Fun Hurts!

Pikes Peak is an iconic adventure here in the Colorado Springs area. When you have a 14,775-foot-tall peak in your backyard, you can’t stay indifferent to it. Those who live around here are in one of two groups: those who have it on a bucket list, or those who’ve done it. Done is a vague way to say it, and I used it intentionally because everyone has their own jam. Some would take a cog rail train to the top to simply enjoy the views. Some will hike up, perhaps spending the night at Barr Camp in the middle of the trail, which can be a convenience or a life-saving oasis, and you don’t always know which one it will turn out to be on a given day. Those who are fit enough can run up and down Barr Trail in one go, which makes it a full marathon. Lastly, you can ride your featherweight road bike to the top of a paved Pikes Peak Highway, racing the clock, or pretending to be the kind of person who says, “I’m only here for the views” (not that there’s anything wrong with that). I had already been to the summit three years ago, when I raced the “Cycle to the summit” event. And I’m telling you, the views are subpar, to put it mildly. The main problem is that Pikes Peak is essentially a solitary mountain at the edge of the Rockies. I’m a spoiled kid, but observing eastern Colorado all the way to Kansas is not as captivating as a “typical” 360-degree view from the mountaintop somewhere deep in the middle of the Rockies, let’s say, Union Peak.

The race I did in 2022, although it goes all the way to the summit, starts only at the midpoint of the road. But if you begin from downtown Manitou Springs, that doubles the distance and elevation gain, and that’s what’s considered a whole climb, making it a total of 38km long with 2360m of elevation gain. And even though I had the full ascent on the bucket list for a while now, I wasn’t very eager to make it happen, mainly because there was a missing piece in that puzzle. A truly fun way to get back down hadn’t been on my radar until maybe a month ago.

Over the past four months, my priorities have shifted. The enjoyment of conquering big climbs didn’t go anywhere. The longer and the steeper — the better. But ever since I’ve got a proper trail ripping machine, which is my beloved Dawley T16, I finally learned to appreciate downhill riding just as much as its uphill counterpart. And that’s arguably what makes the Pikes Peak a full treatment experience — you can get all the climbing you want (and then some, literally, I’ll talk about it), and then reap (with an i) the benefits of all your hard work on a long and diverse single track down the mountain.

Now, I can earn my turns and have all my efforts reimbursed immediately. 95% fun, 5% of you gotta do what you gotta do. Not a bad ratio.

Up

It makes sense to break up the climb into three main sections. First, you have to ride about 3 miles on Highway 24, which was quite busy this morning. With barely any shoulder, but an abundance of tight blind corners. Luckily, most of the drivers were courteous. But it still sucks; there’s no reason to sugarcoat it. Next time, if I want to challenge myself with a road climb, I’ll start at the toll gate. But if you’re doing the whole thing and taking it seriously, please have a god damn car, and a big one, following you, blocking the lane from behind.

You aren’t even warmed up yet, barely awake, and you’re already challenged with an existential question: Is it worth it? My answer here: It does not. But as the day goes on, the same question will arise again and again, becoming a leitmotif of the story.

The second section goes from the toll gate to Elk Park trailhead. There’s not much to say about it. Just a grind. At least, it’s a pretty one.

And when you get to the trailhead, you have the final and steepest stretch of the road to ride up at your leisure. It’s completely unnecessary because you’ve already made it to the point where you’d start the downhill. What for then? Bragging rights, I suppose. But when you’ve already made it so far, it’s kinda silly not to finish what you’ve started 3(ish) hours ago. Just one little push and you’ll be there soon. Like, 60 more minutes soon, haha.

Down

For the fun part, we met up with my son and his friend, who were shuttled up by my wife. Kids were fresh, ready, and eager to send. So they took the lead, and we followed as best we could.

When I’m doing intervals on my trainer, I often watch Drive to Survive. I’m still on season 6 now (racing year 2023?). Yeah, I know, I don’t do enough structured work outside of wintertime, and I intend to fix that. Anyway, a 34-year-old Daniel Ricciardo just dropped a truth-bomb a few episodes ago. Speaking about pushing the limits in tight turns, he said, “You're beginning to ask yourself a question: is it worth it?”. And comparing himself to a 23-year-old Tsunoda, he added, “They don’t ask themselves that question.”

As soon as we start going down the Elk Park Trail, that difference strikes me. That millisecond that I spend challenging myself with the riddle of a risk-to-reward ratio is all it takes for me to lose sight of two teenagers. Even if my answer is yes, that moment of hesitation is momentum lost, a flow interrupted, and the dust cloud ahead is only getting bigger. Fascinating, sort of.

And on top of that, I could literally feel how slow my brain was from fatigue accumulated over four hours of climbing prior to that. The hesitation above multiplied by reduced neuron conduction equals struggle. Sure, a full loop looks cool on Strava, but it comes with a hefty price tag. The one I can easily afford, but not necessarily willing to pay again. Too much fun can be an enemy of quality.

The Big Bang

Our whole Universe was in a hot, dense state… Sorry, not that one. That Big Bang was the beginning of the Universe’s life. The one that happened this time created a black hole in my soul.

About 10 miles (16 km) in, I heard what my son would call “an expensive sound”. But I didn’t think much of it, suspecting that a rock had hit the frame. Even though there were no rocks in sight on a mellow, flowy climb up to the lake. So I kept going, and a few seconds later, I heard something rubbing my rear tire very heavily. I stopped, examined things a bit superficially, had not found anything, and thought there was a stick stuck for a moment that just fell out by itself. Even though there were no sticks in sight… So I moved on one more time, just to hear and feel the rubbing again a few seconds later. Stopped. Looked carefully. Holy crap. My seat tube has snapped in half. The steel frame is the last piece of the bike that you’d expect to fail. Any other component is a commodity: it wears out, it breaks, it gets replaced. Wheels come and go like running socks. But a frame? Made of finest British and Italian steel? I’m not even sure what I felt. I was just… sad, I guess. It’s a strange way to feel yourself in a moment like that. Anger, frustration, disbelief — those would be more appropriate emotions for the given circumstances. But I became truly emotionless. Emptied. The thing I loved the most in the last four months of my life suddenly passed away. One shot, one bang, and it is gone.

I told Mike and the kids to keep riding. They listened, because I had a plan. The trail we were on crosses the forest road in a few hundred meters from where we were. I texted my wife the spot where she can pick me up, hoping I might even be able to catch a ride and escape faster on my own. I hiked up to that road, calmly took a sip of water, looked around, and thought to myself: Oh, shit.

There were road signs in both directions saying “No public access”. Yeah. My plan was no good anymore. Had to come up with something better. And the thing is, when you’re in the mountains, you'd better think and act quickly. What options do I have:

1. Hike 10 miles back up to Pikes Peak Highway. Well, that’s just straight-up unrealistic.
2. Hike 10 miles down Jones Park Trail (the same way I was supposed to ride down). More sensible, but equally unpleasant.
3. Hike only about 4 miles back to Barr Camp (but it's mostly uphill), spend the night there, and hike down Barr Trail in the morning.

All these plans had the same issue — the “what if” factor. On paper, options 2 and 3, as unpleasant as they look, aren’t that crazy. But both would take two to four hours, and if shit happens while I’m somewhere deep in the woods alone, getting out would be a lot harder. Sure, it would be a much cooler story to tell. But going back to the same question, and asking it for the third time on the given day: is it worth the risk? Mind you, I can more or less properly assess that risk now from the comfort of my room. But anything I’d say back then couldn’t and shouldn’t have been trusted.

So, I made my choice and called 911. Luckily enough, I was in a rare, if not the only, spot on the trail where I could get some cell service. Phone calls with the operator broke up multiple times, but I was able to explain the situation and give my exact location. Fifteen minutes later, I’ve got the text: “Tim from Search & Rescue. Please reply.” Help was on the way.

Waiting game

Some rider came through. We chatted, but there was little he could do to help me, and I pretended to be in high spirits, because I thought the rescue team was “right around the corner”. A few minutes later, two trail runners came the opposite way. As they learned about what happened, they offered me as much help as they possibly could. They were planning to set up a camp for the night, half a mile down the trail. And they told me that if the storm comes in or anything else goes terribly wrong, they’d be there for me. I could tell by the backpacks that they were obviously on the lightest possible, single-person setups. And yet, I can’t overstate how much this meant. Just knowing that I have some backup kept the panic at bay.

Meanwhile, help was taking quite some time. The team kept updating me that they were on route, but it was a long way to get to me. All I could do was trust them and wait patiently. But I was getting nervous. Figured, it won’t hurt to get ready for the unplanned. So, I even hid the bike in the bushes, in case I need to take measures into my own hands (or legs, really).

Then Chris rolled up. I asked him if he had a power bank because my phone was below 5%. He did, but no lightning cable. Frankly, he had something more important. A big heart. He didn’t ask if I needed help. He didn’t explicitly offer one either. He just… stayed. We (I, really) just talked a lot for the next two hours, until the SAR truck showed up. And I couldn’t shut up. I bet he was tired of my brain diarrhea more than he was from the hours of climbing he just did. Chris was probably finishing his descent in the dark.

I will be forever grateful to this dude. And I hope one day I’ll see him on the trails again. Obviously, not under any similar kind of circumstances. But I can’t really put into words how much his company meant to me in that moment. If not for him, I could’ve been typing this story from the nut house.

Found and Rescued

Clay and JT rolled up in a pickup truck. Both are avid mountain bikers and backcountry skiers. They totally get it. I overheard they were supposed to be playing soccer that night. I’m sorry. But it’s important to understand that El Paso County Search and Rescue is a non-profit organization, composed entirely of non-paid volunteers. There is never a charge for their service, year-round, 24 hours a day. Whenever you are, please support your local public safety crews.