Leadville, Colorado – Keegan Swenson recovered from a flat tire to win the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race for the fourth year in a row; he’s now the race’s second-most winning male athlete behind six-time winner Dave Wiens. The drop-bar-donning Swenson finished 15 minutes ahead of ski mountaineer-turned-MTB-racer John Gaston, with Cole Paton rolling in for third.
A lead group of four established itself in the first 10 miles of the race, made up of Swenson, Gaston, Lachlan Morton, and Torbjørn Røed. By the time they hit the steep, rutted Powerline descent, Gaston had opened a 10-second lead on Røed, and Swenson – who ran drop bars on his Santa Cruz Highball – was riding in third with a flat rear tire.
“I just made a mistake on Powerline, didn’t see a rock in one of the puddles and just smashed it and puctured the tire, that’s how it goes,” Swenson said at the finish. “I was taking risks pushing a little hard and with the rain there was some puddles and the sun had some pretty bad glare. That’s racing, you have to take risks if you want to go fast.”
Powering off the front was not the plan for Gaston either. A flat by Lachlan Morton as well left him dangling alone in the lead, vulnerable to the wind and nobody to work with.
“Keegan can pull that off, but I certainly can’t so it made for a pretty challenging four hours,” Gaston said.
Swenson fell back to 14th position by the next time split, and Gaston continued putting time on Røed. Chasers behind included Cole Paton, Howard Grotts, Russell Finsterwald, Petr Vakoc and Pete Stetina.
Swenson continued chasing hard and making up places, making contact with Gaston near the bottom of the feared Columbine climb, the largest climb on course that marks both the midpoint of the 100-mile out-and-back jaunt and its highest elevation of 12,499 feet or 3,809 meters.
By the time Swenson descended back down Columbine from the turnaround and came back across Twin Lakes Dam, he had more than six minutes on Gaston. Paton was chasing 30 seconds behind Gaston in third with Røed in fourth and Morton in fifth. Gaston and Paton worked together on the way back to town, and Gaston gapped him after the sharp climb up Powerline, saying that he felt his full-suspension setup helped soak up the bumps to stay ahead of Paton.
“When we got to Powerline it was just everything I had to hang on to his wheel,” Paton said. “I was getting pretty fatigued coming down Sugarloaf descent and he was just riding so smooth. Couldn’t quit hang on so then it was just head down and go to work and try to get home.
Swenson’s time did not best his record-breaking performance from last year, but he was still happy to make it through a hectic day.
“I’m very stoked with that ride,” Swenson said. “You know with a flat tire at that point I was really just going. So, stoked to come back for the win for the fourth time in a row. Yeah, awesome day out.”
Brief results
- Keegan Swenson 5:49:08
- John Gaston 6:04:50
- Cole Paton 6:06:40
- Lachlan Morton 6:09:32
- Payson McElveen 6:09:35
- Russell Finsterwald 6:12:50
- Matthew Beers 6:12:51
- Torbjørn Røed 6:14:05
- Alex Wild 6:17:59
- Zach Carlton 6:18:52
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