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Tags: fat bike, Leadville, mountain biking, winter
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Last Day to Register for 2013 Leadville 100 Lottery

January 31st, 2013

Powerline Climb

Today, January 31st, is the last day to register for the 2013 Leadville 100 lottery for your chance to dig deep going up Powerline and on the rest of the course on August 10th. You have until midnight MST but if you plan on registering and haven’t, I’d suggest you do it as soon as possible just in case you have issues with registering. Head over to this page to register.

As has been the case for the last several years, there’s a $15 charge plus fees just to sign up for the lottery. This fee gets donated to charity though. Also the entry fee if you get picked in the lottery has gone up yet again. It’s now up to $345.

Although the Leadville 100 lottery used to be the only the only way to get into the Leadville 100, now there are the qualifiers to get a slot. There are also various charity slots that can be used to gain a Leadville 100 entry.

Good luck to everybody that is in the lottery! I’ve entered the lottery again in hopes of making my 10th start. Since I had a streak of 3 DNFs, I’ll be going for finish number 7.

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Tags: 100 miler, Colorado, endurance racing, Leadville, Leadville 100, mountain biking
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Silver Rush 50 2012 Start Photos

July 19th, 2012

Although the Silver Rush 50 is a great race for preparing for Leadville 100, I skipped it this year. I was up in Leadville to pre-ride the Leadville 100 course so I stopped and watched the start of the Silver Rush 50. Here are a few of the photos I took and I have more Silver Rush 50 start photos here.

The photo above is of the first racer up the ski hill getting a gold coin from Ken Clouber. The gold coin that qualify for the Leadville 100. This guy gave it his all coming up the hill so he must really want to race the Leadville 100.

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Tags: Colorado, endurance racing, Ken Clouber, Leadville, mountain biking, photos, Silver Rush 50
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Leadville Winter Snow Bike Races 2012

January 12th, 2012

Leadville’s winter snow bike race series kicks off this Saturday with a night race at Copper Mountain. There are 4 races in the series. Although fatbikes like the Salsa Mukluk are ideal for riding in the snow, regular mountain bikes can be used with as wide of tire as will fit your frame and running low tire pressure.

Schedule is

Jan. 14th – Copper en Fuego
Feb. 4th – Tennessee Pass Night Jam
March 3rd – Mineral Belt Mayhem
April 7th – East Side Epic

For more details, see the Cloud City Wheelers event page.

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2011 Leadville Snow Bike Series

January 17th, 2011

Snow racing will return to Leadville this winter with 3 races in the series. The first is this weekend. Like last year, 2 of them will be night races. The series is a great way to try out snow racing if you don’t live too far away to see if you want a bigger snow adventure like the Susitna 100, Arrowhead 135 or Iditarod Invitational.

Although snow racing is best on a bike like the Surly Pugsley that has clearance for giant tires, you can do it on a regular mountain bike. You just put as wide of tires as will fit on your frame and run low air pressure.

2011 Leadville Winter Mountain Bike Series Schedule

East Side Epic: Jan. 22, 10 am
Tennessee Pass Night Jam: Feb 19, 7pm
Mineral Belt Mayhem: March 5, 7pm

Chris had a good writeup of the East Side Epic last year.

Get the latest info on the Cloud City Wheelers Event Page or the Leadville Winter Mountain Bike Series Facebook page.

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Weekend in Leadville

August 9th, 2010

This weekend we went camping near Leadville at 11,000 feet. With the Leadville 100 this weekend, I wanted to spend some more time at altitude. A couple weeks ago, I slept in the back of our van at 11,700 feet and I’ve done a few rides at altitude this summer but I don’t think I’ve spent as much time at altitude as normal.

I had also replaced several worn out parts on my bike plus switched to new tires so I wanted to give them a try on the Leadville 100 course. I rode most of what I wanted to see of the Leadville 100 course when I was there a couple weeks ago but I didn’t ride Powerline. Since I’ve been sick and didn’t want to push it, I had my wife drop me off at Carter Summit. I rode from there around the back side of Turquoise Lake, up Sugarloaf, down Powerline and over to the Fish Hatchery.

Just after I hit the pavement after Powerline, I saw Lance Armstrong, Jeremy Horgan-Kobelski and someone else I didn’t recognize coming toward me. I looked back and saw they stopped at some vehicles so I turned around. Lance was friendly and let me take a photo with him. He said this week was really busy for him so he would decide this week for sure whether he’s racing. He also said it’s been a while since he’s been fast. JHK said it was a really tough course but it sounded like he’ll be bringing his A game.

Since it was Boom Days in Leadville we checked it out. It seemed to be mainly booths selling trinket stuff but there were some mining competitions. I would liked to have seen them doing the rock drilling but when we were there they were just seeing how fast someone could fill an ore cart with gravel.

Sunday morning was the burro races. We didn’t stick around for them to come back to town. They had a few burros that they were letting people race for about a block and back. My girls wanted to do it. The 5 year old was very disappointed because they wouldn’t let her do it because she just had flip flops. They let my 7 year old do it but I had to do it with her. Normally I avoid running but it was fun pulling a burro down the street and we won our group.

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– UltraRob

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2010 Leadville Mountain Bike Winter Snow Races

December 18th, 2009

Snow racing will return to Leadville this winter with 3 races in the series. This year 2 of them will be night races. The series is a great way to try out snow racing to see if you want a bigger snow adventure like the Susitna 100 or Iditarod Invitational.

The only snow racing I’ve done was a dual slalom at A-Basin many years ago. Talk about craziness! I want to give one of the cross-country races a try.

Leadville Winter Mountain Bike Series Schedule

East Side Epic – Saturday, January 23 at 10:00am
Tennessee Pass Night Jam – Saturday, February 20 at 7:00pm
Mineral Belt Mayhem – Saturday, March 6 at 7:00pm

For some photos from last year check out Chris Plesko’s race #2 and race #3 reports. His wife, Marni, also raced and your can read her race #1 report here.

For more info on the races see the Cloud City Wheelers Event page or the
Facebook page for the series.

– UltraRob

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Elevation Profile from Mark Wallace

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Silver Rush 50 for Training

July 24th, 2009

Tomorrow I’ll be doing the Silver Rush 50 mountain bike race in a desperate attempt to get some fitness for the Leadville 100. The Leadville 100 is only 3 weeks away and I’ve barely trained for it.

50 miles with 8,000 feet of climbing will hurt with my lack of fitness. No, it’ll REALLY hurt but it should give my fitness a big jump. I’m guessing it’ll take me a little over 6 hours.

Check twitter late in the afternoon to see how it went.

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2009 Leadville Winter Mountain Bike Series

December 30th, 2008

Update 12/18/09: 2010 Leadville Winter Mountain Bike Series.

Update: Check out race reports for the EastSide Epic from Chris and Marni.

Once again there will be a Winter Mountain Bike Race Series in Leadville this winter. There are 5 races in the series. The first race is on January 17th.

New this year will be a series champion. You must compete in at least 3 of the 5 races to be qualified. Top three finishes wins a Karate Monkey Frame!

Although some racers have nice snow bikes like the Surly Pugsley, a special snow bike isn’t necessary. You can use your regular mountain bike with as wide of tires as will fit in the frame. Run low pressure in the tires. If the tires are wide enough, you may be able to run as low as 5 psi.

2009 Leadville Winter Mountain Bike Series Schedule

The EastSide Epic – January 17th
Tennessee Pass Night Jam – February 7th
Golf Course Chaos – February 21st
Mineral Belt Mayhem – March 7th
Tennessee Pass Spring Fling- March 28th

Find more information on the series at Cloud City Wheelers.

Other Snow Bike Races Including Ones Much Tougher

Arrowhead Ultra – MN – February 2
The Frozen Hog – UT – February 7
VaMoose 25 XC Winter Race – AK – February 8
Susitna 100 (100 miles or 50k) – AK – February 14
Iditarod Trail Invitational (350 or 1100 miles) – AK – March 1
Moose Drewl XC Winter Race – AK – March 8

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Snow Biking

February 11th, 2008

Courtesy Chris Plesko

Reminder: Today and tomorrow (Feb. 11th & 12th) you can help Jill for the Iditarod Trail Invitational race by using the cycling and outdoor gear search to buy gear. Click here for more info.

Although the Alaskans and the Minnesotans may have the long snow bike races, we also have snow bike racing. Saturday night was the 2nd race in the Leadville Snow Bike Series.

Congratulations to Chris Plesko for winning! Dave Nice also had a good race. Chris has a good race report and so does Dave.

Last Friday our local paper, The Gazette, had a good write up of the first race. It mentions Chris, who got 2nd in that race. It also had a picture of Dave in the print version but it’s missing from the online version.

I keep thinking a should give snow bike racing a try. I used to ride all the time in the snow down here. It’s a lot different here than what they’re racing on up in the mountains.

I haven’t been fit enough the last 2 winters to not be worried about injury myself. The winter before that I was focused on training for the Race Across America and I didn’t want to spend the time to figure a bike set up out. I should make it a goal to do do the series next year. I think it would be a lot of fun and give me motivation to train.

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