New course finalized for Leadville 100 qualifier

Between 300 and 400 riders
expected

The Alpine Odyssey, Crested Butte’s Leadville 100 Qualifier, has an official route. For a race announced in early spring, this might seem a little late. But organizers were thrown for a loop when U.S. Energy opted not to allow the original course pass over mine property on Kebler Pass, and plans to reroute on Snodgrass were hindered by the inability to secure private landowner approval.

 
But a new course has been secured, and organizers appeared before the Board of County Commissioners last Tuesday to bring them up to speed.
“We think this is the be-all and end-all,” said Dave Ochs, race director.
The race starts in Mt. Crested Butte at 6:30 a.m. on Sunday, July 31, with a rolling start down Gothic into the town Crested Butte for a tour down Elk Avenue. From there, riders will head back up Gothic and up Slate River Valley to Paradise Divide and drop down the other side to Gothic Road, returning to Crested Butte Mountain Resort (CBMR).
Racers will follow CBMR’s Meander and Columbine trails to complete the first lap. If they complete that lap by 10:15 a.m. they will continue out Washington Gulch, over Paradise Divide, and back down Gothic Road to finish in Mt. Crested Butte.
Dave Wiens, technical director of all three Leadville 100 qualifiers, suggested that the new course is better suited to a new race. He also suggested that the 300 to 400 anticipated riders will be easier to manage than the originally anticipated 1,000 participants.
“I think we’re gonna start three to four hundred, which for the first year is better than a thousand. If we have to we will, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen,” Wiens said. “[Lake Placid] was much smaller than they expected… the Lake Placid organizing committee was glad the race was smaller because they had issues with their course as well.”
About 200 riders have registered for the Crested Butte race so far, but Crested Butte has a contract to host the race for three years and organizers hope it will grow over time.
“I want to learn as much as we can from the process this year so it’s smoother next year, and we can minimize road closure times,” commissioner Phil Chamberland said.
“The balance is, what’s the economic impact… if it increases in the next years then the economic impact outweighs all the work that has to go into this,” Chamberland continued.
While the race will result in the temporary closure of several roads, details need to be finalized. The hope is to keep roads open to shuttles, emergency services and homeowners. The commissioners and county staff urged the organizers to finalize as many details as possible before they appear before the commissioners again on Tuesday, July 5, including a road closure and signing plan to post road closures at least a week in advance as well as a plan for camping for race participants. There, at least, organizers might be catching a break.
“These are not mountain bikers, they’re a whole new category of bikers, and these are hotel people,” Wiens said. “As much as we saw in New York, this was the participants’ first time to race a bike in the dirt. They’re older, more affluent and not into camping. They bring their families and friends but will draw no spectators. In New York it was the competitors and their families.”