Friends, family and other locals clapped and cheered as 28-year-old Zach Calton sped past the Point2Point finish line Saturday.
Calton was the first to finish the 75-mile course, which starts in Round Valley, climbs to the top of Deer Valley and Park City’s Iron Mountain, then continues to the Iron Bill trail to BYOB near the Utah Olympic Park and crosses the finish line at the Skullcandy building in Kimball Junction.
With about 10,000 feet of elevation gain, the race takes riders an average of 9 hours. The fastest bikers finish in about 6 hours.
Calton crossed the finish line in 5:45:29, breaking a course record for the second year in a row by over 9 minutes. In 2024, he completed the race in 5:55:03.
“This is my local race, and it suits me really well, and it's just really fun to get it done with my whole family here. So I'm really excited,” he said.
This was the Ogden, Utah, native’s seventh year participating in Point2Point; he was 17 when he first attempted it.
But Calton wasn’t always interested in biking. He said his dad tried to get him into it when he was a kid, but it didn’t take. He tried again in high school and that’s when his passion for the sport began.
“I just got really hooked on the progression and competition of it,” he said. “Then from there, I got introduced to a local club called Summit Bike Club, which was based in Park City, and got exposed to bigger and bigger races and just never stopped.”
Calton is now on the Yeti Shimano team and competes in 25 mountain bike and gravel cycling races nationwide each year. His family is always there to support him as well.
“They come to every race they can, I mean I race all over the country and my mom's still at almost every race, so I've got a really cool support crew,” he said.
Calton’s next competition is Sept. 13 at the Chequamegon Mountain Bike Festival in Wisconsin. The race is part of the Life Time Grand Prix.
Park City resident Chelsea Bolton received similar fanfare as she pedaled to the finish.
The 36-year-old broke a Point2Point record in the open pro female category. She finished the race in 7:01:01, more than 10 minutes faster than the last record set in 2017. The previous record holder, Lariss Connors, finished the course in 7:11:37.
Bolton’s husband introduced her to mountain biking in 2019 and she started competing the same year.
“I got hooked pretty much right away, and we moved to Park City in 2020 to take advantage of the incredible trail network out here,” Bolton said.
Bolton’s husband was her biggest cheerleader at Point2Point; he biked around Park City and stopped at various points to support and encourage her.
“He was my awesome crew today,” Bolton said. “He knows this trail system other than anyone I know, and so he saw me so many times on course. So that was really, really fun.”
She said her favorite spot on the course — after the finish line — is the First Time chairlift on Park City Mountain. A crowd is always waiting there to cheer on racers.
“It's kind of that last little encouragement before the final section,” she said. “So you've done two-thirds of the race, and then it's the final 25 miles, and you get this really good endorphin rush with all the people cheering.”
Bolton’s next competition is Sept. 21 at the UCI Cross Country Marathon World Cup Championship in Spain. She will compete for the U.S. and Switzerland.
As first-place winners in the open pro female and male categories, Bolton and Calton will each take home $3,000. Second-place winners earned $2,000 and third-place received $1,000.
