This past weekend was the Leadville Trail 100 Mountain Bike Race aka “Race Across The Sky” which Tyler dedicated to Rodger Hanft. Rodger is a close family member who has a stage 4 glioma brain tumor which is terminal. Rodger, pictured below, is fighting for his life!
A week prior to the event we had dinner with Rodger and he let us know that Leadville, Colorado is a special place for him and that he wants his ashes spread at Rainbow Lake. Rainbow Lake is in the Leadville, CO area and the bike course for the Leadville 100 goes near the lake.
Tyler dedicated his ride to Rodger and at about mile 80 started to struggle. Tyler dug deep and knew that in order to dedicated the ride to Rodger he had to finish. Rodger was a BIG inspiration to Tyler during the race.
The course was 104 miles with over 10,000 feet of climbing with a max elevation of around 12,500 feet. It took Tyler 10 hrs and 43 minutes to complete. Not bad for very little training for the event. Watch the video above to see how Tyler got into the event last minute.
A BIG thanks to Dave Wiens and Travis Brown and his wife Mary for making Leadville possible for me.
Below are some pictures I took at the event.
Tour de France and cycling super star Levi Leipheimer broke Lance Armstrong’s record of last year and won the event. Below is a picture of Tyler and Levi.
After the awards Tyler and I had the opportunity to visit with Leadville 100 legend Dave Wiens and another star athlete Travis Brown. Dave Wiens beat Lance Armstrong in 2008 during Lance Armstrong’s comeback.
Tyler was pretty spanked after the ride as you can see below.
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