.

I can't remember which day, but one of the stages there was a singletrack section towards the end that seemed very "Texas" to me, except it was on a gradual downhill. In the woods, dark loamy dirt, flowy turns, a little rooty and just really fun. As usual I made several passes on this section. Just a random thought, and maybe next time I go back to Breck I will find this trail again!

Nutrition: I raced on Skratch bacon & egg rice cakes and Clif Bloks. I probably ate 2 rice cakes most stages, maybe 3 once or twice. I went through 6-9 Shot Bloks as well most stages. It's really hard to eat anything when you're breathing so hard on a climb, and you certainly can't take a hand off the bar long enough to get a rice cake out of your pocket on any descent out there. We made our rice cakes a bit smaller, about 2 bite size, and I had to be selective on when I would eat them. I stuck the Shot Bloks to my top tube so it only took half a second to grab one and get it in my mouth, a couple quick chews and you can swallow those. These definitely got me to the finish line 1 or 2 days. I am amazed I had ZERO stomach issues in 6 days of racing over 3 hours. This is usually my undoing at marathon events; I'm not sure if I've finally got the combinations and ratios correct, or if my reduced exertion was enough to keep things in check on this race. Basically I ate and drank when I felt like I needed to, not on a set schedule trying to get xxx calories down per hour. For fluids, I drank Skratch Labs exclusively, but not as much as I thought. I only took 2 bottles each day, and it was rare that I actually used much of the 2nd one. My stages varied from almost 4 to almost 5 hours, and I probably never drank much more than 3 full bottles in a single stage. This was really surprising considering the altitude we were at, but I usually don't require that much water down here in the heat either.

Equipment: I LOVED my BMC FS01 29 all week. It climbed very well, and descended fantastically. As I said earlier I was usually passing people all day, both up and down. Had no mechanical issues whatsoever. I didn't really do anything special beforehand like new parts, just made sure everything on the bike was in good condition and working well. I took 4 sets of new brake pads, 3 spare tires, a spare set of wheels, 2 sets of spare pedals, spare cables and housing and a couple of powerlinks to be ready for pretty much anything. Throughout the week I did change F&R brake pads when I thought we might have a wet day (I'd put them on in April before Ouachita Challenge), put on a new chain when it checked over 0.05 with my Park chain checker, and rebuilt my Eggbeaters out of an abundance of caution. I used Schwalbe Rocket Ron and Racing Ralph 2.25s in the Snakeskin version and had no tire issues all week; same for the 3 other guys in my house (2 did the 3 day but did some riding the days they weren't racing). I've managed to puncture these tires in Arkansas once or twice, I really think the rocks there are worse than in CO as far as puncturing goes.

On-bike packing: I carried 2 tubes and 2 CO2s on the bike with Backcountry Research Awesome Straps. In one pocket I had a BR Tulbag with a multitool, another CO2 and 2nd inflator head, spare chainlink, and derailleur hanger; and room in that pocket for a couple of rice cakes. The second pocket had my second bottle. The third pocket had my vest or rain jacket. This was enough to get me the usual 10-15 miles between aid stations. The first day I rode with my camelbak without a bladder, just had my weather gear in there if needed as I didn't think I could fit everything I needed in my jersey pockets. The second day I figured out how to take advantage of the drop bags and still be prepared in case. I'd ride to the start in a vest to keep warm going downhill, then take it off and shove it in a pocket before we started. Then I'd leave a jacket in each bag to grab in case the weather started turning.

The aid stations were fantastic, usually 2 per stage. They gave you 2 canvas bags that were color coded by race numbers, then had your number marked on them; as you pulled up to the aid a volunteer would usually pull your bag out and have it ready for you to get what you needed and drop off anything you wanted to get rid of. If you could fit it in the bag they'd haul it around for you. I usually had Skratch mix singles, rice cakes, and some weather gear in each bag. I also put my regular gloves in the first bag and started in warm gloves and arm warmers as I'm subject to getting cold hands; I'd ditch the warmers and switch gloves at the first aid.

After the race, it was surprising to look back and see how consuming it was concerning time and scheduling. Our daily routine was pretty much as follows:
Wake up and get dressed.
Prep drop bags and take to race HQ by 7am.
Eat breakfast and other morning business.
Race start at 8:30.
Most stages were 4-5 hours long, so didn't usually get back to the house until 2-2:30 after hanging around the finish line eating and winding down from the final descent.
Get back to the house, eat, shower, eat, recover with legs up for a while, eat, bike maintenance (I had 2-4 bikes to work on all week so this kept me pretty busy), eat, then go to race meeting from 5-6pm.
Get back home, eat, finish prep for next day's stage, then go to bed.

If you've stumbled upon this researching the Breck Epic, I highly recommend it, with a few words of caution. First, don't take the riding lightly. There is a lot of very sketchy technical riding especially going downhill, with lots of opportunities to really hurt yourself if you make a mistake. Only do the race if you feel confident in your skills enough to ride at high speed 6" from death multiple times a day for 6 days in a row. Also, be prepared to push your bike a lot (up and down). Second, consider the daily schedule it takes the whole week to get from one stage to the next. Don't go into it thinking it'll be a nice vacation, seeing the town and the sights and doing fun stuff after the race each day. Recovering, bike maintenance and the racers' meeting really consume your afternoons.