In January Life Time Fitness announced that in addition to the lottery to get into the Leadville 100 mountain bike race that they were going to have 3 qualifying races this year. By 2013 they plan to have 8 qualifying races. At the time, the race locations weren’t announced.
Now the race locations for this year have been announced. They are
- June 19: Wilmington/Whiteface 100K, Wilmington, NY
- July 10: Lake Tahoe Trail 100K, Lake Tahoe, NV
- July 31: Crested Butte Alpine Odyssey, Mt Crested Butte, CO.
Registration for these qualifying races goes on sale Thursday, March 31. All races will be approximately 100 kilometers and have been vetted by Leadville Qualifying Series Technical Director Dave Wiens, a six-time LT 100 champion and member of the Mountain Biking Hall of Fame. The events are fully supported with aid stations and mechanical support, and are chip-timed.
I don’t find it surprising that the race entry fee at $125 is at the high end for that length of race. With the number of people that want to get in to Leadville, I expect they’ll get plenty of racers doing the qualifiers.
Each of the races will have 100 Leadville 100 race spots up for grabs. 50 spots will be weighted per age group for the top age group finishers. The other 50 spots will be a drawing at the race event for all other finishers under a designated cutoff time. The cutoffs will be determined per qualifying race and will be set so that those that make the time cut will have a good chance at finishing the Leadville 100 under 12 hours.
According to the Leadville Qualifying Series website riders qualifying or getting drawn will need to be present and sign up after the race.
Qualifying spots for the Leadville Trail 100 will be awarded on race day, approximately one hour after the time standard has been passed. Riders must be present to receive their Leadville spot. Racers cannot have spouses, friends, family members, colleagues or other stand-ins accept their spots. Riders must be prepared to pay in full the $275 LT100 entry fee on-site.
Related Links:
- Leadville 100 Mountain Bike FAQ
- Leadville 100 Movie 2009 – Race Across the Sky Review
- 2010 Leadville 100
- 2010 Leadville 100 Photos
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Tags: Colorado, endurance racing, Leadville 100, mountain biking
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While the idea of a qualifying race is interesting, it will fundamentally change the race (on many levels). It will also change how the race is done. If you have about 1,500 riders of similar ability (that can all finish in under 12 hours), that will create huge logjams on the course. Now, the ability of the riders is spread across a broad spectrum, from 7 hour finishers to 12 hour finishers with hundreds getting pulled from the course for not making the cutoff times. Thus, riders are spread out over the course within the first hour or so – that will disappear (and create logjams) with this new format to only get the strongest riders.
If all racers can finish in under 12 hours, they will need to either have staggered start times or something else to spread everyone out. Plus, everyone in the mid to back of pack are pretty congenial about the logjams now but if all 1,500 racers are really racing for time, that congeniality will likely be substantially reduced. Anyway, just my 2 cents.
I don’t see the qualifiers changing much this year as far as how spread out the field is with 300 of the 1700 spots determined by qualifiers. Toward the front is less congested than the middle and back to around 12 hour finishers. At least half of the 300 spots should end up going to faster racers. When they go to 8 qualifiers in 2013, I can see it making a bigger impact if they still do 100 spots per qualifier and keep the overall
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