What’s old is new again: Leadville racers take inspiration from Tomac
Hunting for records in the high altitude Colorado XCM Classic
Leadville 100 is back this weekend and the iconic U.S. high-altitude marathon mountain bike race is, as ever, inspiring some interesting gear choices.
The 100 mile XC marathon, like many marathons, forces racers to choose between efficiency in high speed sections and safety (of gear and body) on more technical parts of the course. Leadville, though, is one of the more extreme courses in its terrain differences. A long stretch of paved roads connecting singletrack and very rough doubletrack forces riders to either sacrifice all-out speed on the road or to sacrifice descending speed – and safety – on the more natural sections of track.
This year, three of the front runners are opting for the drop-bar monster bike approach. One is pre-race favourite, multi-time winner and current record-holder Keegan Swenson. Cory Wallace is back at it as well. The other is Dylan Johnson of the Felt UN1TD team.
What’s old is new
While these monster bikes always attract attention, its not a new approach. Every few years someone decides it’ll be faster, attempts to take the record (like Swenson this year), or just gets bored and wants to see if it’d actually be faster to run drop-bars with Leadville’s long stretches of tarmac.
Travis Brown famously ran a drop-bar Trek way back in 2009. Cory Wallace went full-gravel with a Kona Libre with a suspension fork in 2021, finishing 11th.
Outside of Colorado, Geoff Kabush won the similarly speedy Iceman Cometh XCM on an Open U.P./Yeti in in 2018. Oh, and some guy named John Tomac pioneered the drop-bar mountain bike way back in the 90s.
Keegan Swenson’s Santa Cruz Highball
Last year, Keegan Swenson took a staggering 15 minutes off his own Leadville 100 course record, lowering the benchmark time for 170km of Colorado pedalling to 5:43:31. With Swenson riding in air as rarefied as it it is thin, the Santa Cruz racer is getting creative in his attempt to shave – or slice – even more time off the record.
For 2024, Swenson is running a Santa Cruz Highball CC hardtail mountain bike. The lower half of the Highball looks reasonably normal, with a 100mm RockShox SID SL Ultimate fork, Level Ultimate four-piston brakes, XX SL Transmission drivetrain, Reserve 28 rims on DT Swiss 180 hubs and Maxxis’ super-fast Aspen ST 170 2.4″ tires.
Raise your gaze and things get weird. Drop bars on a short, severely negative-angle stem support SRAM Red hoods and levers. While SRAM recently opened up gravel to 13-speed with it’s Red XPLR group, Swenson is running 12-speed SRAM XX SL Transmission, though there is a huge 42-tooth chainring up front.
Will it help Swenson re-set the Leadville 100 record? Who knows, but the Santa Cruz racer continues to crush the Life Time series events.
UPDATE: Cory Wallace’s Otso Waheela C
Returning to the drop bar brigade is Cory Wallace. Unlike Swenson and Johnson, the Jasper, Alta. endurance racer is going full gravel. Wallace is riding an Otso Waheela C. While Wallace has raced for Kona for years now, Otso stepped in during the brief period where Kona ownership was, uh, in flux, before he was brought back onto the team. Wallace will take on the Colorado race aboard an Otso equipped with Shimano’s updated 12-speed, wide-range, cable-actuated GRX 1x set-up released last year. Those will drive a pair of carbon fiber NOBL 35 cross country mountain bike hoops from the Vancouver Island brand and Maxxis Aspen tires in the narrower 2.25″ width. It’s an interesting mix of more gravel than some riders, but more XC in tire and wheel choice. A very experienced RAD version of the Fox 32 TC gravel suspension fork holds it all together.
Dylan Johnson Allied BC40
Another rider with a history of interesting builds is Dylan Johnson. After a podium at Unbound Gravel, Johnson is primed for the faster portion of the races and leaning into his strengths. His Allied BC40 build is a little more out there than Swenson’s, using a full suspension frame. That descending speed is bolstered by the new XCM-specific Fox 32 SC reverse-arch fork. Â Schwalbe’s very fast Thunder Burt tires are wrapped around 29″ Reynolds rims. SRAM XX AXS is spiced up with some Ceramic Speed bits and road pedals. Unlike Swenson, Johnson opts for the long and low front end, with a roadie-worthy stem keeping the BC40 as aero as is possible.
Check out his YouTube for a really detailed view of the build and the idea behind it.