Shawn Gregory brought home a first-place finish at the third annual Telluride 100 Mountain Bike Race.
Riding in the 40-and-over men’s division on Saturday, July 23, the Dolores resident finished the 100-mile race – that included nearly 14,000 feet of elevation gain – in 9:05:35, and nine minutes ahead of the second-place finisher.
Gregory has competed in the race in each year of its existence. In 2014, the first running of the event, he rode a geared bike and finished in sixth place (9:16:40) in the men’s open division. And then last year, he rode a single speed bike in the open division and finished in 11th place (9:51:54).
“The gear thing was kind of unusual for me,” he explained. “It’s typical for me to ride the single speed, so that was my norm last year. This year riding gears was a little different, and the year before last was the first time I’d even raced a geared bike in nine years or something.”
Gregory said that he doesn’t necessarily do anything special to prepare for the treacherous 100-mile race. He just rides a lot of miles.
“I’ve been doing long races for a long time now,” he said. “And 100 miles is actually shorter than what I normally would do. So even though it’s tough, it seemed a little easier than some of things I’ve done.”
In 2014, Gregory rode in the 300-mile Arizona Trail Race, finishing the event in just over two-and-half days as the fastest single-speed finisher and fourth overall.
Back in 2011, he rode in what he described as the toughest race he has ever competed: The Colorado Trail Race.
Gregory finished the over-500-mile race in five days, 15 hours and 44 minutes, calling it an “epic, humbling, painful, tiring, beat-down, exciting, tough, wet, cold, long, adventurous, difficult, mentally-draining, fun, beautiful, monumental experience,” on his blog.
Gregory plans to remain active in area mountain bike races, starting with the 50-mile course at the 18th annual Escalante Days Mountain Bike Race next weekend in Dolores.
“Beyond that,” he added, “There are a couple hundred mile races that I’ve got my eye on.”