Crested Butte 40
The Crested Butte 40 (AKA the Wild Flower Rush) is a 40 mile MTB race on some of the finest singletrack CB has to offer! If you’ve never been to CB and are looking to pack in a day of ridding then consider this race! Covering trails such as Upper upper, Deer Creek and Strand Hill it certainly hit’s the highlights of what this amazing MTB town has to offer. With 40 miles to cover and over 6K feet of climbing this race does pack a punch and I learned my lesson last year about going out to hard. This year they modified the start and we did a few miles of road before entering the singletrack. This was a great call, it broke up the group of over 100 riders and let us all settle into our “own group” to hit the trails. Once on the trail the initial climb was 1K feet on a nice singletrack with stunning wild flowers going off everywhere. It really is hard to be miserable even while suffering at 10K ft with views like this!
The race continued along entering Upper Upper which is an amazing ride looking down into the Town of Crested Butte. It alternated between heavily forested and technical sections (rocks and roots) and wide open ribbons on buttery singletrack. Eventually we dropped down to Brush Ck road and continued on to cover Strand Hill and Deer Ck. Along the way we hit some pretty decent creek crossings.
And topped out at as loft 10,600ft.
Once on Deer Ck trail it’s time to start heading back towards Crested Butte Resort and the Start/Finish line. Deer Ck is a wonderful trail with a mix of miserable hike a bike and smooth rippin single track. It eventually drops you out in the town of Gothic and then we ride the road back into CB mountain resort. Two times on the route ( this road being one of them) a guy popped up on the road offering ice cold cans of Coke! I can’t tell you what a boost that was. A nice sugary hit was just what I needed at this point because rather than cruising right into the resort to a waiting family and crowd they instead route us back up the mountain one more time! This final time was quite the grind for me and more of a mental test than physical. Once on top it’s a ripper run back down to the bottom and life was good.
I can not recommend this race enough to anyone. Very well organized, incredible scenery and wonderful people. Here are some more pic’s from the weekend including the 24hr cruiser race in Downtown.
In the tent race morning
CB Mtn resort
Now that's a Big Wheel!
Yup, wow!
More fun stuff
