There's more to the Leadville 100 than wanting a new bike!

This story began long before I watched the documentary, "Race Across the Sky", which chronicled last summers' epic mountain bike race in the Colorado Rockies. Yes, I was more than excited to see Lance Armstorng and Dave Wiens (6 time race winner) duke it out on the trails. I was more than moved by the various touching stories of perseverance and personal tragedy that your average cycling guy and gal endured to train and then accomplish this feat. 100 miles, 15,000 feet of climbing, all in the rarified air between the altitudes of 10,000-12,570 feet! I was absolutely motivated by the persona and slogan of race co-founder-Ken Chlouber, who said "Dig Deep" to anyone who dares to ride this.

Going back to the early 90's, my friend and co-worker, Rick, and I would hit the trails around San Diego County, honing our skills on simple and then progressively more challenging single track trails. "No Dabs!" was our motto as we challenged each other to make it up a technical trail without steping off the bike (falling is more like it). I was usually the guy who would resort to throwing my bike off the trail if I failed (on the fifth try) to negotiate a particularly tough section. Years went on, many rides (some in Mammoth, once in Moab) ridden, memories of great rides together.

Then, as often happens through time, we moved our seperate ways. Rick took a different job, I became a "roadie" (blogger note: for those not in the "know" of this jargon...a roadie is one who rides a bike on paved streets vs. the dirt of the mountains, wears lycra clothes with lots of logo's, cleans his bike all too often, stops at Starbuck's, acts way too cool...you get the picture!) and my GT LTS-1 became somewhat of a relic. Every now and then Rick and I would get together and lament on how we used to ride together and how we should start riding again. Then he remembered the bike I had and just shook his head; "Dude, you need a new bike!", he would say. I agreed but made an excuse that I didn't have the money or I loved road riding or something that kept us from having those times together. It had been almost 10 years since those great days we rode.

Then, once, when in Mammoth Lakes, a few years back with my family, I took that old brushed aluminum frame up to the trail head. The local bike mechanic looked at my old yellow Judy forks and, bent over laughing, he said he hadn't seen anything like that bike in ages. A relic, for sure! Unfeathered, I knew I could ride and I would show the mountain what I could do. That was until the first bump I took on the trail. The now completely-dead Rock Shocks slammed metal on metal with each bumpy impact. I then immediately got a pinch flat. It was so long when I last rode this bike that the tire repair kit was too old and I couldn't repair my flat. Heck, I didn't even have a pump with me. I was never so disorganized on a ride. I was SO OUT OF IT. I had to walk the bike down the mountain about a mile, then hitch a ride back to the base. Embarrased and "dishonored", I approached the mechanic I saw earlier and said my bike was officially dead and I needed to rent a bike. First time for everything. It was a Yeti (nice rentals!) and it had all the latest technology on it- Disc brakes, top of the line suspensions, fine tuned forks...I went from an old BMW 2002 to a new M3 and it rode like nothing I had been on before.

It was then that I knew I wanted to ride trails again and that I needed a new bike. Ah, but the money needed. What was I to do? Kids in college, bills to pay, life in San Diego isn't cheap. Then 2009 and the economy went in the crapper. No way then for a new bike....until the movie "Race Across the Sky" came!

I took my wife, Beth, to the debut of the movie that one solo showing time in mid-October. She has always supported my passion for cycling, although it surely has tested her patience at times. It's not the bike that tests her, its me. I get it now. More on that a different time. But you got to give her big props for going with me to see that movie. For most of the patrons that one night were all cycling geeks. Many came in lycra shorts and jersey's, their cars with bike racks in the lot. Some rode their bikes in the night. All shared cycling stories in the lobby. That's what we do when we congregate. So, my dear wife put up with all of this. (blogger note: No! I wore normal street clothes to this affair...no SDBC kit clothes that night!). The documentary was great, not only in cycling terms, but in human drama. I didn't see it up there with "Food Inc" or "The Cove" at this years Academy Awards, but it sure did deliver for me. All through the movie I pictured myself on those trails, slugging it up the mountain, crashing through the river streams, trying my best to make it under the time limits. Having a chance meeting with Lance, or Dave Wiens, or Tinker Juarez. That would be a great time.

Then I did it...I made up my mind to enter the race. I joked in that kind of "I don't mean it but I really do mean it" sort of a way when I told Beth that I planned to register for the race as an "excuse" to buy a new mountain bike. I felt it was an innocent enough gesture in that the riders for the Leadville 100 are selected by lottery. Thousands enter, only about 1400 get accepted, no rhyme-no reason. Its all chance and I didn't think I had a chance at all. So I figured there's no harm in entering. So I did just that, I entered and then waited for 3 months. I waited until the week of February 8th arrived...the week that the lottery selections were announced. You were to be notified by email if you got in. I will always remember the "moment" as it was while I sat with Beth watching "LOST". I had this nervous habit (more like an annoying habit if you asked Beth) of checking my emails on my crackberry during commercials (or at meals, or at the traffic light or on the lue....you get the picture...it's annoying as heck, I know. Actually, there's no known cure for this illness...I just hope it doesn't get passed down through generations). As I scrolled down my gmail account I saw the words "Congratulations from Leadville 100" as the title to the email. My heart raced and I quickly closed my phone, never actually reading the details in the email. I was afraid Beth would have seen it all and the episode of "LOST" would be ruined as a heavy discussion of "you are riding in WHAT?" ensued.

Later that night, I lay in bed thinking of what the implication of that email meant. Knowing what challenges in hours of training, changing diet habits, taking on new exercises, filling in the unknown questions of what this race will really be like and what it will take to successfully accomplish it....all these thoughts raced into my head. My biggest concern, though, was what will Beth say when I tell her. How can I gain her total support? I was going to need it not just on race day but, more importantly, in all the coming days-weeks-months ahead as I prepared and trained. Any cycling spouse knows that if you're married to a passionate cyclist, that while their heart and soul is dedicated to you (I hope!), their butt is on the saddle of that darn bike probably more than you'd like it to be. I tossed on the thought of how to break it to her for the next hour as I could not get to sleep.

Then this last thought crossed my mind: one of complete satisfaction and one of great but selfish motivation. The reason for entering the race was to have an excuse to get a new mountain bike. Thus enabling me to enter that bliss of grinding up challenging mountain trails and to fly freely though twisty trails dodging rocks, roots, or cactie, of hopping over snakes and splashing through creeks. Taking in vistas and high-fiving my friends as we made it up a technical climb. I was in the freaking LEADVILLE 100 and I now had my excuse to buy that bike. So a smile crept onto my face as I thought about it all and how great it was going to be. Yet, that last thought went quickly back to that unresolved issue....how was I going to break this to Beth? Oh man...complications of life shared. Sleep on it, Todd, you'll figure it out. You're getting that bike was my last image as I fell asleep...