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The Triple Bypass is a one day ride from Evergreen to Avon, Colorado, over three mountain passes, roughly 110 to 120 miles depending on the year’s route, with around 10,000 feet of climbing and none of it below 7,000 feet of elevation. It has run nearly every July since 1988 and it sells out every year anyway. This is what the day asks of you, where it breaks people, and how to decide whether this is your year to enter.
The Ride in Plain Numbers
The route leaves Buchanan Park in Evergreen, crosses Juniper Pass at about 11,140 feet, Loveland Pass at 11,990, and Vail Pass at 10,662, then drops to the finish in Avon. Those are the three bypasses in the name, and yes, the name is a heart surgery joke that has stuck for almost four decades. Shift Events runs it now, the same nonprofit that used to be called Team Evergreen Cycling, and the ride has sent more than 3 million dollars to cycling causes over its lifetime.
Two recent changes matter. The course is now a closed route, with law enforcement holding the roads for riders, which changes how Loveland Pass feels compared to earlier editions that shared the asphalt with summer traffic. And the 2026 edition on July 11 skips Swan Mountain because of construction, trading that climb for a couple of extra miles around Lake Dillon and putting the day at about 110 miles. Riders who want a shorter test can enter the Double Bypass instead, which starts down the road in Empire and runs roughly 75 miles with about 6,400 feet of climbing, finishing over the same Vail Pass.
Where the Day Actually Gets Hard
Juniper comes first and it is the friendliest of the three, a long steady grind up Squaw Pass Road in cool morning air. The trap is pace. Fresh legs and start line adrenaline make 11,000 feet feel free, and the bill arrives three hours later. The stretch that quietly ruins rides is the middle, the long false flat from Idaho Springs up past Georgetown to the base of Loveland. It looks like recovery miles on the elevation profile. It is not. It is twenty some miles of dragging uphill at altitude, often into a headwind, and it is where most overambitious mornings get paid for.
Loveland Pass is the high point and the crux, switchbacks topping out just under 12,000 feet, where the air holds roughly a third less oxygen than at sea level. No amount of fitness substitutes for acclimatization up there. Vail Pass comes last, climbing mostly on the recreation path at a gentler grade, but it arrives with 90 plus miles in your legs. A real rain shell in the jersey pocket is not optional. Storm cells build over this high country most July afternoons, and a 40 degree downpour at 10,000 feet is a different animal than rain at home.
The cutoff times tell the pacing story better than any training plan. In 2026, riders must clear the aid station east of Georgetown by noon, Loveland Ski Area by 2:00 pm, Summit High School by 4:30, and the top of Vail Pass by 7:00. None of those require speed. All of them punish long aid station naps. Keep your stops to ten minutes and the cutoffs mostly take care of themselves.
How to Train for It
A hilly century at home is the honest baseline. If your longest ride this spring is 60 flat miles, this is not your July. Fueling is the other half, and it is the half people skip. Practice taking in 60 to 90 grams of carbohydrate an hour on long training rides, because event day is the wrong place to learn your stomach’s limits, and a lot of Triple blowups are fueling failures dressed up as fitness failures. Descending skill matters more than people expect too. Avon sits well below Evergreen, so the day holds more descending than climbing, and a rider who death grips the brakes all the way off Loveland spends arm strength and focus the ride will ask for again on Vail Pass.
Altitude deserves its own plan. If you live near sea level, arrive two or three days early, spin easy, and sleep in Evergreen or Idaho Springs rather than up high in Summit County the nights before. If extra days are impossible, start conservatively and treat the first 40 miles as a warm up. The mountain does not care what your power numbers say at home.
Lodging, Camping, and the Ride Back
This is a point to point ride, and the logistics deserve as much planning as the training. Evergreen and Avon sit about two hours apart by car, so you need a vehicle at each end, a patient friend, or a spot on whatever rider transport the event offers that year, and that detail is worth settling the week you register rather than the week you ride. Hotel rooms in Avon, Vail, Frisco, and Georgetown book out for ride weekend, and the budget move is a tent. Plenty of riders camp the night before, and if your basic camping skills are solid enough that a 40 degree night at 8,000 feet does not cost you sleep, it beats a 4:00 am drive from Denver.
Build in extra days if the calendar allows. This corridor earns a trip on its own, with hiking out of nearly every trailhead on the route and good fly fishing within a short drive of Idaho Springs and Silverthorne. The ride is a better memory when Sunday is not spent sprinting for the airport.
Who Should Enter and Who Should Wait a Year
Enter if you can finish a hilly 100 miler at home without being wrecked, you are willing to practice fueling, and you can give the altitude either a few early days or an honestly easy start. Decide early, because registration sells out well before July. If that century is not in your legs yet, ride the Double Bypass from Empire this summer and bank the fitness for the full Triple next year. The passes are not going anywhere, and this ride is far better as a day you finish strong than as a day the sweep van finishes for you.
