The Life Time Grand Prix is filled with Colorado cyclists, and some are coming to the Mountain Games and Big Horn Gravel

Bike-enthusiasts following the second edition of the Life Time Grand Prix — America’s most prestigious off-road cycling series — might recognize a few names from local races.

Out of the 70 athletes (35 male, 35 female) selected for the seven-race series — which includes in-state stops at the Leadville 100 and The Rad Dirt Fest (Trinidad, Colorado) — 20 are Coloradans. Several are current or former headliners at the GoPro Mountain Games XC mountain bike and road bike time trials — which are Saturday and Sunday — and/or the Gypsum-area race, Bighorn Gravel, which is on June 25.

Lauren De Crescenzo, Caroline Mani, Howard Grotts, Ellen Campbell and Caroline Tory are Colorado-based Grand Prix athletes who will be lining up for this year’s Big Horn Gravel, as are out-of-state athletes Dylan Johnson and Emily Newsom.

Grotts and Alexis Skarda were last year’s Oakley XC mountain bike champions at the Mountain Games and Skarda was also the 85-mile Ramshorn Escape winner at Bighorn Gravel last year. In addition to this year’s Big Horn, Grotts is excited to return to the Mountain Games for “something like” the 10th time this week.

“It’s a great weekend with plenty of activities and a fun, old-school style XC course. I’ll also branch out and try one of the running events because, why not!” he stated.

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He might come in with tired legs. The 30-year-old Durango-native finished 29th overall in Saturday’s Unbound Gravel 200-mile race, which was won by the 2022 defending Life Time Grand Prix champion, Keegan Swenson. The multiple-time U.S. mountain bike national champion obliterated last year’s Leadville 100 field, just missing the hallowed six-hour barrier in doing so.

“Keegan’s consistency is impressive; I think he’s figured out all the right ingredients for these longer races and now the rest of us are just playing catch up,” said Grotts, who was third himself in the Leadville 100 but won it three straight times from 2017-2019. Grotts said he stuck around home this winter, getting fit via skate skiing and running while limiting his time in the saddle.

“With such a long season, I find it suits me to have bigger blocks during the summer and that also helps keep the training fresh mentally.” To get ready for the Colorado swing, he plans on spending some extra time at altitude and ramping up his threshold training.

One athlete who never seems to take a bike break, Lachlan Morton, is another Colorado-based UCI pro who could contend for the overall Grand Prix win after placing 14th last season.

“It was fun,” the Boulder-based endurance monster said of last year’s Life Time series debut. “I was curious to see, like a lot of people, what a new race series format would look like in the states and I was pretty impressed. I think U.S. racing has been struggling for a bit and this is a good answer to this.”

While the EF Education team rider said personally he was underprepared last season — “I got out what I deserved, I would say,” he noted — this past off-season, spent in his home country, Australia, was one of his best ever.

“I did a lot of specific work to try and boost up my high-level power after focusing on kind of longer races for a few years,” he said of his 25-30 hour weeks down under — a number he said was “a bit less than I would normally do.”

Morton has been sharpening his fitness recently in Edwards. He logged a few lengthy rides in the last week of May, including a 130-miler which included a 54 minute, 39-second rip up the 11-mile Vail Pass bike path segment. He said one of his favorite places to ride are the forest roads above Eagle.

“That kind of wilderness area that hooks over to the Aspen area. I’ve done some riding back in there,” he said. “It’s pretty remote — it’s a fun place to go ride.” 

“I just want to get out there and get out some performances that I know I’ve got in me,” he said of his goals for the 2023 Grand Prix. After placing third at Unbound — three seconds behind Swenson — Morton is in fourth in the overall standings. He’s hungry to come back to Leadville in August, where a couple of flat tires derailed last year’s efforts. Still, he knows taking down Swenson is a tall order.

“It would take a bad day from him and a great day from me to be able to get over him there,” Morton said. “He’s on another level than everyone at the moment. … I think it’s good that someone’s come in and really taken it seriously and kind of raised the game. So, he’s the benchmark for that race.”

Eric Brunner, who competed in the Vail Pass time trial and the mountain bike race at last year’s Mountain Games and led the first half of Big Horn Gravel before a mechanical issue pushed him into fourth, is another of the Grand Prix’s familiar faces. Unfortunately for locals heading to Vail Mountain or Gypsum, Brunner said he’s taking both events off this year to focus more on the Grand Prix.

“I race cyclocross so my off-season is usually just two or three months,” he said. “I trained a little differently this cross season and came back into training after my post-season break feeling great.”

The former U.S. national cyclocross champion is focused on the process and his attitude over specific outcomes throughout the summer.

“I’m thinking about an overall podium, but honestly I don’t know what to expect,” he stated. “I missed the first round of the Grand Prix at Sea Otter as I’ve been dealing with depression and burnout, so the most important goal for me is just to enjoy myself and do things in a way that’s sustainable for me.”

Last year’s Bighorn male winner, Zach Calton, is also in the Grand Prix field, as is Mani, a five-time French national cyclocross champion. It was announced on social media on Monday that Mani is coming back to Big Horn, which is organized by her former teammate, Avon’s Jake Wells.

“It is one of the hardest races I have ever done. So much climbing!” she stated. “I actually never did the GoPro Mountain Games and I may consider doing it this year.”

Mani considers herself someone who has trained the least out of the Grand Prix field.

“I have been racing my bike for 20 years now and I hope that longevity is helping me in some ways,” she said. As a full-time sales representative for Pactimo and a coach for Carmichael Training Systems, she’s happy if she squeezes in 12 hours of weekly riding.

“I’m an old school racer and even if I work with a power meter I’m not really into numbers at all,” she added. “I like to learn about my body and my sensations.”