Gunnison rider's goal is a noncompetitive legacy

GUNNISON - Last summer, Dave Wiens became known as the guy who beat Lance Armstrong.

The stay-at-home father of three showed up to the Leadville Trail 100 mountain bike race in August as he had for six years to discover that this time he would race against the seven-time winner of the Tour de France - arguably the best cyclist on the planet.

At the gun, Armstrong took the lead. Then Wiens. Then Armstrong. They battled for 90 miles. Finally, on a long climb with 10 miles to go, Wiens, 44, started to pull ahead.

"Come on," he said to Armstrong.

"No. Go, I'm done," Armstrong, 38, said, according to Wiens.

Wiens shot across the finish line two minutes ahead, cementing his place in cycling lore.

Well, at least maybe.

Armstrong is returning for a rematch, according to his coach, leaner, meaner, and with more altitude training.

"I don't think he even knew who I was when I beat him," Wiens said on a recent morning as he finished a few chores around his home here. "Now he does, and if he has really trained for the race this year, it could be very intense."

Armstrong is not the biggest challenge Wiens is tackling this summer. He leads a group that wants to build a trail system connecting Gunnison and neighboring Crested Butte. If built, the trail would make the region one of the great mountain bike destinations in the country. That is what Wiens would like his legacy in cycling lore to be. But it is as much of a long shot as pedaling against Armstrong.

"It has been tons of work, and even if we get it approved, it will mean tons more. This will take years," he said. "But I'm an endurance athlete, I'm in it for the long haul."
Professional background

When Wiens beat Armstrong, Ken Chlouber, founder of the Leadville Trail 100 running and mountain bike races, called Wiens a "giant killer."

If so, it was less David vs. Goliath than Goliath vs. Goliath.

Wiens may be a father who coaches Little League and can go for a long training ride only if he can line up a baby-sitter, but he also was a professional mountain biker for 16 years, won two Mountain Bike World Cups, and, in 2000, was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame.

Wiens grew up in Denver and went to Western State College in Gunnison in 1982, just down valley from one of the cradles of mountain biking, Crested Butte.

In 1986, he bought his first mountain bike - a Specialized Stumpjumper. Two years later, he joined the pro race circuit, where he met his wife and fellow Mountain Bike Hall of Famer Susan DeMattei. She is a nurse in town. He does occasional trail-design projects and other odd, bike-related jobs. They have three boys.

Wiens retired from professional bike racing in 2004, but kept doing a few races on an amateur level.

"I like having a goal. Something where I can push myself," he said.

The Leadville Trail 100 was just the right fit. It was tough, it was close to his house, and it took him out into the mountains he loves. He rode his first Leadville in 2003. He has won the Leadville Trail 100 six times in a row, breaking his own course record over and over.

Building places to ride

Almost as soon as Wiens started riding trails, he also started building them.

During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he and other mountain bikers in Gunnison built miles of trails in some little-visited sage brush hills on Bureau of Land Management land called Hartman Rocks.

But with growing popularity came restrictions. In the late 1990s, Wiens said, BLM managers started restricting trail building. Existing trails started to deteriorate.

In response, Wiens and a few other bikers started a nonprofit organization called Gunnison Trails in 2006. The mission is to design sustainable trails, work with local land managers to get them built, and bring together volunteer trail builders to maintain them.

They have built over 30 miles of trails.

One autumn night in 2006, he was in his house, letting his eyes wander over a map of the surrounding mountains.

"I do that a lot," he said. "And I noticed there was uninterrupted public land all the way from Gunnison to Crested Butte."

He started tracing his finger along the paper, imagining a 40-mile trail winding through aspen glens and deep evergreen woods, around peaks and down sage-studded ridges. It would be epic.

The surrounding public-land managers were just starting to design a once-in-a-decade master plan for trails in the area, called a travel management plan, so Wiens saw his chance.

He attacked the undertaking like an endurance athlete heading out on a 100-mile ride: one piece at a time.

He started talking to city and county leaders about how the trail could be a boon to tourism.

"We really started thinking Dave was on to something," said Gunnison city manager Ken Coleman.

He got them to give their formal endorsement of the idea to the BLM and U.S. Forest Service.

When a draft of the travel management plan came out this spring, it included most of the trail system, but not a key piece.

"Without that section, we don't have many options," Wiens said. "It won't work."

So he and other mountain bikers have sent dozens of comments to the land managers during a comment period that ended last week, saying the key section must be included.

"We look at all those comments and put them into the final decision," said Bill Jackson, recreation manager for the U.S. Forest Service Gunnison Ranger District. "For the final plan, the decision makers don't have to pick one draft alternative or another. They can mix and match."

The final plan is due out this winter. If Wiens is successful, he will then have to figure out how to amass the thousands of man hours and piles of cash needed to build.

Until then, he has time to figure out what to do about Armstrong.

Looking ahead

"Lance doesn't like to lose," Chlouber, Leadville's race director, said recently. "When Wiens beat him, he looked at me and said, ‘I'll be back.' He's like the Terminator."

Armstrong recently bought a house in Aspen so he can train at altitude. He is expected to race the Tour de France again in July, so he will likely be in top shape for Leadville. He could not be reached for comment.

"It will be a very interesting race," said Armstrong's coach, Chris Carmichael, who lives in Colorado Springs. "Dave Wiens has proven he can't be beaten on this course, but Lance really wants to win. I think this might be the year Dave falls."

Armstrong brought a lot of publicity to the race, which has attracted a few other high-level pros. Any one of them could win. But Chlouber said he is still betting on Wiens.

"If these guys want to win, the first thing they have to do is beat Dave, and no one has done that yet. Anyone who bets against Dave going into this race is just plain old cornbread country dumb."

Wiens is not making any predictions.

He spent a recent afternoon marking a race course in the sage hills above Gunnison for a 64-mile fundraiser race to benefit Gunnison Trails.

He pedalled around on the bike he rode when he beat Armstrong, stopping often to pound stakes in the dirt and attach orange ribbon.

He had to soon meet his kids after school.

"People say I should hire a trainer to get ready for Lance. . . I don't think so. I think that would kill my spirit. I just like to get out and ride with friends," he said.

In a way, he said, trying to beat Armstrong is a lot like trying to build the Gunnison to Crested Butte Trail.

"I'll just give it a try. I have no illusions that I can do it, but it would be kind of chicken not to try my best."

Leadville trail 100

What: Two races, by bike or foot, that climb over 15,000 feet through the mountains around Leadville.

When: Aug. 15 (bike) and Aug. 22 (run)

Information: Leadvilletrail100.com

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• To learn more about the Crested Butte to Gunnison Trail and other projects, visit Gunnisontrails.com