SIt had to be 2010 because I’m almost positive I was training for my 60th birthday ride. I got an email from a woman who wanted to join us for a ride at Growlers. She had qualified for Leadville and was trying to amp up to get ready.
I didn’t know much about Leadville, so I did some reading. Leadville allocates spots to (a) top performers at seven qualifying events and (b) to random draws from among those who finished those seven events prior to the cut-off time. The race draws more than 1,500 riders each year, with a course consisting almost exclusively of gravel and dirt roads and featuring 11,000 vicious feet of climbing.
It was cool that she wanted to come to Growlers. What bothered me was that she was very condescending about it. These weren’t her words but it came across like this: Yeah, I’m looking for a light ride and thought I might come out to sample your little trail system.
On the day she showed up, the usual crew was there - Dave, Lance Brigman, Rob Larsen, Jack Berry, Mike Van Hoose, Ryan McMaster. They were a stellar group.
If you were around when the original Big Wow was in play, you remember that you quickly hit a narrow cedar bridge that spanned a dip. The “bridge” was a rotten cedar slab about six inches wide. It wasn’t very high off the ground, but it moved when you hit it and always seemed dicey. After that you rolled up to a drop with a nasty right to left corner at the bottom. And from there, it just kept railing.
Dave volunteered to sweep, so Leadville Girl was right in front of him. She ate shit when she hit the bridge, tatered herself when she didn’t make the corner at the bottom of the drop, and wrecked several more times on the way down.
In typical Growlers fashion, the rest of us didn’t wait for her and Dave when we got to the bottom. We figured she would be biting our wheels as soon as we started climbing the Ridge Trail, so we cranked hard back to the gravel.
She was wearing dirt on a good portion of her body by the time Dave nursed her to the top. She didn’t say a word. She just turned left and pedaled toward her car.
Apparently, Growlers was not a good place to train for Leadville.