The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Scheefer takes fifth at Colorado State Championships
A band of Gunnison Valley riders returned to the Mountain States Cup mountain bike race series competing in the Blast the Mass at Snowmass, Friday through Sunday, August 7-9.
The hot topic at the event was the arrival of Lance Armstrong. Perhaps in an effort to get some trail miles in the saddle before his return to the Leadville 100 this weekend, Armstrong was on hand and in the saddle for the cross-country race.
The Blast the Mass cross-country race served as the cross-country Colorado State Championships bringing in the top riders from around the state including Brick Oven/Crested Butte Builders (BO/CBB) riders Travis Scheefer and Jeff Irwin.
Scheefer made the most of the opening four-mile climb up a cat road to pull into a lead pack headed by Armstrong. Eventually though, Armstrong made his move to blow the pack apart.
“As soon as the road flattened out he must have dropped the hammer,” says Scheefer. “He was nowhere to be seen.”
Scheefer moved into fourth place overall on the first lap but dropped a spot on the second lap and was left alone to drag himself back up the climb with no one around.
“I was just grinding it out trying to go as fast as I could,” says Scheefer.
Armstrong finished with the win as Scheefer came in 10 minutes back in fifth place.
“It was a tough course,” says Scheefer. “You always have to be on it.”
Irwin finished the race in 14th place, six and half minutes behind Scheefer.
Brian Riepe took the single speed title, BO/CBB rider Tim Curry finished in seventh place in the Cat 1 19-29 year old group and Monica Green won the Cat 2 age 30-39 class.
Local gravity racing team Crested Butte Mountain Sports Team (CBMST) took four riders to Snowmass to compete in the downhill and once again, team rider and coach Kain Leonard led the charge.
Leonard found a downhill track in Snowmass that was more in sync with his style.
“The track was wide open, fast and rough,” says Leonard. “It was a real race track. There was a section where we were pushing at least 50 miles per hour.”
Leonard emerged from the qualifying run in fifth place and held his spot on the final run.
“I was really happy with that,” says Leonard. “It felt good to get back into the top of the field.”
It just so happened that the Snowmass event was also the third stop of the USA Cycling Pro Gravity Tour. Leonard took third earlier this season at another USA Cycling event and is now first in the overall points for the tour.
Colin Pickett of the CBMST breached the top 10 in Cat 1 15-18 year-olds with a ninth-place finish, while teammate Teo Bradbury, of the famed Bradbury mountain bike lineage, tore up the course (passing two riders who started more than 30 seconds before him) to finish third in the junior men class ages 13-14.
“It’s really fun having Teo on board,” says Leonard. “He’s going to pin it.”
Luke Cutler rounded out the CBMST finishing 26th in Cat 2 ages 15-18.
“We had a good showing this weekend,” says Leonard.
Unaffiliated Crested Butte rider Ryan Harter smoked his field to take first place in Cat 2 ages 19-29 and last but certainly not least the Crested Butte Monkey Posse (CBMP) was in effect again, posting some of their best results of the season thus far.
Posse rider Matty Robb cracked the top 10 for the first time this year with an eighth-place finish in Cat 1 ages 30-39 and CBMP member Joe Graham improved upon his second-place finish at the Wildflower Rush, winning the Cat 2 40+ age class in Snowmass.
The next stop on the Mountain States Cup series for cross-country riders will be the Copper Cup August 28-30, while the gravity fiends will head to Sol Vista for the Sol Survivor September 4-7.
