Durangoan Will Bodewes arrived the Junction Creek trail head of the Colorado Trail with his head lamp barely illuminating the way at 10:36 p.m. on Thursday night to win this year’s Colorado Trail Race.
Bodewes won the 527-mile race in 4 days, 18 hours and 36 minutes.
The solo, self-supported bike-packing race began at 4 a.m. Sunday in Denver.
Bodewes was unable to break the record of 3 days and 19 hours like he had hoped, but he still finished almost 12 hours before his closest competitor.
“What I wanted to accomplish this year was to find my limits, and I feel like I did that this year,” Bodewes said, adding, “It was a brutal race.”
Bodewes said the conditions on the trail were worse this year that last, when he finished second in 4 days and 11 hours, and it had some washed-out sections. He also said it rained for at least two hours every day, and since the event started later in the year, there were about 40 minutes of less sunlight to ride in every day.
For the first two days of the race, he said there was a pretty good chase group pushing him. When they stopped to sleep in Buena Vista, however, Bodewes kept going.
“That’s when I really got ahead of them,” he said.
Bodewes also had to overcome mechanical issues. His chain broke because of an issue with his derailleur. He said he was fortunate to have a spare link so he was able to fix the chain, but it left him with only three gears for about a day.
The cable on his dropper post was a little short, he said, so he had to ride a little more cramped. And then his main light quit on the third night from the rain.
“That left me with only a headlamp so I had to go a lot slower on the downhills,” he said. When he finished the race, he said the head lamp was only about as bright as a phone screen, forcing him to ride a section that usually takes him 45 minutes in about two hours.
The race took a toll on his body as well, and he said his ankles are swollen to about twice their normal size, which made it hard for him to push his bike up the final climbs. And after the fork on his bike stopped rebounding, he said it made his wrists really sore.
Bodewes said he spent about 22 hours every day either riding or pushing his bike. The lack of sleep made him tired after the first night. By the second night, he said stumps started to look like people and he got paranoid. And by the third night, he said he started falling asleep while riding his bike.
“When you get to that point, it gets a little confusing,” he said.
Bodewes also went over his handle bars twice, but didn’t get injured in the crashes.
“I was fortunate to walk away from them,” he said.
Nutrition wise, he said he liked being able to drink his calories in Tailwind Nutrition mixed drinks this year. Because of stress, however, he said it became painful to eat.
“Some frozen breakfast burritos saved me,” he said. “They were just bland food I could eat without hurting my mouth.”
By the end of the race, however, Bodewes was forced to eat his emergency food – some olive oil he bought along the trail to lube his chain.
When asked if there any sections he enjoyed, Bodewes replied, “It was brutal the whole time.”
“By the last day, I just wanted to be done, get off the trail and relax a few minutes,” he said.
Still, with a big group of people following the race and commenting about it online, Bodewes said the most exciting part of winning the race was being in on the drama.
“It was fun to be in on the drama online and have people be excited about what I was doing,” he said.
Kevin Conerly of Brevard, North Carolina, finished second, at 10:15 a.m. Friday, in 5 days, 6 hours and 15 minutes. Kyle Peterson of Jackson, Wyoming, finished third in 5:10:12. Bryan Klahn of Palisade finished in 5:15:12 while Hannes Meyle of Zurich, Switzerland, crossed fifth in 5:15:44. Those were the only finishers as of press time Friday night.
Another Durangoan, Bill Talley, riding under the name “Billian Jornet,” was in 22nd place, having traveled 445.7 miles so far.
Thirty-four of the riders of the 74 who began the race had scratched.
“I really pushed myself to the limit,” Bodewes said.
People can track the remaining bikers at http://trackleaders.com/ctr22f.php.
