Aaron Huckstep takes second place in the Vapor Trail 125

“It’s like the Grand Traverse of the summer”

Brick Oven/Crested Butte Builders (BO/CBB) riders are just hitting their stride on the bike racing scene with a couple posting top results in the Vapor Trail 125 last weekend.
BO/CBB athlete and the future mayor of Crested Butte Aaron Huckstep led the charge for the local men taking second place.
Huckstep proved he’s more than just a bike race organizer and aspiring mayor as he covered the 125-mile course in a time of 15 hours, 11 minutes.
On the women’s side of things, Team Alpine Orthopaedics athlete Eszter Horanyi won the women’s race for the third year in a row.
It was Huckstep’s third time at the event. He took third place in a weather-shortened race in 2009 and then completely unraveled during the race in 2010.
“I completely blew up at the bottom of Canyon Creek,” says Huckstep. “I froze my hand with my CO2 gun, broke all of my tire levers. I had a brain meltdown.”
While Huckstep typically logs hundreds of miles on his bike in the spring and summer, work and his efforts organizing bike races this summer altered his summer training plan.
“I put maybe half of the miles on my legs this summer,” says Huckstep. “Nothing anyone could call training. I did a bunch of 16-ounce curls at the bar. Apparently, the carbo-loading all summer helped.”
That, and an entirely new set up for this year’s race including borrowing a top of the line bike for the race.
“I had to get my act together,” explains Huckstep. “I had a totally different bike and a totally different light set up. It was totally night and day.”
The course is long, 125 miles long. The course is hard hard, 20,000 vertical feet of climbing hard. And a majority of the course is high, between 9,000 and 13,000 feet high.
Forty-nine riders lined up in downtown Salida for the start of this years Vapor Trail 125 at 10 p.m. Saturday night. Throngs of bar patrons peeled themselves off their barstools to amble out onto the street and see them off on their epic overnight quest.
“It’s such a cool vibe,” explains Huckstep. “It’s like the Grand Traverse of the summer. You know all of the people that come out to the start of the Grand Traverse, it’s just like that but they’re coming out of the bars to cheer you on.”
With a $10,000 bike under him and a summer’s worth of bar time training, Huckstep headed into the night unsure of what lay ahead.
“I wasn’t really sure what to expect,” says Huckstep. “It was the second time I’d ridden 100 miles all summer and I’ve never done the whole course. The biggest thing for me was getting out of Snow pine and up Old Monarch Pass. It’s a never-ending four-percent climb and you lose your mind.”
Huckstep picked a gear and stayed in it all the way up well aware of the big payoff later in the race.
“It’s so motivating knowing that you’re going to hit the Crest Trail and some sweet single track,” says Huckstep.
Huckstep kept plodding along grinding his way up out of Starvation Creek, another notoriously brutal climb, unaware of where he was in the pack.
“You lose track of time and you lose track of people out there,” explains Huckstep.
He finally found out when he rolled into the final aid station.
“I got to the final aid station and this dude’s like, ‘you’re killing it. You’re in second place’,” says Huckstep. “That was good.”
Huckstep sealed his place on the final stretch to roll across the finish line at 1:11 p.m. Sunday.
“I had zero mechanicals and zero physical problems,” says Huckstep. “I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect race. I must be moving out of my inner ear phase.”
BO/CBB rider Dan Loftus completed his first Vapor Trail 125 in a time of 15 hours and 47 minutes to take fourth place and Jarral Ryter joined them in the top 10 with a time of 16 hours, 32 minutes to take eighth place.
Horanyi came into the race fresh off a bike tour of Ireland and a fifth place finish at the single speed world championships.
While she had little challenge from the other women riders, she did suffer a bit with the altitude.
“I had been back at altitude for just four days,” says Horanyi. “When we were hiking at 13,000 feet up granite Peak I was feeling it. Turns out sea level to 13,000 feet will hurt.”
Furthermore, with her geared bike still hammered from her Colorado Trail Race effort, she turned to her trusty one speed for the Vapor Trail.  
“I rode it on a single speed this year which was maybe not the best life choice but I survived,” says Horanyi.
Despite the altitude and lack of gearing, Horanyi finished the race close to two hours faster than last year with a time of 18 hours, 27 minutes.
“All I wanted to do was finish the thing,” says Horanyi. “To finish it in a decent time was great.”