Arizona Daily Sun (Aug 2, 2026) by Brenden Martin

The triple crown of bikepacking is a relatively new idea and riders from all over have quickly grown attached.

The trio of races — the Arizona Trail Race, the Colorado Trail Race and the Tour Divide — ask riders to complete more than 4,000 miles of all-terrain biking all on their own. A local Flagstaff kid is gearing up to complete the triple crown within a 12-month span.

Cruz Blue, a 17-year-old at Flagstaff High School, aims to finish this lifetime achievement by finishing the Colorado Trail Race that begins on Sunday, Aug. 2. Blue has had his eyes on that race for awhile because of the new features it brings.

“I’m super excited because I think there will be a lot of rain, which is something I haven’t really dealt with,” Blue said.

The Colorado Trail Race begins on the Waterton Canyon Trail in Denver, near the Littleton area, and takes riders through the Rocky Mountains at above 13,000 feet of elevation before a descent to the finish in Durango.

Riding has been a part of Blue’s life since he was able to hop on a bike. It is an extension of himself that has defined much of his childhood.

“It’s always like the first thing everybody does,” Blue said. “Everybody learns how to ride a bike when they’re a kid. I followed that same thing. My dad would always tell me these cool stories of all his adventures. Eventually, I figured out about bikepacking and that was my way to adventure like he did.”

Bikepacking combines bikes with backpacking. It involves biking on any terrain and using the bike to carry as much (or as little) as a rider can while riding in a variety of places. It diverges from bike touring, which focuses more on paved, flat roads.

Dana Ernst, a math professor and department chair at NAU, has been bikepacking almost everywhere he has lived across the country. He described the activity as an open book that anyone can do at their own pace.

“Bikepacking doesn’t have to be a race, but it basically means you’re going out and being self-sufficient in carrying everything you would need to travel on your bicycle,” Ernst said.

Many bikepackers will try to travel very light when riding. Items such as food, water, clothing, a sleeping bag and a tent are some of the essentials for those out on trails for long periods of time.

Ernst got into cycling when he was in college in Virginia. He came to NAU for grad school in 1997 and quickly became obsessed with mountain biking. Even after moving to Colorado and New Hampshire, he said Flagstaff was still his favorite place to ride.

“Flagstaff is basically where I cut my teeth and learned how to mountain bike,” Ernst said.

Ernst organized group rides and did some racing while in New Hampshire before moving back to Flagstaff in 2012. He hit the ground running as soon as he returned, setting up a few underground rides and races.

Ernst organized Pinyons and Pines, his first bikepacking race, in 2019. The two-to-five-day event within Flagstaff runs through track and dirt paths. It starts at Flagstaff Bicycle Revolution downtown and goes through a slightly different path each year. The race is fully self-supported, meaning there are no course markings, no entry fee and no prizes. Everyone is free to participate when it is put on each May.

“Events started being organized around the ethos of bikepacking with a very self-sufficient, do-it-yourself mentality and really rejects this idea of having race directors or someone make money,” Ernst said. “It’s sort of a counterculture.”

Blue has participated in the race three times. His first race in 2024 was his first bikepacking adventure. Ernst’s event was instrumental in introducing Blue to his passion.

“It made people realize, ‘Oh, this kid is serious about riding his bike,’” Blue said. “It’s not just some half-thought dream. It made my parents feel more comfortable with letting me be on my own in the forest for a while.

This year’s Pinyons and Pines was more than 400 miles long, a big departure from the approximately 340 miles in 2025. This year’s race took riders through Cottonwood and around Prescott. Riders then circled back through Camp Verde and up the Mormon Mountain summit before finishing back at Flagstaff Bicycle Revolution, where Blue happens to work.

“I just provide a route, some loose rules, a start time and then I say go,” Ernst said.

Blue finished 14th in his first year competing in 2024. He went on to finish 10th in the 2025 race, finishing in just over two days. It took him just over three days to finish 17th this year.

Ernst is also an assistant race director for the Stagecoach 100, a sanctioned event that began with just running races from Snowbowl to Tusayan by the entrance to the Grand Canyon. Ernst brought the idea of having a bike race along the trail and has helped manage it ever since.

Blue finished second in the 100-mile mountain bike race at Stagecoach last September. He finished in 8:22:56, just over 30 minutes behind race-winner Pierce Kettering. Blue was the highest finisher from Flagstaff and was one of just four 16-year-olds to enter.

Ernst recalled that the first time he met Blue was when he and his father volunteered to mark the course for Stagecoach in heavy rain. Blue did not do the race that year because he had just broken his leg while volunteering with the Flagstaff Youth Riders at Campbell Mesa. He was doing a relay race with friends and had to catch up to the leader after he was tagged in. Blue likes to joke about that story, saying he broke his leg to say he did not lose.

“What actually happened was my chain slipped, then my foot came down into the ground,” Blue said.

Luckily for Blue, it was a clean break. He was able to put weight on his leg right after surgery. He estimated a five-month recovery timeline, putting him back on a bike before long.

Blue recently finished the hardest race, at least on paper, of his triple crown goal. He completed the Tour Divide back in June, roughly 2,700 miles following the Great Divide mountain bike route. It begins in Banff, Canada, and runs south all the way to the U.S./Mexico border at Antelope Wells, New Mexico.

“If you want to be a bikepacker and do the coolest thing ever, you do the Tour Divide,” Ernst said.

Blue completed the Tour Divide in 19 days, 11 hours and six minutes. Ernst described it as “the Tour de France of bikepacking.”

Blue was determined to finish the race after learning about Edyn Teitge, who became the youngest solo finisher of the Tour Divide at 15 years old in 2024. Teitge also finished the race in just over 19 days. Blue said he tried to quit mid-race numerous times, but he did not have cell service to call his dad.

“The road may not have been fun, but it was super, super beautiful,” Blue said. “So that made up for it a lot.”

Blue is the youngest solo finisher of the 800-mile Arizona Trail Race, doing so at 16 in October 2025. The race begins on the Arizona/Mexico border by Coronado Peak. Riders travel north around Tucson, Phoenix and even through Flagstaff. The race usually finishes at the Utah border, but racers could not go beyond the Grand Canyon due to the Dragon Bravo Fire last year. The course was altered to have people circle back to Flagstaff, go up Humphreys Peak and finish at Buffalo Park.

Blue finished the 90% unpaved race in 17 days, seven hours and 42 minutes in an independent time trial. The long time out on trails would be hard on anybody, let alone a child.

“I end up spending a lot of time away from my family and missing my family a lot,” Blue said. “I get to enjoy them more when I get back. As my dad said after the Tour Divide, ‘You got to miss them to love them.’”

Blue will spend his senior year of high school traveling the globe with the World Class Mountain Biking Academy, a nonprofit college preparatory school for mountain bikers looking to enhance their skills while traveling. Blue’s class will visit Italy, France, South Africa, New Zealand and Slovenia each quarter of the school year.

“The end goal with everything is to travel the world on my bike,” Blue said. “That’s the dream.”

Blue spent some time visiting colleges on his way up to Canada for the start of the Tour Divide. He sewed a basket for his bike while visiting Montana State University. Gear is very important to mountain biking and bikepacking. Blue wants to learn more about making his own gear, but has also gotten a lot of what he uses from Rogue Panda, a gear shop in town.

Ernst described Blue as someone who is not braggadocious about his accomplishments. He is not on social media posting about races or events like others would, especially at his age.

“He is just such a wonderful human being,” Ernst said. “Just down to Earth, kind.”

The way Blue carries himself, with all that he has accomplished and seen in his life already, has an impact on those around him. His infectious personality makes people want to learn more about him and what he does. He is a kid who will work at doing anything he sets his mind to.

“It gives me hope because I kind of have this doomsday outlook sometimes about the youth and grit,” Ernst said. “When I see him, I think, ‘Yeah, the kids are OK.’ It really excites me that there are people like that and they can set a really good example for others to just go do hard things.”

Flagstaff is full of bike trails at various levels of difficulty that are free to ride. The city also has a strong biking community that is inviting to all sorts of interests. While Blue has some impressive race finishes under his belt, it’s the fun of riding his bike that carries him forward every mile.

“Just go have an adventure,” Ernst said. “It doesn’t matter how long it takes. This place we live in is amazing. Just go out and explore it.”

 

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