[This is my first report, from 7/2008. Scroll down for updates.] Ever since the start of the Great Divide Race there’s been a fascination with the WHOLE of the Divide. The GDR goes 2500 miles from the north US border to the south US border. But the Divide respects no borders. So from the beginning some GDR racers have started way up in Banff, Canada, so they could say they rode the whole divide.
Well, for 2008, somewhat in conjunction with the GDR, we have the first ever Tour Divide Race—a self-supported mt-bike race down the 2700 miles of the WHOLE Divide.
Like the GDR, the TD is a web-based, informal, DIY-type of event. Heck, there aren’t even any fees. Show up and ride. Dude! …Then follow the fun online.
Sadly, I’ve put up this notice too late, as it’s already been won! By Matthew Lee. But many other racers are still on route. So check out their action and semi-live reports at the homepage, blog and forum. There’s even a SPOT leaderboard, where the racers wear these transmitters that track their route.
Amazingly, the racers at one point activated their SPOTs when they came across an accident in the mountains. They stayed on site til rescue arrived, thanks to their beaming in the location. Good racers!
I also am pleased to note that Matthew Lee is a fan of OYB and our mutual hero, VVA—the author of the only mt-bike culture book of art and poetry (available here) and legendary character in many ways (if you don’t know his story already, it will blow you away…he was the first US national road bike champ, for one thing—read all about it in my bike books section).
Here’s another neat thing about this race. It’s kinda obvious, but the ultralight touring set-ups they use are part of a recent break-thru scene called “bikepacking.” Most TD racers use a rack-less rig with a saddlebag, barbag, framebag and stembag, plus a backpack of some small kind. I think they try to go with 15 pounds of stuff or less. It’s neat how a new recreational scene like UL bikepacking has such a direct impact on a big race scene. Also, there’s a pack-maker guy who developed the rackless concept, Jeff at Carousel Design Works — check him out — he tailors his packs to your bike and sets up many TD racers. carouseldesignworks.com. Another guy, Eric, in Alaska, also makes rackless packs: epicdesignsalaska.com. Tell ’em both that OYB sent ya. And here’s a Forum dedicated to bikepacking (link goes to TD chat): www.bikepacking.net/forum/index.php?topic=295.new;topicseen#new
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UPDATE 6/25/2009… Well, the 2009 Tour Divide unsupported solo mt-bike race almost has a winner now, but many racers are still on the 2745-mile trail that runs from Banff, Canada, to Mexico. Check out the TD homepage to see live updates via the SPOT network as to how each one is faring. This is the future of big-picture bike racing. Low overhead. Collegial sport. Open access—that is, follow it online easily.
We had a crazy coincidence happen a couple days ago. We took off homeward from Hollywood on our cross-country drive. As we crossed into Colorado I finally remembered the big ol’ Tour Divide race and found a wifi hotspot to see what was happening. I didn’t really know when it started this year. I’d been caught up in the Family Road Trip. Lo and behold…the race leader…and organizer…Matthew Lee looked to be crossing our path! We drove like crazy to reach Salida in what we hoped would be time to meet Matthew. Sure enough, there he was! At the super local bike shop, getting his bike tuned up. I’d known Matthew via email as well as via his achievements. It was great to finally meet him! He seemed to be doing great. He grabbed a cuppa coffee, a brownie and a burrito and was on his way! On a 2745-mile race! Checking out the SPOT updates it looked like all the two-dozen racers were close to each other, on each other’s tails. The live dots on the map formed a steady flow. Amazing stuff! Well, Matthew is now in New Mexico. I don’t know how everyone else is doing. We’re still driving hard on the road ourselves and it’s hard to do anything else but give this update. I have some pics to upload when we get home. I have about one minute of life left in this laptop. Gotta go! Check out the race!
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UPDATE 7/1/2009… Matthew Lee is the 2009 TD Winner! Congrats! It’s been fun watching the SPOT Leaderboard live action run-up to the finish. Kurt finished a close 2nd. The first-ever tandem is now also thru and has set a fresh mark. It’s also been neat following the race on the Podcasts. Jay and Tracey on their tandem sounded darn fresh’n’perky to me — you can hear it in their voices. Maybe tandem is a good way to go? This whole race is fun to follow — and there’s so little mediation. It’s up close’n’personal even if you’re far away. Cool! But the fun isn’t over! There’s a tight cluster of 9 guys a couple days from finishing. So get over to the TD page and watch the action!
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UPDATE 7/20/2009… I’d like to read a story between the lines about the EIGHT guys who all finished within a few hours of each other between 5th and 10th place, many of them tying. What’s up there? I’m going to dig around for more… Did they ride together? Have fun? Go back’n’forth? Party hearty? tourdivide.org/blog2009/2009_provisional_general_classification
Here’s a photo of 6 of the 8 who finished the same day after weeks of hammering:
(photo courtesy of Cindy Shockley, a mom of one of them)
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UPDATE 7/21/2009… Photojournalist Eddie Clark followed the mid-section of the race and put up this report, with pics, for Mountain Flyer magazine:
www.mountainflyer.com/news.cfm?itemid=232
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UPDATE 7/22/2009… I just learned that one of the TD racers was doing his race as a fundraiser. Now, this might not be such an uncommon thing to do, but this time seemed different. It caught my eye for several reasons, which might also catch your eye in the remark below, but also because it wasn’t a drop-in-a-bucket thrown who-knows-how at a huge disease but an attempt to help just one guy. Eric Bruntjen was racing to raise money to buy a special wheelchair for an injured Iraq vet in his small town.
Here’s what Eric had to say to the TD organizer in a bikepacking.net Forum post: “Evan Mettie is an injured Iraq vet who is getting a brand new all-terrain wheelchair thanks to the money raised from my TD ride. Most of the $14,000 I raised came in after I left and is almost certainly a result of the SPOT map and blogging features on your race website. My whole town went absolutely bonkers for the race because those features make it a blast to watch. The race was in the paper or at least the sport’s blog nearly every day. They even had a political editorial contrasting TD racers who don’t quit under pressure and Sarah Palin who does — honest, they did. I highly doubt we would have done so well at fund raising if I’d just anonymously ITT’d the route. That’s a big deal and you should feel good about not only the race itself but how it changes peoples lives, racer and otherwise.”
I googled to find out more of what Eric was talking about and here’s what I found: sportsyakima.com/2009/07/eric-b-that-wheelchairs-on-the-way/
Amazing stuff!
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THEORY UPDATE… I don’t entirely understand Event Psychology. I used to be swept up more fully into Eventism but the understanding part… There’s a “close to it” understanding and then there’s Reason… Certain aspects rise up to make me wonder. Some might call them Internal Contradictions. Of course, life itself is conflict, so there’s that. For instance, the TD has a “no help” policy, which is simply expressed as “Look, Don’t Touch (the race).” That is, spectating is encouraged, as is encouragement out on the trail, but—if I understand the Rules right—you can’t give an apple to a racer. I must have this wrong. A racer can stay at a motel, eat at a restaurant. But apparently if you meet your family at a motel they can’t give you a massage. It’s confusing to me. But I haven’t read the rules repeatedly enough to retain them. You can *serendipitously* help a racer by offering a place to stay, but it can’t be pre-planned. This falls into the famous Appalachian Trail category of “Trail Magic.” TM is where people–“trail angels”–leave goodies stashed here and there especially for thru-hikers to stumble upon and be gladdened by. Now here’s where we start the trouble: apparently people are setting up trailside tents on the AT where they hand out free food, drink and other goodies for thru-hikers. Now… the AT experience is about wilderness and solitude. This kind of invention is starting to seem like, well, who knows what. TM is popping up everywhere. Hikers might even start to count on it. So trail policy is attempting to morph with the vibe — one notion is that TM providers should maybe set up their free angelic services off the trail a ways so a hiker can go look for it if they like. See where this is going? The TD race allows cell phones, but if a racer goes off the course and is lost and they phone their family they’re not supposed to check a computer to see where their SPOT locator says they are. That’s getting Support and this is an Unsupported race. If a racer drops a map, the guy behind him can tell him about it but isn’t supposed to pick it up and ride it up to him. If you get off-course you’re SUPER-DEFINITELY supposed to go back to where you strayed before you keep going down the trail. But what if you didn’t know you were off-course? Well, unless the Map was wrong, tough luck. Needless to say, there’s been some hard-feelings. Lastly, in general as the trail is raced repeatedly then info about where to find water, food, good camp-sites becomes easily available and the Adventure aspect is diluted. Time changes everything, right? Well, they’re thinking of changing the course from time to time to slow down that kind of time. See, the race structure is supposed to be secondary to your Ride. It’s free, it’s for fun, it’s a labor of love. But it’s also there to define something, to preserve it, in a way. To allow for comparison, I suppose. …Which is trickier to achieve than one might think, what with internal contradictions being what they are—they keep rearing up. It’s a sign of life, doncha think? And so the rules keep evolving. Amazing…
