At this point you’re likely wondering why I wasn’t carrying a spare tube, a patch kit, tools…anything of a repair-wielding nature. The answer’s easy: I’m a roadie. Duh. Plus, wasn’t this a Gran Fondo-like race? I imagined lasagna stops around every bend, much less some seriously stellar wheel support. Turns out I kept up the maligned roadie reputation of never being prepared, having a mechanical, and then whining about it later.

Jokes aside, once wheel-changed, I started off again down Nelson, down 36, and right onto Lefthand Canyon. Having long lost contact with the 100 and 50-mile groups, I started casually coming upon the 25-milers. I settled into a pace, popped an electrolyte tablet and began the long gradual climb towards Ward.

By contrast, I later learned that my friend and Team Rio Grande racer Allen Krughoff had launched an early attack on the 100-mile group in an attempt to soak up some video coverage from the helicopter overhead. He also explained how he was practically being impeded by support people – the Mavic neutral wheel car, a moto, a photographer, maybe a scantily clad woman or two cooling him off from out of a car window? All I know is that his early race experience was just a scoch different than mine. But then again, “that’s racing.”

Being a lumbering 6’3’’, 180 pounder and riding a not-so-mountain suited 11-23 cassette, I kept forcing myself to back off the pace knowing I would likely be in no man’s land (riding between groups) for the next 80 miles and would endure some legitimate suffering. But, like a chubby Andy Schleck, my “racer” mentality started creeping in and I began lifting the pace and passing people out of the saddle.

While not quite lasagna-around-every-bend, the organization and support behind Centurion Colorado was spectacular. It was a smokin’ hot day even with our early 7AM start and it felt like nearly every time I was running low on water there was a feed station like an oasis on the horizon. I tried to keep count of how many water and sports drink bottles I consumed and I think it was somewhere around five of each by end of day. You always hear pros talking about “staying on top” of their hydration and fuel during big stage races and with 9,000 feet of climbing and what turned out to be a 5.5 hour day on the bike, it was crucial that you ate and drank as much as you could stomach. The racecourse for the 100-milers was like a page out of the Tour De France – it had all the distance, beauty, demands, and heat that a typical stage in France, in July, has. Plus, like real Pro Tour racers, we were treated to many closed-road sections where, I imagine, the guys at the front of the race used to amble around and practice some seldom-used tactics.

Meanwhile, back in the middle of the race, the joyous nature of so many riders early in the day began to wear off. This was demonstrated most explicitly on the grades of “Super James,” or the section of road between Jamestown proper and Peak-To-Peak highway.

Panting, grunting, swearing.

This is what you would have heard on this section as we toiled to get over the 10%+ climbs and 9,000 ft. elevation…oh, and the heat! Once over the top though, I really felt my legs come around. I even caught on to a few strong riders who I was able to work with on the descent down St. Vrain Canyon and into Lyons. It’s a bit of a misnomer, the idea of “working” on a downhill but those of you who like to ride (and ride fast) know that even one other person trading pulls with you can make it that much faster, that much more efficient.

So at long last, we pulled into downtown Lyons, cruised for a bit down 66 and over to Bohn Park. And finally it was done. Cue the joyous feeling and endorphins I referred to earlier because it hit me like a freight train of grins and giggles. And, more importantly, cue that lasagna station I mentioned before because like an Italian bambino at the hem of his Grandma’s apron, I pounced on the Bacaro lasagna that was being dished up in the post-race expo. Add a couple Evol burritos, a Coke, something like five brownies, a banana, another Gatorade, more water, and my Centurion Colorado race was a wrap.

In true Tour De France fashion, I have to say “chapeau” to Centurion for an incredible day of cycling. I’ll be back next year…‘cause “that’s racing!”

The first person to pipe up was a particularly hairy little fellow with a nose ring who replied, “Who cares?”

Which certainly wasn’t the answer I was looking for. And which left me a little stunned at the hostility, so that all I could mutter in response was, “Me, dude.”

But what I thought was, “You little gerbil. I’d like to see you catch a quick flick across the middle and just one time find a 235- pound linebacker named Bubba waiting to meet you there.” Wham-O!

Ultimate always makes me think about football, with the end zones and the chance to play quarterback from the handler posi- tion, or to go long for a big spinning plastic bomb like running out the post pattern for the last minute catch to win the Super Bowl. And the crowd goes wild!

Everybody loves the deep post (I think the Broncos should run it about 1,000 times more this season), because it gains big yards and because everybody loves a long throw down the center of the field. And because we all feel like heroes when we make that grab—Frisbee or football.

Which makes me wonder—how can you play ultimate and not like to watch pro or college football? Whether it’s for inspiration, entertainment, or just as an excuse for drinking beer? Or because when you see that deep throw to the corner of the end zone and the receiver and the defender racing down the sidelines looking over their shoulders to make the play, you love to pretend you’re those dudes.

And who the hell in Colorado doesn’t want to know the Broncos score?

Being an outdoor sports participant, and a rabid pro sports fan, is in the DNA of anyone living in Colorado, from Trinidad to South Park, Aspen to Pueblo. That summit-to-stadium existence provides the very essence of the good life in Elwayville—climbing a 14er in the morning and catching the Rockies game in the afternoon, mountain biking ‘til two through gold September aspens then watching the Donkeys on TV, or tuning your boards while listening to the Nuggets on the radio.

The perfect mix of outdoor lifestyle and pro sports stoke is why so many Front Range towns are annual shoo-ins for top ranking among America’s most aerobically-enhanced cities. It’s why a website called Calorielab.com ranks the entire state of Colorado fittest of the 50 states, and why Denver, Boulder and Colorado Springs regularly make the likes of Forbes’ and Men’s Health magazine’s most healthy towns.

Which, by sheer averages suggests that Colorado has the largest population of pro sports fans that can actually run from end zone to end zone. And by sheer pad-to-peak-proximity, that we can most likely outshred, outhike or out-pedal any other city with a pro football and hockey team to root for.

That Mile-High marker is what sets us apart. And makes us proud. It’s the reason even the pros who come here get gassed. The constant story about how the visiting team will have to deal with Denver’s thin air, and why our Colorado teams are capable of so many late game heroics. It’s why I remember when one of my favorite cousins had a mountain wedding in June of 2001 on the same day that the Colorado Avalanche met the New Jersey Devils in Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals.

The groom was from Vermont, which meant that in addition to all of the Colorado fans there were also plenty of New England boys cheering for Boston Bruins-to-Avs transplant, the legendary defensemen Ray Bourque.

And after a beautiful blue sky ceremony in a sunlit field, all the climbers, cowboys, ski bums and stock brokers slipped inside to hunt out TVs in a loft and next door in a sports shop, leaving the bride’s reception a ghost town until the final score: 3-1 in favor of the Avalanche.

At which point, the radiant Libby stepped to the microphone and said, “I’d like to congratulate the Colorado Avalanche for winning the Stanley Cup, and announce that I am going to have the rest of my wedding now.”

So we cheered and spilled back out into the sunset, celebrating all of the little histories of a single day—a day that we would remember beyond so many others—all golden and happy in the warm mountain air as we danced.

It was one of life’s little landmarks, at the intersection of self and sport. It is one of those stories that explains why I know most of my friends better through the teams they root for than I do by who they married, or what they do for work.

The Gerbil Boy was a rocket on the field, quickly out-running defenders and capable of great flying squirrel layouts for the deep disc. He easily scored half of his team’s points, and stopped just as many of our attempts. And as much as I regretted not seeing him laid out by a deep safety hit, I regretted even more seeing him go head over heels for a grab in that little dress.

Which may be the biggest difference between pro sports and alternative sports… the pants. •

You can read more of Peter Kray’s writing, including excerpts of his upcoming novel, The God of Skiing, at
shredwhiteandblue.com.

I’m squinting, despite wearing the darkest sunglasses I own. There’s no trail here, only sections of sand beaten down by jeeps and camels, signs of the nomadic Bedouin tribes that inhabit this desert. The sweeping Red Sea Mountains fail to block the sun that’s turned our sandy path into white glitter. Despite that blinding glare, I keep pedaling—lose momentum in the sand and you come to a screeching halt. If we can just keep moving, our group of five will be the first to bike Egypt’s Wadi Gemal (Camel Valley) National Park.

Jayme in Al Qusayr

When we started, the park ranger proclaimed: “There is no way you guys can bike this.” Two hours later, we’ve only covered 16 K. But we keep at it.

Ironically, our desert expedition was the brainchild of a skier. Colorado Springs resident Doug Lofland started Beyond Boundaries in 1991, conducting ski trips around the globe. He expanded to include biking about a decade later, because “skiers need something active and fun to do in the off season.”

The industry agreed, and 53-year-old Lofland soon found himself running “bike and barge” trips everywhere from Turkey to the Netherlands. He’d put boats into the mix to make the trips more appealing for spouses and newbies who may not be so keen on riding every day. Plus the convenience of having a floating hotel following your bike route is hard to beat.

Coffee Wadi Gemal style

After cruising the Nile, Lofland couldn’t stop thinking about Egypt. Why not bring some bikes? Initial research proved discouraging. Security is an issue in the non-tourist areas along the Nile Valley and the Red Sea. “Finding the right official and knowing the right bribe to ensure our protection wasn’t something we could do on our own,” Lofland says. “That process may sound strange to an American ear, but that’s how it’s done there.”

It was only by melding minds with FlashTours in Cairo that Lofland was able to get through all of Egypt’s red tape and nail every bribe necessary. The two travel companies partnered to create Egypt Bike and Sail (egyptbikeandsail.com) this year.

The first cyclists to pedal Wadi Gemal

“Up until this point, tourists have never had the ability to bike in rural Egypt,” Lofland says.

Which brings us back to Wadi Gemal National Park, where five of us finally churned fat tires through sand in 112 degrees to become the first to bike this remote park.
—Jayme Otto

Then I found out I was going to be making the climb with 150 other people. My jaw dropped. A mountain should be a challenge, not a traffic jam. It got worse. As the lead guide debriefed us at the headquarters of Icelandic apparel company 66 North, which would be sponsoring the climb, he stressed that we would go slow. Very slow. We were going to cover fourteen miles in twelve to sixteen hours of slow. We would be tethered in rope teams of eight people. My heart dropped.

I wanted to tell the guide: I’m from freaking Boulder.  We don’t go slow. We hammer. Forget your fourteen hours of rest-stepping. I need to run up that thing as fast as possible while monitoring my heart rate using an iPhone app. And then it hit me. I was way too high strung. Luckily, I kept my mouth shut. You see, the 150 other people heading up the mountain had been training in a 66 North program all year. They had been learning how to negotiate the mountains and glaciers of their stunning country and the trip to the top of Hvannadalshnúkur was the crowning achievement.

Here in Colorado, we think we live a life in tune to the challenges of our mountains but Icelanders live on a remote Arctic island that’s the most active volcanic spot on the planet. They have eked out a living for centuries fishing the tempestuous North Atlantic and farming volcanic rock. While the rest of the world was freaking out about the ash of Eyjafjallajokull, Icelanders were going about their business despite the inevitability of another of the island’s volcanoes blowing up. It hit me that me and my Boulder attitude could learn a lot by taking the slow route to the top of this country with 150 natives.

Did I ever. Hvannadalshnúkur is a stunning peak, the 6,921-foot highpoint of a much more massive caldera. It’s an island of white above the clouds with views out to the sea. Celebrating on the top after a meditative hike up the glacier and over the caldera with the locals, I actually met an Icelandic woman who had family in Denver and one of the mountain guides told me she wanted to go to Colorado more than any place else in the world. I told her that at that moment there was no other place on the planet I would rather be standing than on the top of Hvannadalshnúkur.

I kept thinking about that experience while working on this, our climbing special issue. We get so wrapped up in achievement when it comes to climbing, in speed and difficulty and our own egos that we often forget the reason we began climbing in the first place. That is to experience a place on its own terms, whether that be free soloing an alpine route in the wild or slogging along with 150 locals. The old cliché that the journey is the destination is at the heart of climbing any peak. Now go out say Hvannadalshnúkur three times fast and climb as hard or as slow as you want.

The Gibbon Team of Andy Lewis, Micheal Payton, Emily Sukiennik, Jeremy Louis, Libby Sauter and Hayley Ashburn, rigged up at 330 feet across by 363 feet high, which would have pummeled the existing record by nearly 100 feet in length. But howling winds and hail prevailed over the slackers’ prowess, creating a line too loose, heavy and, ultimately, bouncy to handle.

Smackline: Gibbon slacker Michael Payton readies for the world record.

“The record was 28 steps, which is surprising considering Mike and Andy are two of the best highliners in the world,” Sukiennik says.

“I tried loosening the tension, leaving less than 1,350 lbs of force on the line (compared to the usual 2,300 lbs). Then I tried increasing the tension up to over 3,500 lbs of force,” says Lewis. “It didn’t matter. No matter the tension, the swing weight of the line was just to powerful.”

Sukiennik was able to onsite a 120-foot line, strung at the same height as the 330-foot line and the team plans on future attempts to set the record.
—J.O.

Jonathan Waterman, environmental adventurer and author of Running Dry: A Journey From Source to Sea down the Colorado River (2010), is ass deep in Colorado River issues. Literally. A skinny dipping session was captured on film as the promotional photo for Save the Colorado, and is part of the summer ad campaign for New Belgium Brewing Company, one of the seven founding sponsors of the program.

Stretching from Wyoming to the Sonoran Desert in northern Mexico, the Colorado River is a vital natural and recreational resource, serving the water needs of over 30 million people. Due to intense supply demands (a whopping 78 percent goes to agriculture irrigation), the Colorado now dries up before reaching its delta at the Sea of Cortez.

In Running Dry, Waterman recounts his journey by boat, and foot when necessary, down the 1,450-mile Colorado. He experiences every nuance of the river from catching endangered Humpback Chub in the Grand Canyon to seeing the tenacity of the invasive Zebra mussel in Lake Powell, from the snow melt headwaters in Rocky Mountain National Park to the gag-inducing, chemical waste cocktail encountered in its southern reaches. Waterman addresses the issues facing the river, introduces those who depend upon the Colorado for their livelihood, nourishment and recreation and suggests changes needed to save it from running dry.

Save the Colorado is a philanthropic partnership created to raise awareness of the Colorado River’s overburdened state, support organizations working to preserve its fragile ecosystems and address the myriad issues flowing from the elemental problem of too many people and too little supply. Other sponsors include Patagonia and National Geographic, publisher of Running Dry.

To learn how you can help save the Colorado and for more on Waterman’s journey, go to savethecolorado.org.