Quinn Simmons Is Racing Leadville. Can He Dethrone Keegan Swenson?

Quinn Simmons is set to ride the Leadville 100 MTB after animating the Tour de France this July. This will be his second time lining up for the “race across the sky” after his second-place finish in 2019 when he was a junior.

Later that summer, Simmons went on to win the junior world championships on the road before making the jump to the WorldTour with Lidl-Trek, with his Leadville performance serving as an early calling card for the tenacious racer from Durango, Colorado. Like in 2019, Simmons will be racing for the win against a mix of mountain bike specialists, like Howard Grotts, who won that 2019 edition, and the off-road privateers who began to enter the American off-road scene in 2019, like Peter Stetina, who was third that year behind Simmons.

One rider who will be at the start who wasn’t on the line in 2019, however, is Keegan Swenson. Swenson has become the undisputed king of Leadville since Simmons last raced in Colorado, boasting a startling record in high-altitude races. Since 2022, when Swenson first lined up for the Life Time Grand Prix, Swenson has lost a grand total of one major race at altitude.

Swenson has won Leadville five straight times, setting the record in 2023 and holding the top three fastest times in the event.

This year, Swenson might have a bigger challenge. With that second-place finish in his back pocket—a second place with multiple flats holding him back from his true capacity, no less—Simmons will be looking to challenge Swenson on terrain that suits Simmons more than one might think.

Simmons is well known within the American racing scene for being truly exceptional at altitude. He doesn’t always get to show this capacity since most high altitude racing happens at the end of very long climbs. And while Simmons isn’t a climber, as he said on Payson McElveen’s podcast in 2022, his power doesn’t diminish much at all at altitude. After growing up in Durango at 6,500 feet of altitude, he is incredibly adept at training and racing at high altitude.

What’s more, the Leadville course this year is flatter than ever, giving him even more of a shot of hanging with Swenson on the big climb up Columbine at the midway point and then using his power in the final third of the race to try and stop Swenson’s assault on the all-time Leadville record.

While it is not a two-man race, Simmons’ addition to the start list will surely change the complexity of the racing this Saturday. As with all Life Time Grand Prix races, the race will be streamed on the organization’s YouTube channel. Velo will have on-the-ground coverage throughout the weekend.