{"id":798538,"date":"2019-08-14T18:02:05","date_gmt":"2019-08-15T00:02:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.summitdaily.com\/?p=369914"},"modified":"2019-08-14T18:02:05","modified_gmt":"2019-08-15T00:02:05","slug":"enduring-the-epic-meet-dean-cahow-the-only-person-never-to-miss-a-breck-epic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/local-news\/enduring-the-epic-meet-dean-cahow-the-only-person-never-to-miss-a-breck-epic\/","title":{"rendered":"Enduring the Epic: Meet Dean Cahow, the only person never to miss a Breck Epic"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Dean Cahow, of Breckenridge, is cycling in his 11th consecutive Breck Epic, the only rider in the race’s history to bike in every edition.<\/strong>
Courtesy Byron Swezy \/ Breck Epic<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 If the Breck Epic had a spirit animal, there\u2019s a fair chance it would be Dean Cahow, a 62-year-old mountain biking junkie with long, bushy sideburns and a mop of blonde curls down to his shoulders. Cahow is the only man to enter all 11 editions of the race, and in many ways, he personifies the vibe that defines it.<\/p>\n

A retired businessman from Evergreen, Cahow had ridden in Breckenridge before he signed up for the inaugural edition.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it wasn\u2019t until I came to that first event that I realized how incredible these trails really are,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cahow\u2019s streak almost came to an end two years ago. In March 2017, he shattered his tibula-fibula and much of his lower left leg in a crash while training for the Epic. An initial surgery stabilized his limb with an external fixator. Then a week later, he had another surgery. The carrot of racing the Epic motivated him to rehab his atrophied muscles while the bones healed.<\/p>\n

A few days before he left for Breckenridge that August, against his wife\u2019s wishes, (\u201cShe was totally pissed that I came to do this race,\u201d he said.) Cahow\u2019s physical therapist told him something wasn\u2019t right with his leg. The limb was still \u201call swollen and weird looking,\u201d Cahow said. He entered anyway, struggling through the first two stages with times one to two hours longer than he normally took. During the third stage, a circumnavigation of 13,370-foot Mount Guyot, he needed seven hours to finish what was normally a 4 1\/2 hour day.<\/p>\n

\u201cI came down the far side of Guyot more or less walking. I had one hand on the saddle and one hand on the handlebars, and I was using my bike as a crutch,\u201d he said. \u201cNow that I look back, it was totally ridiculous. But the denial was huge. I kept telling myself, \u2018I can do this. Maybe I can just do one more day.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The next morning, he relented and withdrew from the race in tears.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the lowest I\u2019ve felt,\u201d he said. \u201cI was so disappointed that I wasn\u2019t going to be able to finish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cahow went in for reconstructive surgery 10 days later, during which doctors learned his leg was infected. He had a fourth operation in October. When he came back to race the Epic in 2018, he had a rod the length of his femur and a plate the length of his tibia under his skin.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s fully healthy now and finished on the podium in the singlespeed and geared divisions.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know where else I would go and find six days of riding that is handed to me on a silver platter like here,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s the individual aspect, of course, but by the end of the week, you\u2019re almost riding as one organism of people with the same mindset.\u201d<\/p>\n

via:: Summit Daily<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dean Cahow, of Breckenridge, is cycling in his 11th consecutive Breck Epic, the only rider in the race’s history to bike in every edition.Courtesy Byron Swezy \/ Breck Epic BRECKENRIDGE \u2014 If the Breck Epic had a spirit animal, there\u2019s a fair chance it would be Dean Cahow, a 62-year-old mountain biking junkie with long, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[99],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-798538","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 04:01:11","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSMT The Mountain","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=798538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/798538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=798538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=798538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/ksmt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=798538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}