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Passant Wins 2010 Colorado Trail Race, Women's Course Record Broken

(August 8, 2010)

Eszter Horanyi finishes in a record 6 days, 5 Hours, 27 Minutes

Crested Butte's Ethan Passant (Alpine Orthopaedics) finished the 2010 Colorado Trail Race on Friday Aug 6 in a time of 4 Days, 13 Hours, and 43 Minutes, marking his second victory at the self supported, 493-mile mountain bike race. In her first attempt at the grueling race accross Colorado's high country, Eszter Horanyi has shattered the women's course record by nearly twelve hours.

As of posting time, only Seven riders of the 39 starters have crossed the finish line at the Juncion Creek trail head near Durango, Colo. Jesse Jakomait finished second, just 1 Hour, and 12 minutes behind Passant while Jeffe Branham of Gunnison, Colo. finished thrid in 5 Days, 2 Hours.

The rules of the Colorado Trail Race are simple. Riders must complete the course entirely under their own power with no support from others. They can utilize resources along the way, buying supplies at stores or restaurants if they choose to.

To ride the 493 miles in winning time, riders must continue to make forward progress upwards of 15 Hours each day, taking catnaps on the side of the trail throughout the night. Needless to say, attrition rates are high. As of press time, 20 of the starters have already called it quits includiing last years second place finisher Dough Johnson. Monsoon season drenched the Colorado Rockies all week and the Gnarly, wet weather likely played a roll is the attrition.

Stay tuned here for more updates or go to the official Track Leader website to see realtime positions of the riders on course (they are wearing Spot tracking GPS devices).

Photos by Kevin Krill, Crested Butte Photography

Ethan Passant enjoying himself en route.	A rider pushed up the last stretch of Fooses Creek Trail to gain the Contintental Divide during the 2010 Colorado Trail Race.

Additional Images by Chris Miller

The Crested Butte crew- ethan, tim, matt, eszter, and myself	Matt Steinwand and kurt overcome the monsoon by topping out searle pass late in the evening.	Mat and Kurt reach for Kokomo Pass under evening alpenglo

Kurt and Matt prepare for ripping descent down to Camp Hale under darkness.	Matt checks out the Camp Hale Barracks where he wrote his name while hiking the Colorado Trail in high school	On the way to Buena Vista a van pulled over, stopped, and then screeched away.  When we reached the spot where the van stopped there was 3 PBR's and 3 packets of cookies.  Best beer I have had in a while.  Garret and Kurt all smiles in photo.
Eszter showed up Sunday morning at Junction Creek with smiles, and flowers.	Never seen the forest of Junction Creek so lush, felt like Lord of the Rings.  Eszter descends gingerly on race tires with open wounds to the finish.

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