The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
CB4P, Pole, Pedal, Paddle, Pneumonia
Weather may have scared some lesser men and women away but 37 intrepid athletes/lunatics still showed up Sunday, April 27 to partake in the second annual CB3P, Pole, Pedal, Paddle.
There’s no question that a nicer day would have brought out athletes of all walks of life for the race, but it didn’t really matter as some key heavy hitters made the effort, as well as a host of race rookies.
With winter weather settling into the Gunnison Valley for this year’s race, Jason Stubbe renamed it the CB4P, Pole, Pedal, Paddle, Pneumonia. Wind and snow peppered racers during the bike ride and paddle section. At one point in the Almont area bikers were treated to white-out conditions with a serious crosswind blasting them from the west.
Race organizer/director Tiff Simpson and Elk Mountain Events were on hand to ensure race success no matter what Mother Nature threw at the athletes.
Team Green was back to defend its title with Billy Laird on skis, Brian Smith on the bike and Milo Wynne in a sleeked-out plastic river racer.
But they had their hands full as a new conglomeration dubbed Gunnison Valley Special Needs stepped up Sunday to put the wood to them. Heavily decorated skimo racer Bryan Wickenhauser opened the challenge on skis, dropping the field and giving his team close to a two-minute buffer for the bike portion before tagging off to David Gross.
Gross hopped on his time trial bike fully aerodynamic and kept the pedals churning, covering the 27-mile road ride, complete with squalls and sunny skies, in a time of 55 minutes, actually adding 47 seconds to the Special Needs lead.
“He had the split of the day,” said teammate Wickenhauser.
The race to the men’s team title would come down to the seven-mile paddle section on a thumping Gunnison River. Last year the flow was sitting at 300 cubic feet per second (cfs) on race day. This year it was up around 2,000 cfs.
Tyler Richardson jumped into his kayak for Team Gunnison Valley Special Needs and headed down river with a three-minute lead but Milo Wynne was determined to reel him in once he was in the water. Wynne’s sheer determination and his choice of kayak ended up making all the difference as he managed to catch Richardson and slip into the finish line 16 seconds ahead for the win and repeat Team Green title
“I needed someone to chase,” said Wynne. “I needed someone in the crosshairs.”
The women’s team race was over by the time the ski was done as Stevie Kremer gave Team Off Like A Prom Dress a 34-minute lead when she tagged off to Dawn Howe. Howe did her job with the fastest women’s bike split and Heather Woodward sealed the win in her kayak.
Meanwhile, Mike Preston was in the midst of total solo male domination. Preston posted the third fastest split on skis of all athletes, fourth fastest spilt on his bike (despite throwing a shoe as he rode off and putting it on while still riding) and then after getting in his duckie backwards, he turned around and paddled his way to the men’s solo title just barely holding off Allen Hadley in second place.
Sarah Stubbe made the most of her three-sport prowess in the women’s solo race building a four-minute lead on skis, adding 11 minutes on her bike and then paddling to the title with the third fastest paddle split of all women, solo and team.
As racers continued to come into the finish the first major feature of the Gunnison Whitewater Park did wreak some havoc on paddlers causing a handful of racers at the back of the pack to swim the final 200 yards to the finish line. Fortunately, race organizer Simpson was on hand in her kayak at the feature to make sure everyone crossed the finish safely, despite a slightly lower core body temperature than comfortable, with gear intact.
In the end, all turned out fine with just one DNF on the day and not a single case of pneumonia, at least not yet. Athletes emerged cold for sure with some of them barely able to make the walk from the water to the finish, but they did and were treated to a nice hot meal, a cold beer and occasional blasts of sunshine on the shores of the Gunnison River.
