By Steve Medcroft
The inaugural Breckenridge 100 was won by Colorado local riders Josh Tostada (Breckenridge, Colo.) and Rebecca Hodgetts (Dillon, Colo.).
In the women's race Hodgetts, who is originally from New Zealand, said "That was the stupidest race I've ever done," after more than eleven hours of extremely tough racing. "I wasn't sure where I was going (at times)," she said.
Tostada, a former winner of the endurance mountain biking classic Montezuma's Revenge, was able to hold off Subaru/Gary Fisher factory team rider Nat Ross in the men's race and agrees with Hodgetts' assessment of the race as tough. "I could barely breathe and my feet were really hurting. It was just surviving."
"It was a really, hard, hard race," Nat Ross said from his home after the event. "We rode on the Colorado Trail, started in town at 9,600 feet and immediately climbed to 12,400. By 6:45 in the morning, we were at 12,600."
Organizers designed a clover-leaf course of three loops and didn't provide technical support stations other than at the base of the loops."
"The whole course was up and down," said Ross. "We were above the tree-line probably twenty percent of the time and the course rolled so much you couldn't really race it - you just had to settle into your own riding style and do your own thing."
As an endurance racer with a long history in 100-mile events, Ross says the Breckenridge 100 was a success. "For its first year, it had a great turnout. They had a relay option which made it an attainable race for more people than just the ultra-endurance racers."
Tostada won the men's race in 9 hours, 13 minutes and 19 seconds. Ross, who used the racing as training leading up to next week's Aspen, Colo. NORBA Marathon race, came in forty-five minutes later.
Hodgetts, with a time of 11 hours, 44 minutes, beat former World Solo 24-Hours of Adrenilin World Champion Christina Begy by just six minutes.
Full results
