RMCC Challenge Series 2010 Consolidated Results

The 2010 Colorado Death Ride was staged on Sunday July 4th, which is 225 miles in length with 16,000 feet of climbing.  Congratulations to overall and men’s first to finish Mark Lowe(12h 47min) and women’s 1st to finish and second overall Andrea Koenig (14h 14min).  Also congratulations to all eight entrants and the seven finishers who rode and persevered in doing this the hardest RMCC one day event!

This was the second running of this ride that the RMCC has staged with the Ridgway start and the clockwise direction.  This format has provent to work very well.  Initially we had some concerns with crossing Red Mountain Pass in the dark, but these proved to be a non-issue thus far.  The riders traversed this route between Ouray and Silverton in the time frame between 2 and 4 in the morning and encountered only two vehicles in this entire distance!  The biggest advantage to riding the clockwise direction has been that the prevailing winds are more favorable than the other direction and the climb up the narrow, busy road from Placerville to Telluride is avoided.

This year the temperatures were much colder than last year and all riders got very chilly descending Red Mountain Pass into Silverton where the temperature was as freezing.  Riders were happy that we had the support vehicles that they could warm up in! 

As dawn broke the climbs up Molass and Coal Bank warmed everybody up, but the long decent into Durango was still chilly.  Most riders arrived at the Durango control between 7:30 and 8:00 having already done 7000 feet in 81 miles!

Light winds greeted the riders on their 46 mile and westerly traverse to Dolores (3000 feet of climbing).  There was a nice tail wind up the Dolores valley to the control at Rico and on to the top of Lizzard Head Pass.  This makes for a good start to the last 100 miles from Dolores to the finish (6000 more feet of climing).  The tailwind kept up giving the riders got a real boost as they turned East at Placerville to make the final climb up Dallas Divide.

Three new riders (Cathy Cramer, Brian Hart and David Hackett) joined the event this year after qualifying using the Aspen ride for two of them and the 300k for the other.  The other five were repeats, or as one person said “crazy.”  All riders finished before 8PM which made for a solid group performance.  There were many proud, satisfied and relieved faces at the finish!  There is reason we call it the Death Ride!

Congratulations to all of you again!

Special thanks to Charlie Henderson and Jim Kraychy for providing the support for this event!

The 2010 Joe Lookingbill Denver-Aspen Classic was staged on Saturday June 19 (180 miles and 13000 vert. feet) after being delayed from June 12 because of a weekend of rain, snow, and cold temperatures.

Congratulations to overall and Men’s 1st to finish Jeff VanDeRlinden and Diane Benoit 2nd overall and women’s 1st to finish.  Also congratulations to all 10 entrants (25 had originally entered for the June 12 date making this potentially the largest field in many years) for doing RMCC’s oldest event on a beautiful sunny day that had very challenging head winds.

Eight out of the ten Aspen entrants were 1st timers and seven finished.  The eighth made it to the top of Independence Pass but was past the cut off time to desend safely.

This year’s ride started at the Ken Caryl park-n-ride to insure secure overnight parking making the course about 6 miles shorter at 180.1 miles.  In the first 50 miles the course climbs almost 7000 feet making for a difficult start.  The conditions were calm but with cold temperatures in the mid to low 40s.  At Kenosha Pass things changed--a strong head wind greeted the riders and this would continue for the next 57 miles making this portion of the ride very difficult and challenging (physically and mentally)!

Some riders showed the stress from this as they road into the Buena Vista check point.  Not to get some breaks across South Park after the first 50 miles of constant climbing consumes extra energy that is needed for the climb over Independence.  Congratulations to all 10riders for fighting through this.  Nine went on to finish and the tenth (Pam Zaske) made the top of Independence.

good job by all!