Photo Epic: High Country - EWS Crested Butte, Practice Day
Racing in Colorado is unlike any other challenge on the EWS circuit. In previous years the series has landed in Winter Park, which by European standards is pretty damned high. For this year the venue has changed to Crested Butte and added on a whole stack of extra metres of altitude - and that's just the town itself, with the Big Mountain Crew taking the racing out into the backcountry peaks riders are going to get up to around the 4,000m mark. To make things even tougher, during the race there is over 4,000m of climbing to tackle and some of the most physical stages we have seen in the EWS, which would be a challenge at sea level. Here in the thin air of the Colorado Rockies it is going to test the limits of riders right the way through the field.
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 Crested Butte is the original site of the mountain bike hall of fame and the mountain bike history museum, paying homage to the hard men who towards the end of the 1970s rode terrifying, dangerous bikes into the mountains in the name of fun. |
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| A wee bit of history here in Crested Butte: the Mountain Bike History museum. The roots of mountain biking run deep in this corner of Colorado. |
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| Ibis' Scot Nicol has a lot of love for this town, and blending in seamlessly as he grabs his breakfast bagels on his klunker. |
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| The riders pre race meeting took place under the unmistakable presence of Mt Crested Butte. |
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| While the climbs may be brutal, it's at least a pretty place to be suffering. |
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| The venue for the Crested Butte EWS lies not too terribly far from the location's namesake: Crested Butte. |
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| Oxygen in a can feels like pure heaven for Europeans coming from far closer to sea level. |
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| Out with the old and in with the new. Or rather, out with the 203 rotors and in with the 180s. Damian Oton's bike getting a downgrade from the Samoens EWS to something a bit more suitable for the more XC style of trails here in Crested Butte. |
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| Local flavor. |
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| Johnny Wenner is racing this weekend on his homebrew steel, Wenn 01 full-susser. He fabricated the bike himself and reckons that with the high pivot and idler pulley this 38lb machine will climb like a far lighter bike. |
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| Always a tactician, Nico is also utilizing a brush guard for his shifter/brake--the recent rains in Crested Butte have the trails virtually overgrown with wild flowers and grass. These simple guards allow Nico one less worry as he pins it through the alpine here in Colorado |
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| Nico Vouilloz appears to be rocking something a bit custom for this race. E:i Monarch plus with some one off linkage bits that appear to be fresh off the CNC machine. Evidently the linkage mimics the leverage curve of the 2016 Spicy. Nico's also rocking a 2016 Lyric dropped down to 160mm of travel. |
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| Dirty syringes, but the right type... SRAM pits bleed kits. They got worked today with riders clamouring for brake and dropper post TLC. |
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| Alpinestars takes care of their own: Jerome Clementz with the custom Crested Butte/USA Jersey with a bald eagle on the back and... |
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| ...and the stars and stripes on the front. |
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| Marco Osborne isn't opposed to a mechanic, he just likes to work on his own bike. |
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| It's not quite as bad as being the new guy in prison, but when you race for Santa Cruz or Juliana, when Allan Cooke calls you out for ping-pong in the pits, it's game on. Or else. AC takes his ping pong quite seriously. |
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| Iago Garay has a zebra skin fetish, evidently. I shudder to think of the collection he'd sport if Allan Cooke hadn't laid down the law early in the season. |
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| Daniel Wolfe surfing a different kind of green than he finds in Ireland: the aspen groves of Crested Butte |
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| The stages at the Crested Butte EWS race are all out there, away from town, and not easily accessible, necessitating a lot of shuttle vehicles. While the organizers provided shuttles, many teams decided to run their own. |
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| Rider safety is always a concern, and luckily today there were no injuries. Brenda was stationed at the bottom of stage 4 with her puppy all day, and luckily her day was uneventful. |
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| Today's practice was for stages 3 and 4 and the only way to the top was to ride up. Stage 3 was way up there, so most riders decided just to hike up stage 4. |
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| Camouflage, the only thing that really shows up in this shot is the orange helmet, the green kit just blends right in. |
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| Tracy Moseley ripping through a meadow full of wildflowers. |
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| Grin and bear it. Curtis Keene climbing a section of stage 4, nevermind the cracked ribs he suffered a week ago. |
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| 29ers seem to be the flavor for a number of riders, Alex Petitdemange on stage 4 practice. |
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| Not too far from home but well out of his elevation comfort zone: Nick Hardin from Hood River, OR cruising stage 4. Hardin lives at 160 feet above sea level. This section of trail is at well over 10,000 feet. That translates to about 70% of the O2 Hardin's used to. Ouch. |
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| Practice today consisted of riding (or pushing) up stage 4 and getting out of the way for riders who were already on track. Getting to the start of stage 4 was so much more arduous than pushing up that nearly every rider practising this stage opted to go bottom up vs riding stage 3 and then death marching to the top of stage 4. No, that pleasure is reserved for Day 2 of racing.... So instead, riders took the "short cut": pushing and riding for well over an hour from the bottom up. |
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| Anneke Beerten, charging. Most of the stages here in Crested Butte are above 10,000 feet, and Anneke comes from a country that is mostly below sea level. Think about that. |
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| Evidence of how much the elevation has changed the game here. Trails that are in no way too steep to ride up being hiked up. The air is just too bloody thin for anyone not acclimated to the elevation to ride. So racers who played the show up the day before the event and just suffer did exactly that. Push their bike and suffer. |
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| Mitch Ropelato was one of the few riders on course today that actually looked like he was having fun playing on his bike. That's pretty normal for Mitch though... |
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| A rider who shall remain nameless showing how to pinball stage 4 incorrectly. Highside correctly, yes. But pinball, no. Florian Nicolai owns the pinball. |
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| Florian Nicolai showing how to pinball on stage 4 the right way. |
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| The end of stage 4. This sign means you're done... |
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| Mary Moncorge flying through the flowers at the top of stage five. |
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| The views from the top of stage five, 403 are stunning. |
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| Noah Sears is riding the new BH bike here in Crested Butte, complete with MRP fork. |
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| The man to beat this weekend. Without a doubt one of the fittest men in all of mountain biking and more than comfortable with the fast, open tracks here in Colorado, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone betting against him this weekend. |
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| Curtis Keene has been training at altitude since Scotland trying to get his season back on track. With a race on home soil he's going to be hungry for the top spots this weekend. |
MENTIONS: @EnduroWorldSeries / @BigMtnEnduro / @meagerdude / @IanHylands
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dv42 0.054185
brahahahahahaha
[re-reads the caption]
brahahahahahaha
Check out this nifty link:
www.altitude.org/air_pressure.php
At 9,000 feet, which is where they are sleeping you are 73% of sea level oxygen. At 12,000 feet, which is close to the summit for these riders, you are at 65%. So yeah, they have some long days ahead of them.