Inagural Caribou Classic complete

Heyride on the top of the north Sourdough Trail, heading back west towards the Indian Peaks Wilderness.

A horrible picture of an amazing start/finish area on Caribou Ranch at dusk.  The start of the race saw the lead pack almost get taken out by 50 cow elk.  This place is an elk sanctuary.

Yesterday was the 1st annual Caribou Classic and Sufferfest.  I have a feeling one day this is going to be a pretty large event.  The owners of Caribou Ranch, and the production company they are working with, are gunning for it to be the end-of-season Sea Otter Classic.  We shall see if that's possible, but it's pretty wild that's their goal. 

Other than the 4x4 road and some old mining camps, this place has spots that look pretty pristine.

I was involved at the start up by helping design the course and create the maps to get permits and for riders not to get lost.  I offered to help "sweep" the course with Heyride, and the Pilot and Promoter joined along.

 The southern part of the course took riders from Caribou Ranch around a 4 mile "parade" loop and then south through the town of Nederland.  Right through old-town, up to the High School and left on the newly renovated Sugar Mag trail. From there, there was about 10 miles of the best singletrack Nederland has to offer, before returning back to the High School and heading up to the "505" through the town of Eldora.  Heyride and I flagged the hell out of the West Mag trails but people still got lost somehow.  (No, they likely didn't look at the provided laminated map and step-by-step directions...but oh well! All part of the adventure.)

Heyride and I start out to sweep the 24 mile northern portion of the ride, FS road 505 heading north from Caribou Flat at 10,200ft. In winter, we backcountry ski just to behind those two big spruce trees on the left (Ptarmagin hill we call it).

Promoter on the left on the upper reaches of the Sourdough and Heyride on the right on one of the bridges armoring the trail completed by local trail volunteers

Hunter - the Silverback on the ride (oldest rider to ride the longest-by far) - bloodied but unbowed, continues on down the S. St. Vrain Trail

The course had two options - the southern loop was called the "Caribou Classic" (37 miles) and a split at mile 27 to the northern portion of the course which is called 'the Sufferfest" route (50 miles) by BMA - the Boulder Mountain Bike Alliance - who puts on the event each year for their members.  The split in courses occurred at the old Caribou Townsite at around 10,200ft elevation and hits some of the more rugged singletrack of this area - it's fun, but it's super technical up and down, and over time beats you down.  The local joke is, "Oh yeah! THAT'S why we only ride that once a year!"

It took us about 5 hours to sweep this section.  One woman took a wrong turn and went UP South St. Vrain Trail instead of down and ended up at the Wilderness Area boundary a few hours later...total bummer for her. It had us a bit worried that we'd be looking for her in the dark, but she turned up at the aid station in good spirits.  The eldest rider of the day, Hunter, kicked serious ass on the ride but had to bail out early because of a rock to the nose.  South St.Vrain trail is really quite technical, especially after having ridden 30+ miles at high elevation.  He did an endo to face on a large boulder and I have never seen a nose look that bad...it was crazy.

We all got back to Caribou Ranch for the MUCH needed free Oskar Blues beer and food just before sunset.  Most riders had completed the shorter Classic route by 2 or 3pm and had been partying for several hours by the time we got there at dusk.  It was a good turnout of around 120 riders and I can only think it'll grow from here on out.  Some BMA members camped across the street on an old football field (literally, it was the decades old high school field before they made a new one) probably freezing their balls off in the sub 30 degree temps overnight...but that sounded like an awesome way to finish of the day. 

Thanks to everyone who got this event up and running in such a short time and I hope everyone had a blast! Hope to see you next year.

For the Mountain Flyer article by Shawn Lortie and some more photos click HERE.