Todd Wells

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Todd Wells was born December 25, 1975 in Kingston, N.Y. He fell in love with the bicycle at an early age starting with BMX from the age of five through sixteen. After graduating high school he picked up his first mountain bike and has been on a tear ever since. He found his way out to Durango, CO where he attended Fort Lewis College and began a pursuit of his career in cycling.

Wells won two Cross Country Mountain Bike Collegiate titles for Fort Lewis College and the inaugural Semi Pro NORBA National Series title in 1996 before taking a break from his studies to become a full time professional cyclist with the Specialized Mountain Dew team.

His initial professional career was short lived as he decided to hang up his wheels at the end of the 1998 season and finish his collegiate studies at the University of Arizona. In 2000 he graduated from the University of Arizona with a B.S. in Management Information Systems and immediately started working for I.B.M., a company he interned with during his time as a student.

Wells quickly realized that being a bike racer was better then having a “real” job and started training once again with his sights set on returning to the professional ranks. Some good results landed him a contract with the Mongoose Hyundai team and he was back on the circuit full time by the end of 2001.

By 2008 he was back where he started with the Specialized team and his results seem to get better with age. He has won nine National Championship titles across four disciplines. In 2011 he took on some endurance races and racked up wins in both the Leadville 100 and La Ruta de Los Conquistadors.

2012 might have been his best season yet with his third trip to the Olympic Games where he placed a career best 10th. He also managed to win his second PROXCT series title, second Pan American Championship title and stood on the podium at the Windham World Cup.

When Todd isn’t racing all over the world you can find him in one of three places; hanging out with his wife Meg and dog Winston, grinding it out on the golf course or hitting the dirt jump trails around Durango or his winter home of Tucson, AZ.

Achievements

2012 Marathon National Champion
2012, 2010 PROXCT National Champion
2012, 2010 Continental Champion
2012, 2010, 2001 Short Track National Champion
2012 Olympic Games 10th
2012 Windham World Cup 4th
2011 US Cyclocross National Champion
2011 La Ruta de los Conquistadores Champion
2011 Leadville Trail 100 Champion
2011 US Cross Coutry Mountain Bike National Champion
2011 Sea Otter Classic XC 1st Place
2011 World Championships 7th
2004, 2008 Olympic Games Team Member

La Ruta De Los Conquistadors

November 7, 2011

La Ruta could be the best adventure I’ve had on a bike and the hardest race as well. I had never been to Costa Rica before this trip and never experienced anything like La Ruta, it was truly an amazing event. If you don’t know what La Ruta is, it’s a 4-day Mountain Bike stage race that starts at the Pacific Ocean in Jaco and ends at the Caribbean in Limon. Most days are between 70-120 kilometers and vary between 3,000 to 12,000 feet of the steepest climbing you will ever see, and it’s mostly in the jungle.

I had heard a lot of stories going into the race but didn’t know what exactly to expect. Luckily I had an incredible support crew that consisted of my wife Meg, Team Manger/ World’s best mechanic Benno, his girlfriend Manuela, the Specialized Costa Rica distributor Carlos Campos and his friend Roberto. We had two 4 Wheel drive Toyota Land Cruisers equipped with bike racks and boxes. I had both my Stumpjumper 29er and Epic 29er, sets of wheels and enough spare parts for an entire team. I raced the Stumpjumper the first two days and the Epic the last two days.

You might wonder why I needed so much support but if you do the race you will understand it’s impossible to win with out the best equipment and support crew. There were generally four tech/feedzones per day located in some of the most remote areas in Costa Rica. If you don’t have a 4-wheel drive with high clearance you couldn’t access most of them. If you don’t have a local to tell you have to get there while racing through small villages at breakneck speed you would never find them in time. Lucky for me I had both.

Day 1 went from Jaco to San Jose and that was the day I won the race. I put ten minutes into the second place rider and thirteen into Rom Atkinson, a Specialized Costa Rica rider that I would battle with over the next three days. I didn’t know how I would recover in a MTB stage race having never competed in one before so I figured I would give everything the first day, try to at least get a stage win and the jersey for one day. The bike worked perfect and I felt good until around hour five when I started to get some cramps. Luckily I was able to keep it rolling and take the jersey.

Day 2 had a bit less climbing, only 11,000 ft and did a big lap in the mountains around San Jose. I was watching Milton and Rom, the two riders in second and third on G.C.. We let the Colombian, Mejia go up the road since he had lost half an hour the first day. Halfway through the stage I got a puncture and lost contact with Rom and Lico. Rom was only thirteen minutes down on me so I was worried. I changed the tire in a few minutes but had messed up the wheel as well. Luckily the next techzone was only 7 kilometers away and Benno had a quick wheel change for me. I chased hard for the next 2 hours but ended up giving Rom back 6:30 minutes so now my lead was down to 6:30, with two stages to go.

Day 3 went from San Jose to Turriaiba. This stage was up and over a 10,000 ft high volcano. We started with a steep one hour long dirt road climb where Mija again attacked but was still over 20 minutes down in the G.C. Rom also put in an attack early on but I was able to bring him back after a couple of kilometers. When we hit the 5,000 ft climb up to the volcano Rom launched again and I couldn’t bring him back. For the next hour I chased him with his gap growing to one minute by the top of the climb. Luckily the downhill was pretty rough off the volcano and I was able to close the gap to him. We hit the last 10 kilometers of paved downhill together but I was able to gap him and gain just over 3 minutes by the time we hit the finish line.

We never saw Mija but he had only gained about 2 minutes so he was still far down on the G.C.b

Day 4 is the longest stage, 120 kilometers but only has about

forty-five minutes of climbing and the rest is flat dirt road,

pavement and peach road. This time it was the Costa Rican Hernandez that would start the fireworks on the first climb. Again he was very far down on G.C. so we didn’t have to chase. On the second of the two main climbs Mija, Lico and Alex Grant got away but we quickly caught them on the long descent. We were a group of eight for most of the day with the Costa Rican Specialized rider “Aliman” riding on the front for me all day. We would never see Fernandez again but Rom and I rolled in together with me sealing the victory and winning my first

ever La Ruta!!!

The race was one of the coolest I have ever done. It was also the

hardest by far. I have never seen such steep climbs; I spent most of the days in my 24/36 for what seemed like hours on end. The heat wasn’t too bad but not knowing when the climbs would end or what was coming next was daunting. There are so many riders in Latin America you’ve never heard of because they don’t have the means to travel to the World Cups but they are FAST! And they go uphill like they’re on the flats. I would encourage anyone that is thinking about doing this race to do it, it’s a real adventure.

Pura Vida…..

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