More Photos Below!Gallery
Hey, is everyone following the Tour Divide action? …
tourdivide.org
The TD is a self-supported indie-style non-stop mt-bike race down the whole length of the Continental Divide, 2745 miles from Canada to Mexico. It takes the leaders about 18 days.
Racers are tracked by transponder and action is reported on the website. It’s a lowkey but actionpacked and very personable type of bike racing to follow. Check it out!
Here’s a couple minutes of video of a chat I had with (eventual winner) Matthew Lee:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=xJqSc0lxpxk
It’s interesting how this scene has evolved this year, with the venerable GDR taking a back seat this time to the upstart TD. I hope that these changes seem good to everyone in the end. One idea is that these events are so ALIVE that they can change to fit riders’ needs and notions from year to year. Something new is always happening! Yet the core is the same. …And there’s no taint of million$ anywhere.
I appreciate the “SPOT” satellite locators used in the TD (but not the GDR) because a few days ago our family was driving back across the USA from Hollywood to Michigan when I remembered that this was the TD time of year. I had gotten swept up in our big family road trip (and its non-planning) and I wasn’t up to speed on the race this summer. So we’re driving along thru Utah when I think of it. We find a hotel parking lot to catch a wifi hotspot and, with 10 minutes of battery time left on my laptop, I dial up TD and discover that according to the live online SPOT action map it looks like Matthew Lee might be crossing our driving path the next day in Salida! He organizes the TD, has the course record, and was also in the lead…and he’s a long-time comrade in the OutYourBackDoor scene. He says that a mt-bike culture book I publish by Victor Vincente of America was a big inspiration to him. But I’d never met him before.
So we blast over to Salida, CO, just in time to meet Matthew at the Absolute Bikes shop! What a treat! He looked and sounded great. He was clearly in the Zone. This was the last major town stop for the next 500+ miles so he really stocked up: bought a burrito. Oh, he also sat down for a cup of coffee and a brownie while his bike was being tuned. Eddie, a bike mag photographer, and I were the only media around — and we only found him because of the SPOT. (Eddie was also driving out onto the trail here and there in Colorado and finding racers to shoot and interview. Again, thanks to the SPOTs.)
The kids were also psyched to see this bike racer — they couldn’t quite believe that thanks to me wasting time in a parking lot on the goofy laptop that we were going to find a record-setting race leader in the middle of their road trip who their dad knew.
It was super to finally meet Matthew. He was rockin’ along and blew out of town again after an hour. I’ll put up a bit of video, too, soon.
And I always like seeing these ultralight touring set-ups—he’s probably only carrying 15 lbs on his bike. No racks, just frame-packs, courtesy of seamstress Jeff at Carousel Design Works. (See the pic.)
So we just returned home from our 6,000 mile drive. Family of 4 in a Cutlass … Rockin’!
Matthew is now in New Mexico. Check the TourDivide.org site to see how he does in the finishing stretch to Mexico. A guy named Kurt isn’t far behind!
Inspiration from Henry Branch Lee, 10 months.
Super bike.
Our race leader. And organizer! I figured roughly that he’s doing 150 miles a day for like 18 days. On trails. On the Continental Divide. That’s like 11,000 feet in places.
