The stage times on the schedule are not guesses from a calculator. Most of this course was ridden in the six weeks before the start, in pieces, and the planned durations are those measured efforts with an allowance added for riding them tired, in the dark, and back to back.
Ride data pulled from Strava on 12 August 2026. Moving time and stopped time are Strava's own split.
| Date | Ride | Miles | Gain (ft) | Moving | mph | Stopped |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-08-09 | Full stage simulation | 40.3 | 6,182 | 6:22 | 6.3 | 1:08 |
| 2026-07-15 | Aqueduct 2 · stage 4 | 23.6 | 3,625 | 3:16 | 7.2 | 0:22 |
| 2026-07-12 | Stage 3 Guyot partial · stage 3 | 19.4 | 2,753 | 3:34 | 5.4 | 1:54 |
| 2026-07-12 | Segment 2 co trail · stage 2 | 42.2 | 5,807 | 5:56 | 7.1 | 1:18 |
| 2026-07-11 | Breck epic stage 1 Penn creek · stage 1 | 38.1 | 5,502 | 4:49 | 7.9 | 0:42 |
| 2026-07-03 | Firecracker course pre ride | 26.2 | 3,553 | 3:10 | 8.2 | 0:08 |
| 2026-07-16 | Morning Ride (Guyot area) | 24.6 | 3,169 | 3:18 | 7.4 | 0:14 |
Across these: 214 miles, 30,591 ft of climbing, 30:29 moving, averaging 7.0 mph.
Recon pace averaged 7.0 mph moving, on fresh legs, in daylight, one stage at a time. The plan does not use that number. It uses something slower, because the thing being estimated is not how fast a stage can be ridden — it is how fast the sixth one gets ridden after fifty hours.
Two adjustments carry most of the difference. Stages ridden at night, on the Colorado Trail and Aqueduct, are planned slower than they were ridden in July. And the stopped time is planned explicitly rather than absorbed: the schedule allocates it in named blocks, because the finisher traces show time off the bike is what separates a 31-hour finish from a 57-hour one.
Stages 5 and 6 are the softest numbers on the schedule. They were not ridden end to end in recon, so their durations are scaled estimates rather than measured ones — and they are also the last two stages, on the worst legs.