Breck-Epic recon: Prologue TT

Sonya and I are up in Breckenridge, CO for 3 days doing some course scouting. She is checking out the Firecracker 50 Marathon Nationals course, while I am out hitting up stages of the Breck-Epic race. First, I must give a huge shout out to Jeff Cospolich at Great Western Lodging for the smoke'n deal on a sweet condo for the weekend. Not only is he helping Sonya and I out....he is also giving out some smoke'n deals for the Firecracker 50 and Breck-Epic. Please try to support those who support us bike riders and racers. OK, back to today's training effort. Coach had me climbing the Prologue TT not once...but twice. I pretty much have this thing nailed down now.

For the first climb up, Jeff Cospolich joined me and guided me up this 9 mile 3,015 ft climb. Technical? Sure, a little bit is spots. Steep? Yep, in spots. Hardest part? That is for you to find out. Ha!


I would guess that half the stage is singletrack, while the other have is loose rocky jeep road.



Dude, I told you it was steep in spots!


It does not take long and you soon find yourself well above 11,000 ft.....and all the trees.


Switchback after switchback.....after switchback....after switchback.


Here we are.....2 weeks from race start and there is still snow covering 95% of the road towards the finish line. Needless, to say, we didn't make it to the finish line/top of the climb today. We were about 600 ft lower I would guess.


We were treated to this view from out highest point today.


After this initial climb, Jeff C. and I dropped back down to Breckenridge the same way we climbed up. Jeff C. went back to work, and I climbed back up again. This time I pushed the pace a bit more to give an idea of what the stage will take time wise. After today, I bet the top times for the Prologue TT will be between 45 minutes to 1 hr. After I finished out the 2 efforts of the Prologue TT, I headed out to scope a few more sections of some of the other stages....which put me at 4.5 hours of saddle time today.



Here is a small teaser from another one of the stages. More to come tomorrow!