It was an exciting race. 1000 cyclists started the race at 6:30 am in “downtown” Leadville. It was barely dawn when they headed out. We first caught them near the top of Hagerman Road where they exited the trail to cross a road.
Lance Armstrong was with a small group that came through first and included Dave Weins.
There were rumors that he’d been training around Aspen the past couple of weeks and had ridden the course several times in training.
The old Columbine Mine was the 50 mile turnaround point at 12,600 feet.
It was nearly an hour and a half later when they came back down and headed across the meadow towards Twin Lakes.
Lance and Dave had dropped everyone else. They stayed together nearly all the way to the finish until Lance crashed (but wasn’t hurt) on the last descent.
The fans waiting at the finish were expecting the two of them to come up the hill together, but Dave Weins came up alone, and won the stage with a tire that flatted on the way up. Lance finished second, barely two minutes behind.
He helped push Dave harder than he’d ever gone, including riding up the steep Powerline climb where he’d always walked his bike up before. He beat his own record by 13 minutes and has now won the race six times. Dave lives at altitude and has been a great mountain biker for a long time. For Lance to do this well at this altitude is pretty incredible.
Leadville is a cool old mining town from the days of the gold rush. Ken Chlouber, race coordinator, said this is the biggest thing that’s happened in Leadville since they discovered gold there. Lance enjoyed the race enough that he’s hoping to come back and race it again.
It was supposed to be heavy rain, but fortunately the rain held off. Too bad the same couldn’t be said about the mosquitoes. In Colorado they’re rarely a problem, but today in the mountains they were huge and apparently really hungry.
The race was a big event for Leadville. Cyclists and fans came from all over the country, and possibly the world. The fans were great and the finish was almost like being at a mountain stage in the Tour. And it’s amazing all the people riding, even people on tandems doing a 100 mile mountain bike race
