Cycling in Leadville

At roughly 10,150 feet, Leadville is the highest incorporated city in North America, and its riding is defined by thin air and big mountains. The town is best known as the finish town of the Leadville Trail 100 MTB, the roughly 100-mile out-and-back race run each August as part of the broader Leadville Race Series, climbing to about 12,500 feet at the Columbine Mine turnaround. Beyond race weekend, the paved 11.6-mile Mineral Belt Trail loops the town for easy spinning, while the surrounding Sawatch Range and old mining roads (including the Route of the Silver Kings) offer high-altitude mountain biking and gravel with commanding views of Colorado’s highest peaks.

Bike-friendly lodging in Leadville is oriented around race logistics rather than on-site rental fleets. The historic Delaware Hotel sits a block from the endurance-race start lines on Harrison Avenue and offers secure bike storage for a fee, with a bike-wash station added during recent renovations. The high-altitude Inn the Clouds Hostel & Inn puts out steel bike racks for the summer season and is a long-running, budget base for racers and touring cyclists.

For bikes and service, Cycles of Life (309 Harrison Ave) rents and demos mountain, gravel and e-bikes and can receive, build, tune and repack shipped race bikes. Leadvelo Bicicasa (719 Harrison Ave) rents townie and fat bikes and specializes in cleaning, tuning and storing racers’ bikes before the LT100. E-Bike Leadville (113 E 7th St) runs a fleet of cruiser and fat-tire e-bikes for exploring the Mineral Belt Trail and Turquoise Lake.

In August the old mining town hosts the Leadville Trail 100 MTB, the 100-mile high-altitude “Race Across the Sky” worth planning around whether you land a lottery spot or come to spectate.