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It's a Jungle Out There A torturous three-day bike race across Costa Rica, an annual event called La Ruta, has always been won by a Costa Rican. This year a U.S. rider pushed the hosts to the limit
Tinker Juarez had raced over 190 miles, and up 30,000 collective feet, of rugged tropical mountain terrain by the time he reached the churning waters of Costa Rica's Madre de Dios river. It was the third stage of November's La Ruta de los Conquistadores, and Juarez, a three-time NORBA cross-country mountain bike champion and two-time member of the U.S. Olympic mountain bike team, was struggling to finish. Torrential rains doused the banana plantations and swelled the rivers, halting Juarez, as well as Costa Rican Olympian José Bonilla and the rest of the lead pack, only miles from the Caribbean coast and the finish line. One by one the five front riders hoisted their bikes overhead and stepped into the rushing torrent. Juarez went next to last. Debris floated past as the thick brown water reached chest height, and Juarez's wheel dipped into the flow. The current grabbed hard at his bike, spinning him around and shaking his footing from its precarious perch on the slippery riverbed boulders. "Help! I need help!" Juarez shouted, suddenly facing the mortal threat of being washed downstream. Within seconds the rivals he had so fiercely sought to crush during 14 hours of racing came to his aid. Juarez held tight to one wheel of his sinking bike as the racers turned rescuers running along the shore grabbed the other wheel and pulled him to safety. This was La Ruta exactly as its creator, ultraendurance athlete Román Urbina, had intended: part mountain bike race worthy of the best competitors in the world and part adventure race that forces cooperation from the most unlikely pairs and milks humility from the most confident athletes. It has been called the toughest mountain bike event on the planet, but few cyclists believe that until they ride La Ruta themselves. The annual race, which was first held in 1992, traces the path the Spanish conquerors blazed through the jungle early in the 16th century. It links nearly 300 miles of sometimes barely passable terrain, gaining cumulative elevation equal to Mount Everest's summit. La Ruta, which is privately sponsored, spans three grueling days and leads competitors through vastly different ecosystems and geographical regions, not to mention wild fluctuations of weather. It tests not only physical endurance and technical riding skills but also the ability to adapt to unfamiliar terrain. Coming into this year, Costa Rican competitors had a vise grip on their homeland race; no foreigner had finished first. On Nov. 16, 277 men and women -- 150 Costa Ricans and the rest from nine other nations -- pedaled off the predawn start on the Pacific Coast, each with a distinct set of goals. U.S. riders Bob Kimber and Shannon Warburg co-piloted the race's only tandem bike through descents that pitched even the best riders over their bars. American Kenny Owen became the first cyclist to complete La Ruta on a single-speed drivetrain, while the others relied on 27 gears. Most remarkably, Brett Wolfe, an amputee and experienced long-distance cyclist, finished strong while pedaling with his one leg. Riders have to be extraordinarily determined to finish (more than a quarter of this year's field failed to complete the course), and those who return every year will tell you that La Ruta is much more about the journey than winning the $1,000 cash purse. "It's a very personal challenge," says Urbina, age 39, who has competed in five La Rutas. "You have to be focused and do absolutely everything right just to finish." Doing everything right means training for tropical 100° heat and 14,000 feet of excruciating climbing that winds through remote jungles and tiny coffee farms for 87 miles on the first day. It means being prepared for the freezing rain near the top of Mount Irazú, an 11,260-foot-high volcano that typically sends a handful of hypothermic athletes to the hospital on Day 2. It also means having the fortitude to confront risky river crossings, rotting foot bridges over alligator-infested waters and the strong possibility of ending up exhausted to the point of hallucination. Bonilla won the race. A 23-year-old pro, he had spent months training on the route with his team, Pizza Hut/Specialized, and he upheld the Costa Rican dynasty by fending off a strong challenge from Juarez of Southern California. Juarez, 40, had more to contend with than Bonilla's youth and familiarity with the course. Many of the Costa Rican fans on hand did what they always do: They helped their own. Like the rest of his countrymen, Bonilla benefited from water handouts by roadside spectators as well as from friends' unofficial support vehicles. That support, which most foreign riders acknowledged without complaint as a home field advantage, enabled Bonilla to blow through food and water stations. Juarez and other foreign competitors were forced to stop and replenish themselves. "I was neck and neck [with Costa Rican riders], and when I stopped at the checkpoint, they went right on by," said James Mortenson of Vail, Colo., who finished third in two stages and fifth overall. "In a tight race that's a big deal." Despite that disadvantage, and his ordeal in the river, Juarez beat all the Costa Ricans save one and finished second in a time of 15:55:40. Bonilla's 15:40:32 was a La Ruta record. In Stage 1, Juarez edged Bonilla by 31 seconds after a gripping head-to-head battle, but he lost the advantage the next day when Bonilla exploded past him in the early stretch of a 9,000-foot continuous climb. Juarez subsequently crashed on the descent, and at the end of Stage 2, Bonilla had a 16-minute lead that essentially ensured his victory. "It's not about how you feel in the beginning; it's about whether you can suffer for so long," Juarez says. "As far as the races I've done, this is the toughest. The bottom line is I came here thinking I could win. But that was hard-core." Issue date: December 3, 2001 For more news, notes and features from the world of adventure sports, call toll free to order SI Adventure at 1-888-394-5427.
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