Stage 1 started well. Leah was riding fast and passing people before launching herself over the bars on the first steep, loose descent. Torn jersey, with a bloody knee, and then she punctured. Not exactly the gentle opening you'd hope for when defending a title, but she kept going.

There is a lot of talk about grit and resilience in sport, most of which becomes fairly meaningless once it has been printed on enough gym walls. But sometimes it is simpler than that: bleed a bit, fix the flat and carry on because there is still a bunch of racing left to do.

Stage 2 went better. Leah rode conservatively early before hitting the Colorado Trail and deciding, in her words, “it’s game on.” She finished second and moved into second overall. Then Guyot arrived with 40.5 miles, more than 7,000 feet of climbing and two crossings of the Continental Divide. Leah had a rough one, finished fifth and dropped to third overall.

That’s stage racing. One day you feel like you could ride forever, the next somebody appears to have quietly replaced your legs with two bags of wet cement. 

What mattered was the response. On Stage 4, Leah was back on Deanna’s wheel and suddenly making the race a lot less comfortable.

She finished second that day, moved back into second overall, then offered the wonderfully uncomplicated assessment: “That’s what stage racing is all about. You go up, you go down.”

Then the mountain got a vote

Thursday should have been Wheeler, less than 25 miles but with more than 5,000 feet of climbing and a good chunk of time spent exposed above treeline, hiking bikes and then the weather rolled in.

With thunderstorms forecast across the Tenmile Range, Mike Mac and the Breck Epic crew made the call not to send riders and volunteers onto the ridge and it was absolutely the right decision. There are plenty of opportunities in mountain biking to prove how hard you are but standing above treeline waving a carbon fishing rod around while electricity falls from the sky does not need to be one of them.

That call says quite a lot about the people behind the Breck Epic. The race is deliberately brutal and nobody accidentally put 7,000 feet of climbing into Guyot. But Mike and his crew understand the difference between making something hard and making it stupid.

Friday became the finale on Gold Dust. Deanna had a big overall lead and Leah had second, so common sense might have suggested everybody calm down and get to the finish. Luckily, bike racers are rarely burdened by excessive common sense.

Deanna went hard and Leah stayed close. With only a few miles remaining, Deanna could still see her behind. Leah eventually crossed the finish just 37 seconds later, wrapping up second on the stage and second overall after five gnarly days of racing at the 2026 Breck Epic.

Meanwhile, the Heckling HUNTs

The race at the front is only part of what makes Breck Epic what it is. Some riders are there to win, chase a KOM or QOM, and others have spent months squeezing training around work and family, just hoping to make it to Friday and finish the thing. and that mix is a huge part of why HUNT wanted to be there.

We had the HUNT setup in the race village all week with wheels hanging up, tools out and a steady stream of mountain-bike problems wandering through the tent. We were there to help keep people moving, regardless of the name written on their rims. Once somebody has spent months preparing for Breck, travelled to Colorado and made it halfway through the week, the sticker on the wheel becomes considerably less important than helping them finish the bloody thing.

When we weren’t wrenching, we found another service we were really go at: heckling. We’d head out to some of the more soul-destroying climbs and post up near the top, right where riders could finally see the end of whatever piece of hell they’d just dragged themselves through. That was usually the perfect time to start talking mess, handing out some encouragement and making enough noise to get a smile out of people who had been staring at their stem for the last half hour. 

There was encouragement, some good old-fashioned shit talking, questionable advice and the occasional Fireball. Somewhere along the way we became known as The Heckling HUNTs, which felt like a respectable achievement for the week.

The best part was watching people arrive completely hollowed out, realise the collection of idiots on the side of the trail were yelling for them, and suddenly crack a smile. Some laughed, and only one told us to eff off and they all kept pedalling.

Why Breck matters.

What Mike McCormack, his staff and an all-time crew of volunteers have created is difficult to describe without wandering into inspirational-mug territory, so I’ll keep it simple: they care. You see it at the aid stations, out on course and at the finish. The person fighting for the GC gets looked after, and so does the rider fighting simply to make the cutoff. That feels like mountain biking to us; somebody showed you the trail, there was always that person that waited when you flatted and somebody to lend you a tool, and that person who talked you into another lap or yelled at you when you needed yelling at.

There are obvious reasons for HUNT to support a race like this. Leah raced brilliantly. Her BERD-spoked Proven XC wheels got five very real days in the Colorado high country. We fixed wheels, talked to riders and learned things. But the bigger reason is that this is where mountain biking happens. Racers trying to win and people trying to finish.

That’s the sport we want HUNT MTB buried in.

Congratulations to Leah on a hell of a ride, and to Deanna on an incredible win. Thanks to Mike Mac, his crew, the volunteers and every slightly deranged person who decided racing mountain bikes around Breckenridge for a week sounded like fun.

We’ll see you next year.