The Bailey Hundo

The Bailey Hundo

I signed up for the Bailey Hundo mountain bike race not quite sure what to expect. I knew it was in Colorado, and I knew it was in the mountains, but beyond that, I had no experience riding a mountain bike in Colorado. It turned out to be one of the best times I've ever had on a bike.

I flew into Denver from a tradeshow I was attending in Las Vegas. Picked up a rental car and drove about an hour south to where I would be staying with family for my visit. Upon arrival, I was greeted by a giant white teddy bear of a dog carrying a stuff animal in its mouth - nice! The next morning I hung out and visited for a while, then headed over to Bailey for the pre-race meeting. 

At the pre-race meeting, I was presented with a smorgasbord of swag - a jersey, T-shirt, poster/map, water bottles, and a bunch of product samples. I signed in and was shown how to attach my timing chip to the fork of my bike. A race staffer gave a thorough and informative briefing, and introduced the RD of La Ruta De Los Conquistadores, which is a 20-year old stage race held in Costa Rica. Wow! My initial impression of the Bailey Hundo as a podunk fundraiser race had been blown out of the water by this pre-race briefing. Even though it's a small and new race, the organizers seemed pro
and all the trimmings of  a venerable event were present. 

The Bike, packed for travel

Putting together my bike was interesting - it took an hour and a half, and we got it working pretty much perfectly except for some weirdness with the rear derailleur - the cable tension was off so when I had the chain on the big chainring, I was unable to shift into the smallest two or three cogs on the rear cassette. Otherwise, I was very pleased with how my Trico Ironcase delivered the bicycle unharmed.


I woke up at 3:00AM the next morning to get to the start on time, which was at the ungodly hour of 6:00AM. Really? I thought only trail runners were dumb enough to get up that early. After completing the race and gaining some comprehension of just how remote the backcountry was that we'd be racing through, I can appreciate why the start was so early.  Indeed, the last racer to finish came in at 12 hours and 30 minutes, which is getting close to when the sun would start to dim. The hour long drive was easy, although after heading down a few miles of dirt road at the end I questioned that my GPS was guiding me in the right direction. Eventually I made the left-hand turn onto the small wooden bridge over the swiftly flowing Platte River, and parked my car in a dusty cloud in the field at the finish area.

I put together my kit and made a couple last-minute tweaks to the bike, then made the easy 3-mile spin next to the river from the finish area into town for the start in the pre-dawn chill. Arriving about 2 minutes before the starting gun was cutting it a little close, but I made it, and formed up on the outside of the 250-odd person crowd about halfway up. The starting gun was more like a starting cannon, and made everyone around me jump.

The Start

The race course starts out with a prelude of about 8 miles to stretch the pack out before entering the singletrack. I felt pretty good on the uphills, although a little more winded than I usually would have been seeing that the 7,500' altitude was a wee bit higher than the 350' I am used to riding at. On the downhills, I missed my two small cogs and got spun out fairly frequently, but managed to keep up for the most part.

After the prelude we turned left onto the Colorado Trail, and began an epic trek on about 50 miles of singletrack. It was fast, flowy, and fun; the only major oddity being the trail surface, which was very loose. Coming from the Mid-Atlantic, I am used to riding on mud, not riding on loose gravel / sand. After a few slips of the wheel, I more or less got the hang of it and proceeded to have an absolute blast for the next 4 hours. We passed through some areas that had been burned by forest fires back in '96, and were treated to some amazing scenery and views (which I hardly was able to notice, since I was concentrating on riding).  I passed through the first aid station without stopping, but stopped at the next few for some gels, camelbak refills, and so on.

Around Mile 55, we reached a fairly major descent (looking at the elevation profile, anyway). This was not as steep as I had expected from seeing the 1,000' drop spread out over a mile or two on the profile, but it was pretty steep and the trail turned into a slush-pit of loose gravel. At one point my front wheel just straight-up locked up and I ungraciously fell over sideways, pitching hands and face first into a nice mix of rock, cactus, and scrub brush. I came away with a few minor scrapes and a pretty big splinter in my left index finger. This little incident caused me to be cautious for the remainder of the downhill, but despite my caution I did the same thing a few minutes later. A few minutes later I finally popped out at the bottom of the hill onto a dirt road, with Aid Station 6 offering relief.

Cruising Down By The River

The next 15 miles were spent cruising on a gentle downhill grade alongside the South Platte River. The lack of my two most powerful gears was felt again here, but it wasn't too bad. One rider passed me and suggested that I grab his wheel, which I did until the grade changed and I spun out and got dropped. Still, managing to average 18 miles per hour for a few miles was a nice change of pace. At one point, I saw Sue and Mark standing by the side of the road, and waved to them as I went by. They played leap-frog with me for a few miles, which was a great motivator.

After awhile of enjoying the smooth riding surface and the downhill grade, the race course makes a right hand turn and climbs up a hill. A big one. At the top of the (paved) hill, there is another descent. I knew there was another big climb coming up, and was awaiting it with a mixture of curiosity and (gulp) dread. At mile 73, the course turned left on to a dirt road and the suffering began. We would climb 2,000' vertical feet over the next eleven miles or so. I put it in an easy gear and just ground away at it. I got passed by a few folks. The upshot was that we were still in a burn zone, so the scenery was stunning  - you could see all the surrounding mountain tops.

I hit aid station 8 (Mile 78) at around 7 hours. At this point I was definitely tired, and enthusiasm was waning from "stoked" to "Ok, let's get this over with". Some peanut butter pretzels and a few slammed paper cups of Coke bolstered me for the next few miles, which had more climbing on dirt roads. Shortly after leaving Aid 8, it started to hail. Does it get any better than this?

The hail degenerated into a steady light rain after a few minutes. It wasn't a soaking rain, so it actually wasn't unpleasant - my arms got a little chilly, but nothing I couldn't handle. The rain had let up by the time I approached Aid 9, where a couple of friendly volunteers gave me a gel and informed me that I was approaching some downhill. Finally!

The Finish!

After a few miles of descending from the pass that the epic climb had taken me over, I reached aid station 10. However, with only 5 miles to go, I elected to ride through. The last few miles of the race were incredible - one long fast downhill on dirt roads. It was great, and the sun came out. By the time I reached the finish eight and a half hours after starting, the weather was beautiful, there was a band playing, and the beer tent beckoned. What a great race! The best I've ridden yet, and I can't wait to go back again next year.

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