“Hard Men” post: Follow up to Sherpaxc comments
After reading Sherpaxc’s post below I decided to go back through my records (August 06′) and see if I could find my original email that began the “Hard Men” topic. Well I was in luck and its posted below. Feel free to chime in on the comments below. I’d love to get some feedback re:this topic. Its something that I’ve been really facinated with.
Hola compadres,
Most of you are on this email because we have done mtn biking trips to Colorado together; a few of you have just heard me talk about my “infatuation” with some of the super-ultra endurance racers who do things like the GDR (Great Continental Divide Race).
During this past year’s trip in Durango I pontificated about the “Hard Men” of cycling and what makes one a hard-man. Some would say that we are hard men for just riding our bikes as far as we do. We say the hard men are the guys who climb Kennebec Pass on a singlespeed (!). There was even a girl who rode Kennebec with us (& 18 locals), and while I would not consider her fast or even all that strong…she finished…in prolly 9+ hrs….yunno…I’d consider her a strong man too. I even bet those SS riders would call the GDR riders hard men. And we all know that the real term “Hard Men” comes from the one-day classics riders of the Euro peleton…anyone ever seen Paris Roubaix 2001? So where am I going with all of this diatribe you ask?
Well I’ve often wondered…are cycling hard men born…or made? And then next comes…am I even in the camp…how hard am I??? Quite often my mtn biking trips to Colorado (re) confirm that while I may be hardcore to the avg guy…or even avg cyclist…I”m not quite sure I’ve got what it takes to go looong, haaaard, huuungry, looooost, noooo sleep, for daaaaays. Well guess what? It looks like my event may have arrived.
http://forums.mtbr.com/showthread.php?t=220121 5-9 days, Colorado Trail, unsupported, during the month of…you guessed it…July! The organizers of this event are proposing a July start date and this coincides with our annual trip to CO. I’ve already done a few of the latter segments of the CT and while this trail is defintely not easy, its also not overly hard. It seems that everything could already line up for me (us) …instead of camping at Junction Creek for 8 days and riding out and back, we camp on the CO trail for 8 days and ride point to point. Sounds easy huh? 
Here is a link to a guy who did the entire trail about 1 mo ago. There are some great pics & stories. It was this thread that started the talk about a CT race.
Summary:
In all sencerity I bring this up to you all because over the years you’ve heard me talk alot about doing this type of thing. You all are my riding buddies and are used to my rambling bravado. I’m going to follow this thread and think long and hard about setting this up on my calendar for next summer. (even if I decided during last year that the hard men of mtn biking were absolutly nuts).
Thoughts?
CJB
Let's keep this short and sweet. HammerHead Bicycles is different! There is no other place like us.
First and foremost we are riders, and believe us, that makes a difference. We are not casual riders who work at a shop for beer money. We are frame builders, racers, trail builders, endurance athletes and many things in between. We are life-long, sold-out riders who are committed to these crazy two wheeled machines.