No shame in scratching

Up-and-coming ultra mountain bike racer Alexandera Houcin arrived at the Junction Creek Trailhead just after sunrise Aug. 20: six days, two hours and 33 minutes after she left Denver to start the 2022 Colorado Trail Race. I met her there, where I was covering her big, record-setting win for an online bicycle news outlet. And just like everyone else, I was inspired by her gritty drive to finish the race as the fastest female, and sixth overall – on a singlespeed and flats, no less.

Badass.

When Alexandera got to the finish line, her friends were waiting to congratulate her, feed her and help her change into dry clothes and a comfy camp chair. A lot of the time that we sat around asking her questions and listening to her stories and talking, I was thinking of my good friend Emma.

Emma also started the Colorado Trail Race in the early hours of Aug. 14 alongside Alexandera in Denver. She however, had to bow out on day three near Frisco because pretty much all the worst things that could happen, did. She became so sick that she couldn’t hold food down, and she broke the rim of her bicycle wheel. Knowing Emma though, she probably still rode on that rim as long as she could, and continued to ride her bike even though she kept throwing up, had nothing left in her stomach and risked becoming dangerously dehydrated. I know this, because I know Emma.

I’ve known Emma for awhile, but we started riding bikes together about a year and a half ago. We have a group of friends we call Bike Team, and we all work well together because Emma – who is considered the matriarchal glue – is really good at pressuring us to go on heinous bike rides, and we are all really good at not being able to say no.

We rarely say no to the 6 a.m. start times or the 20-mile winter rides. Few of us on Bike Team say no to the weekend double hitters: usually back-to-back 30- or 40-mile high country rides. Most of us don’t say no to the after-work rides or the triple trail routes. And it works out because each of us on Bike Team is a little crazy when it comes to craving big miles (and smiles). It feels like week after week, we come up with some ride that leaves at least one of us (usually me) baffled at the long routes.

OK, so sometimes some of us say no. But the one person who definitely doesn’t – and who is usually the instigator – is Emma.

Emma is the one to call one of us up for a day ride of the entire White Rim. She is the one to go on a ride after a ride. She’s the one who keeps wanting to ride through the winter or when it’s dark and rainy. She’s the one who won’t let anyone quit as much as they want to, no matter how hard it gets, how tired we are or how much it’s raining. For a long time, I just thought that Emma was crazy. But then I learned that she wasn’t crazy, she was just training for ultra bikepacking races.

And she’s bringing the rest of us along with her.

The first ultra bikepacking race she rode that I’d unknowingly trained alongside her was the 2021 Arizona Trail 300 Race – in which she placed third in women’s. During that race last fall, she rode 300 miles, with 25,331 feet of elevation gain, at an average of 77.9 miles per day, self-supported through gnarly, unforgiving desert and mountain terrain. She finished in three days and 11 hours.

When the race was over, I thought maybe she would slow down a little and take a break so the rest of us could slow down and take a break, but I was bamboozled. The whole team was bamboozled, because Emma doesn’t slow down or take breaks. Emma only goes harder.

So when she announced to the group that she had signed up for the 2022 Colorado Trail Race, I don’t think any of us were really surprised – and we knew it meant none of us would slow down. We would continue to ride through the winter (and by “we,” I mean Bike Team, and I sometimes pulled myself off my warm couch). By spring, we were already back to riding 40-mile days, and at the end of May, we celebrated my birthday by riding a sleuth of in-town trails, totaling 52 miles and just under 6,900 feet of elevation. Emma put a birthday crown on my helmet to remind us all we were “celebrating,” not suffering.

And that’s the thing, no matter what huge ride we all agreed upon, or however many miles we might have packed into a weekend, Emma and the rest of the Bike Team made it feel celebratory. So when Emma started getting ready to leave for the CTR, the only mood was stoke and celebration.

Her GPS tracker showed her starting the race with a 94-mile day, and when it started to slow down by the second day, I knew something was wrong. When she is pushing hard, anything under 70 miles a day, in crazy, rocky terrain, is unusual for Emma.

On day three, the news started trickling in that Emma had scratched. I’d already seen it on the tracker website, but I wasn’t sure if it was correct. Emma doesn’t stop for anything. Emma doesn’t believe in stopping.

But she had to. She reached a point where it was her only choice, and three days after “scratched” appeared next to her name, I was standing at the finish line congratulating a woman racer who is equally badass, but who wasn’t Emma.

Alexandera is an amazing rider, and I’m so in awe of her and any and all the riders who go out and race these crazy trails. But when I was standing at the finish line, I couldn’t help but wonder if that might have been Emma who crossed first: being greeted by Bike Team, sitting down with sore feet, warming up by the little campfire.

It doesn’t matter though, because sometimes it’s just about luck; a broken rim, a badly timed stomach bug. Sometimes it’s bad weather or bad gear. But I do know – and I should probably start preparing myself – that this time next year, I will be unknowingly training side-by-side with Emma, or any other member of our Bike Team, for some other ultra race that no one really wants to say no to.