The TD started last Friday. The day before that the organizer gave me the keys to the car for their homepage, said “Post some things!” then went off and started racing. Since then I’ve figured out a few news items to post. It’s a thrill coz I’ve never done this kind of thing before. But what fun!
Head on over to tourdivide.org and see what’s going down. It’s the world’s biggest, toughest mtbike race, after all. 2750 miles down the length of the Conintental Divide in North America! It’s a celebration of the amazing route that Adventure Cycling America laid out for anyone to use.
The leaders might take about 17 days — averaging 150+ miles a day. Whoa!
The SPOT Leaderboard is a great way to see the live action on the trail, via GPS chips. I posted a “Guide to Following TD” which is now buried in the Updates section (under the “Blogs” menu-item). The upshot is to visit the TD chat in the Bikepacking.net Forum — lots of news there, as fed in from family, friends and fans along the route. Racers are also uploading podcasts as they go. Fun stuff!
40-something racers are still on trail. A few dropped already. It’s a big deal to try to ride 100+ full-load miles a day of trail!
The rigs some of the riders are using are amazing. I can’t refind the pic I saw of Kent Peterson’s rig — it looks like he’s going out for a day-ride. He goes lite! My fave is still last year’s cheapy fixie roadbike conversion that 20-yr-old Deanna Adams used. That’s setting the bar high!
I also dig the fact that they’ll be cruising thru dozens of tiny ranch towns. Food is often gas-station style so I’ve been calling it the “Tour de Convenience Store.”
