Breck Epic 2015 - Breckenridge, CO 9600 ft. in elevation

Breck Epic 2015 - Breckenridge, CO 9600 ft. in elevation

Stage 5: Wheeler - time trial start (awesome) - 22.8 miles and 5,139 ft of elevation. 

What is so cool about a parking lot photo? This captures the moment where the "pump up" magic happens.  Dax and I have gotten into the routine of parking in the "F" lot, queuing up our favorite songs,  "Move Bitch" - Ludacris (thanks Nate Bird) and "My Band" - D-12 to get us fired up for the race.  Nothing like listening to Ludacris while putting on chamois butter and a heart rate monitor.  This spot is also conveniently located by the river access that we promptly visit after each stage.  

Time trial start today…groups of 10 sent off every minute.  Brilliant. 

You know how most people overuse or misuse the word EPIC?… I would have to argue that Breck Epic does neither and is absolutely deserving and defining of the word epic.  In fact I had to look it up on urban dictionary and add what I found to my post because it is hilarious: 

TOP DEFINITION

   

epic 

the most overused word ever, next to fail. for even more asshole points, use them together to form "epic fail." 
everything is epic now. epic car. epic haircut. epic movie. epic album. epic shut the fuck up. 
saying "epic win" doesn't make you sound any better, either. and for fucks sake, don't ever say it in person.

 Every day I say, "now that ride was more epic than yesterday".  But truly today was quite possibly one of the most epic days I have ever had on a mountain bike, in a really great way.  It was my favorite stage of the entire week.  We started off climbing and continued to climb for a large chunk of the morning, relentlessly.  But we did not just climb in granny gear…there were extended mandatory "hike-a-bike" sections.  We ended up at the top of peak five, after summiting Wheeler pass, on the Colorado trail surrounded by the most pristine wilderness, snow patches, and Ffej (the one man show today) who had gotten up with us this morning to ride up to the pass with oreos, cokes, and beers. That's a good friend.  Today made me seriously consider wanting to tackle the Colorado trail ride someday.  The scenery is stunning and I was feeling so lucky to be out there sharing this experience with my best friend.  A highlight of the week for me.  Literally felt like riding on top of the world!  I think at we peaked out at about 12.600 feet of elevation on the ride today.

Huge kudos to Ffej Knar (Jeff Rank), who has stepped up as not only our host, Vomit Hill doughnut provider, Top of peak 5 beer greeter (with lots of other goodies displayed in the photo).  We can not forget to also give a shout out to all the welcoming smiles at the top of Wheeler pass with Skittles (thanks Jonathan Davis with Elevated Legs) and bacon (thanks Devon and Daniel).  And of course our sweet support Ava (wife of Mike who is killing it in the 50+ division) who got snicker feeds into both Dax and my mouth while we rode past her. We were both impressed. It makes our day to see happy familiar faces out there everyday while we are suffering!  

One of my favorite shots from Ffej of our friend Nick Gould, who was also up in Canada at Singletrack 6.  It was truly an experience of a lifetime today!

And the long awaited and well earned downhill.  Coach Massey giving me some tips before we begin the descent…this is not his first rodeo.

The descent was technical, demanding, amazingly scenic, fast, and most importantly upright! At least the majority of it was.  Fun factor ran high today as Dax and I let it rip on the downhill with some caution in mind.  Wheeler stage 5..biggest success no injuries.  Nemesis defeated for Dax Massey.  Two years ago he punctured a lung on this stage.  A year ago to date he dislocated his shoulder on this stage and today he stomped it. 

Every night we have awards and course descriptions.  I had to throw in a photo in honor of Mike McCormack (the race director) because he is so damn funny.  He has done a really great job of organizing the race and keeping it light hearted with comedy every eve.  

We came in second today by a about 45 seconds.  It was a time trial start so the 2nd place team started 3 minutes behind us today.  When we finished they came through the finish line about a couple minutes behind, but we weren't timing so we weren't sure who had won until awards tonight.  Despite letting the stage win slip through our fingers we were happy; we had such an adventure today, stopped for beer, laughed with each other, and finished injury free.  

We still maintain our blue leaders jersey with about a 30 minute lead overall.  Please send good energy for us in the final stage tomorrow.  We are looking forward to the 7th stage just as much…maybe a tad more than the 6th stage.