He met friends from around the world at the race and started Newbold’s Motorbike Shop in Denver with the $1,600 in prize money he won for his finish in 2008, his second year competing. Newbold grew up around Pikes Peak and dedicated nearly a decade to conquering the race, riding sponsors’ bikes or ones he had slapped together with junkyard scrap. The Race to the Clouds turns one hundred on Sunday. Last year was Newbold’s eighth as a competitor at the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, a motorsports race that begins at 9,390 feet and finishes at the 14,115-foot summit. On one big tightening horseshoe corner, I felt the slide and knew I could only narrowly avoid running wide and off the road or embrace my inner dirt biker. I could feel the back end track out when on the gas. ‘Go! Go! Go! It’s time to shine,’ I thought, as I linked the corners together with everything I had. Somehow I ended up back in the seat, still on the road, and totally pumped on adrenaline. I corrected and was tossed out of my seat as the handlebars did a tank slapper. ‘This pig,’ I kept thinking, as I tried to hold every bit of speed through the corners.Ĭoming out of a fast corner, the back end snapped out hard. I was ready to take every inch of the course as fast as I ever had, and the up-until-then flawless motorcycle was not even giving me even half of the RPMs, Newbold later wrote in his journal. The Ronin sputtered and wouldn’t lift its front wheel. The flag went down, and Newbold went full force. They didn’t want it overheating on the course. But as a precautionary measure, Newbold and his crew decided against warming up the engine before the race.

The Ronin was handcrafted, a collector’s edition the front brake alone cost more than any whole bike Newbold had ever owned.

He looked at the flagman and locked his visor. 747 Ronin, the motorcycle that was built to conquer Pikes Peak.

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