'We still have Columbine, it's still a climbing race' - Lauren Stephens returns from last year's Leadville DSQ for attempt at victory 16 years in the making

You won't find Lauren Stephen's name in the Leadville Trail 100 MTB results from 2025, though she did cross the finish line with a third-best time for women, for a brief time. Her effort in the mountain bike race was wiped away by a disqualification for accepting aid from a crew member outside an approved elite rider feed zone.

She admitted the mistake and took the hit, confirming to Cyclingnews hours after the race that she had "misunderstood the rules" for elite riders and took a bottle at an aid station for non-elites, adding, "I'm not proud of my mistake but I am proud of my performance."

A three-time US Gravel National Champion with former road race titles at USPro and Pan American championships, Stephens enjoys riding any bike on any terrain. This year she returns for 'another' debut at Leadville and aims for the podium. She said it was a race she's wanted to win for more than 15 years, but with a busy road calendar that paid the bills didn't have room for it until recently.

In 2026, she's committed to the Life Time Grand Prix. For her, Leadville isn't just a race in the series, it's the one she wants to win.

"Leadville's always kind of been a dream race of mine. So to get to race it last year was just so special. I'd always said I would race it when I stopped racing full time, and I know I still race full time, but I'm not racing professionally over in Europe, so it's just a current chapter in my career," Stephens explained to Cyclingnews from her high-elevation training base near Telluride, Colorado last week.

"It was a big goal of mine last year to win it, and finishing third was amazing. And yeah, this year I'm back to try to win."

It was in 2009 that Lauren Stephens awakened a desire to race, and win, Leadville Trail 100 MTB. She had just watched a documentary, 'Race Across the Sky: the Leadville Trail 100', and was captivated by the film that featured incredible climbing, a dominant women's winner Rebecca Rusch and the men's showdown between Lance Armstrong and Dave Wiens.

"Before I was racing and just getting interested in cycling, I remember going to the theatres to watch the movie about Leadville, and just being like, wow, I want to do that one day. Gosh, that was almost 20 years ago," she said.

She is fifth overall in the Life Time Grand Prix going into Leadville this year, with a large spread of 18 points to leader Sofia Gomez Villafañe. The Colorado race begins the back half of the series with ample opportunities to move higher in the standings. She opened the year with a runner-up to Villafañe in the sprint at Sea Otter Classic on dirt, and on the road won GC titles at Redlands Bicycle Classic, Tour of the Gila and won The Growler at Levi's Gran Fondo.

After finishing 15th at Unbound Gravel 200, her first time at that distance after winning the 100-mile event previously, Stephens went second to Kate Courtney at the USPro road race championship. Now it's Courtney's turn to race on the road in Europe and Stephens stays in the US for off-road endurance.

"When you look at Unbound being 200 miles, it's a different animal. A seven-hour race is much more in my wheelhouse, and being such a climbing race as well," she said, noting that her expansive time with road riding has been a solid base, as well as six weeks at elevation.

After USPro Nationals in mid-June, she went straight to Colorado rather than her home in Dallas, Texas, a notable difference of nearly 8,000 feet (2,430 metres). She raced Foco Fondo, winning for a third time, and trained around Telluride. The smoke from wildfires was not as noticeable in that area, and she was glad Life Time could make Leadville happen, even with the elimination of some climbing.

"It's unfortunate about the fires. The new course was pretty much what we expected they would come up with, and so I wasn't really surprised by it. We still have Columbine, so it's still a climbing race, Stephens said.

"But not having Powerline at the end definitely changes the race quite a bit. I think it makes Columbine even more important. In general, the way the race was raced before, Columbine caused attrition, caused splits, just by the nature of it being such a long, hard climb and at such high elevation. Powerline was the place where you could make your final attack; now, not having Powerline, I think makes Columbine harder."

She said wind is also a factor on some of the wide-open parts of the route between Turquoise Lake to the north and the Twin Lakes to the south at the base of Columbine. And with 20 miles to go at the end, fatigue came into play on the 20% gradients of the 3.4-mile stretch of Powerline, where she tried to get away from runner-up Melisa Rollins, though Courtney was long gone.

"Powerline was basically a wall. Now, there's nothing crazy, but after such a long day, everything's hard. I mean, we're still at almost 10,000 feet of climbing."

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