Russell Finsterwald and Amy Kranhenbuhl Coquer Mount Wheeler Stage
The grassy wet-land-esque fields at the summit of Wheeler can be technical, especially for exhausted riders. Photo by: Liam Doran
Written by: Uncommon Communications
The night before the penultimate stage, riders laid down for bed with the threat of rain looming. In typical Breckenridge- fashion, riders were greeted with clear skies and sun for the morning to get up and over Wheeler Pass. The rain still rolled in around 11am, giving most of the field a good shower.
As race director Mike McCormack says, “it’s not called the Breck Tickle Fight.”
Russell Finsterwald, Todd Wells and most of the leaders in the men’s pro/open field stayed dry throughout the day and got to enjoy the massive views from the top of Wheeler Pass.
Finsterwald took a couple of seconds back from his teammate Wells (SRAM / Troy Lee Designs) after dropping Wells on the descent off of Wheeler Pass.
“I thought yesterday was my favorite stage, but now this one is,” recounted Finsterwald. “The views were awesome and the descending was next level. I was having the time of my life on that second descent.”
KUHL-Pivot Cycles rider Drew Free is sitting in sixth after his seventh place ride on Wheeler. With a gap of seven minutes to fifth, he could be looking to move up overall, but it’s unlikely he’ll close the hour and twenty minutes to Todd Wells. Photo by: Liam Doran
Though it wasn’t all sunshine and unicorns for Finsterwald, who took a digger on that second descent he was loving so much.
“I was riding in control, but going across one of those bridges there were a couple logs parallel to one another. My front wheel got caught between, and sent me sailing. I tried to ride a good pace, just to make it into the finish. I knew Todd wouldn’t be too far behind.”
Finsterwald ended the day just 11 seconds up on Wells with Ben Sonntag in third, all but cementing his place on the podium.
“My legs felt pretty empty from the beginning, so I let the group go,” said Ben Sonntag (Clif Bar) about starting in wave one with the top-8 riders overall. “I don’t know, it was just ‘keep pushing’ today. There was no snap, explosiveness, or thoughts like, ‘I’m flying up this right now,’ it was just a grind.”
Troy Wells had a great day riding with teammate Ben Sonntag andfinished fourth on the day. Troy sits 5th in GC. Photo by: Eddie Clark
The elevation profile of day five had many riders opting for longer-travel bikes to better take advantage of the longer, more technical descents. Since the trails were so steep and often quite narrow, riders were forced to their feet.
“We had a lot of fun coming down [from Wheeler],” said Jake Wells who is leading the Duo Open category with his partner Ciro Zarate. “We rode our bigger bikes today — 5” fork, dropper post. It was a lot of fun going down, but it was a lot of pushing on the way up.”
Amy Krahenbuhl has shown a dominating performance in the Women’s race and currently has a lead of of nearly 54-minutes. Photo by: Liam Doran
In the women’s open category, Amy Krahenbuhl has a 54-minute lead over Emma Maaranen (Rolf) and Ksenia Lepikhina (Tokyo Joe’s) sits another 13-minutes back in third.
With the final stage – Gold Dust — being all that lay ahead of riders, overall leads are not likely to change hands in many categories. At under 30-miles, the Gold Dust loop packs in fast climbing and screaming singletrack descents into the shortest mileage of the week.
Today’s stage demanded the powers of a mountain goat, as they pushed to terrain not normally travelled by bike or foot. Photo by: Eddie Clark
Click Here for full results from Stage and GC
-
- Russell Finsterwald and Todd Wells cut to the chase on Breck Epic’s iconic climb, Wheeler Pass, distancing themselves from the group quickly and staying away. Photo by: Liam Doran
-
- Photo by: Liam Doran
-
- KUHL-Pivot Cycles rider Drew Free is sitting in sixth after his seventh place ride on Wheeler. With a gap of seven minutes to fifth, he could be looking to move up overall, but it’s unlikely he’ll close the hour and twenty minutes to Todd Wells. Photo by: Liam Doran
-
- Kevin Day is just outside the top-10, in twelfth. Photo by: Liam Doran
-
- From the summit of Wheeler, riders used to descend straight down to Copper Mountain, but a new course from 2015 takes riders about halfway down the descent, and then back up to the summit of Peak 8 before starting the real descent down toward Frisco and the Peaks Trail. Photo by: Liam Doran
-
- Bob Saffell is currently in 9th in the Men’s 40+ category. Photo by: Liam Doran
-
- Amy Krahenbuhl has shown a dominating performance in the Women’s race and currently has a lead of of nearly 54-minutes. Photo by: Liam Doran
-
- Photo by: Liam Doran
-
- The grassy wet-land-esque fields at the summit of Wheeler can be technical, especially for exhausted riders. Photo by: Liam Doran
-
- Photo by: Liam Doran
-
- Today’s stage demanded the powers of a mountain goat, as they pushed to terrain not normally travelled by bike or foot. Photo by: Eddie Clark
-
- Troy Wells had a great day riding with teammate Ben Sonntag andfinished fourth on the day. Troy sits 5th in GC. Photo by: Eddie Clark
-
- Clayton Otto maneuvers the goat trail at 12,000ft before the screaming descent back down into town.
-
- Breaking his chain early in the stage, Fernando Riveros worked his way back up the field to finish 8th on the stage and is currently sitting 7th in the GC. Photo by: Eddie Clark
-
- Pushing along the ridgeline at 12,000ft has a certain affect on rider’s brain capacity. Photo by: Eddie Clark
-
- Liz Carrington drops her saddle and shines a smile on the best descent of the day, Miner’s Creek. Photo by: Eddie Clark
