The “Tour Divide” is a 2,700 mile mountain bike race that starts the second Friday in June each year in Banff, Canada, and proceeds south along the spine of the Rocky Mountains to the Mexican Border in New Mexico.

I HAVE ALWAYS WANTED TO DO THIS RACE!!!!   SO THIS YEAR I DID!!!

The experience was amazing.  The course is purposefully laid out to be as dificult as possible – and maybe a little ridiculously so in places

(so much so that at least once or thrice each year someone breaks a bone or two and/or weather changes suddenly and ill-prepared competitors have to be airlifted out courtesy of the Canadian Government – but I digress.)

My legs were “good enough”going into this massive physical undertaking – but my experience in competitive bike packing is ZERO…

THE EXCUSES – I broke a lot of things on the bike – partially my fault – that held me up a day or two…

And then I made some huge mistakes navigating (late at night trying to ride myself back into the race after the mechanicals) – DUDE – AT LEAST 4 HOURS OF SLEEP PER NIGHT IS KIND OF A MUST…  I embarrassed to say exactly how much time those two mistakes cost me…

 Please click this link if you want to know my exact internal reaction when several competitors razzed me about riding off course so far – please click it:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz7_3n7xyDg

BUT WHATEVER!!!  I met so many fantastic people – saw so many beuatiful sunrises – sunsets – even getting pelted by hail – blasted by headwinds… I have been cooped up at at a bike shop helping people for too many years – it felt fantastic to train for and DO THIS THING!  Thanks to my family and friends for all the support.

I flew from The Northwest Florida Beaches Airport to Calgary and —- these two awesome folks sorted out some snags with my bike box that saved me a lot of money – and by some miracle they moved me to 1st class at no extra charge for the trouble!

I had a 5 hour layover at Ohare Airport in Chicago – one of the busiest airports in the world.  I walked about 10 miles. Pretty much saw the whole place. 

Got to Calgary extremely late at night which made Customs an absolute breeze – was in bed wthin 30 minutes of landing…

Got up kind of late – put the bike together and started pedaling to Banff – about 70 miles away…

Via some absolute miracle the weather was in the 80s F – some 30 degrees above average.  don’t worry that’s going to change…. 

And then the mountains started to show up on the horizon….

Stayed with a really nice warm showers host in Canmore for a few days, then moved on to Banff.

The above photo is downtown Banff.  Unbeliebable place. 

New friends and old friends – hanging out at the Hostel…

Downtown Banff on a cold overcast day in June – Choked with pedestrians – Unbeliebable place. 

Kithcen at the Hostel was fantastic – cooked a lot of food there.

AND ALL THE SUDDEN IT WAS RACE DAY… (waving the camera around nervously…) i’m going to sleep now – more later….

Only one photo from Day One.  Rack hardware broke on first long rough descent….

Woke up in Elkford and tried to figure out how to fix it.

I thought I fixed it – but my replacement rack hardware only held for half a day – broke on the next long descent.  The real time loss came from having to crawl along on the bumpy descents – wish the bike I bought for this had a more reliable rack to begin with and then I also wish the bike had 3rd party rack attachment capability.  I know these are all excuses, but I trained hard for 6 months to be at my best for this – bought the perfect bike for myself – one that compliments my particular strengths – I in no way was ever going to make any waves in the Tour Divide – set any records, but man, having a factory rack not work properly and then the frame not able to safely fit a 3rd party rack – whew that had me fuming there for a day or so…   

I taped the rack the best I could with hockey stick tape someone gave me and slowly plodded along – up and over “The Wall” and into Eureka, Montana , were I decided to DITCH RACKS altogether.  I put all my stuff into two dry bags I just happened to have bought in case I had to walk through snow…  I loaded these bags with my sleep/camp kit, strapped them to my bike – got a motel – got a good breakfast and rode 24 hours straight to try and make up the time I lost faffing around…

The next couple of days are a blur really.  I did not record my days on the Garmin because something happened in the settings when I made a required update to the firmware that reset the default activity type to indoor cycling.  BIG PROBLEM WITH THIS IS THE GPS DOES NOT WORK FOR THE INDOOR CYCLING SETTING.   As tired as I was from riding 37 hours straight I just set this complication on the back burner and used my extra battery power I brought along to use my phone to navigate until I got some time to figure the Garmin out. 

Its hard to describe how beautiful The Rocky Mountains are really, not to mention the absolute stillness/remote feeling you get riding along by yourself 99% of the time. Montana in particular is more remote by far than any area to the south – Idaho – Wyoming – Colorado.  And Canada, its a complete separate experience, the mountains in Canada are so much more rugged.  At this point in the ride, I was about to get to The Grand Tetons, which are very abrupt and jagged like the mountains around Banff where the race starts.  I was looking forward to this. 

I spent the following night at a place called the Llama Ranch.  This place is a sort of glampground for traveling cyclists – and it is provided free of charge.  Crazy cool spot.  I didn’t get any photos because I was super tired and didn’t think about it. 

The next day in Helena, Montana, I got actual bike packing bags to replace my dry bags.  Much easier to get into – cut the time of setting up and breaking down camp by over 30 minutes. NO RACK THIS TIME AROUND!!!!

This day I rode about 120 miles – through Helena after the stop to get the bags – and then I just pressed on and eventually found a Pavilion at a State Park to set up under.

I woke up early and rode another 120 miles to Butte, Montana.

Butte is not the same type of town as Helena.  Very industrial with an interstate running through the middle.  Maybe it is because I arrived there very late, but an attempt was made to steal my bike while I was getting food (it was locked up) which I noticed and came out and confronted the two folks.  Blah blah blah, I went to sleep quick – woke up and got out of there. 

The experience of getting into town late – the weather being cold – the would-be bike stealer crew yelling at me as they walked off into the night –  served to cast a kind of bleakness over my attitude… 

The stress of riding long into the night every night – and the temperature dropping into the mid 40s right at sundownevery night – was wearing on me.  

The following day was the 21st of June.  I rode again far into the night – this time I had a new friend with me – Yami, a retired policeman from Finland.  Yami is extremely strong, we blasted along – eventually we found our way to the RedHawk Lodge – way out in the middle of the mountains.  Yami went ahead the next morning and again I pushed through 130 miles almost to Jackson Lake, Wymoing.  along the way however, I made the first of several navigational mistakes – and I started making mistakes over and over – this probem would plague me the next few days.  The mistake that day was – I made a wrong turn and rode 10 (x2) miles out of the way without realizing it. 

For sure, I was exhausted from pushing to get back on terms – on schedule with the time I knew I could finish in…  I didn’t realize it, but in spite of my legs feeling just fine, my brain was slowing down.  In spite of the mistake – I made 128 miles toFlagg Ranch Campground around 4am. 

Then I woke up and – without thinking about – I rode 8 miles in exactly the wrong direction because my Garmin somehow rerouted me coming out of the parking lot of the lodge where I ate breakfast.   I didn’t recognize the terrain/surroundings because it had been pitch black the night before.  Another 8 miles – 16 miles total – mistake.  I was extremely frustrated with myself, but eventually that passed and I got back to business.  

Notice the “out and back” line to the north side of the lake – ouch…

The next day was really nice – great weather –  and I was in Teton National Park – which is amazing… 

However, after riding the wrong way for the second day in. a row, I consulted my family and it was agreed that I should take a short day and get some rest.  Jackson Lake is so beautiful it really is the perfect place for rest – and when I was a kid, our family had camped here – so I looked up Colter Bay State Park and made it a 50 mile day with a pizza at the end of the ride!

The campground was peaceful, the pizza was perfect and I had leftovers for the day’s ride – I took off in the morning in high spirits – and it was another fantastic day, clear and cool.  

I was about to make the most mamoth of navigational screwups this day – and going into this recap please know this is to be my last one – but it was grand.  

I was feeling really good physically, the legs were making the bike go extremely well, I had everything charged, phone – Garmin.  I even took the speed down at intersections – lots of them in this area – but somehow, I got off on the wrong trail and the Garmin rerouted me before I caught it.  I rode all the way down a 25 mile descent in the pitch dark – 2/3rds of the way down I crashed hard – bruised my hip and bloodied up my right shoulder and knee.  It was at this point I figured out I was way off route , but I saw there was a motel in a town at the bottom and I needed a tub to soak in so I just coasted on down and got a motel.  I thought about quitting.  I for sure thought long and hard about it.  I soaked in the super short tub and thought about it. 

The lady above is the innkeeper of the motel at the bottom of the descent in the town of Dubois, Wyoming.  

She plainly saw I had busted myself up pretty good.  She agreed I was kind of an idiot for not taking more time to rest up,  I told her thanks, and she left me be until very late the next morning.

The map above shows my 35 (times 2) mile error.  I never made another one after this.  I sat in that tub with the Garmin until I figured out every last  setting- every last one.  I turned off something to do with rerouting and it worked 99% of the time – changing that setting stopped 99% of the “make a U turn” messages I kept getting.  At any rate, from that point on I never made a wrong turn.

Pinedale, Wyoming – some people are just plain nice, this guy’s one of em. 

Atlantic City, Wyoming – More super nice people…  

In the middle of Wyoming there is a large high-desert area (150mix250mi) called the Great Basin. This area is of course dry, no watere, no towns, no nothng – save for an east-west interstate that cuts it in half.  The tiny town of Atlantic City sits right on the very northern edge of the Great Basin, the next place to get water or food is a 105 mile trek to a town on the interstate.  The Great Basin is well known for horrendous wind conditions.  I woke up early to miss the wind and made it into the town – Wamsutter in cas you want to look it up on a map…

The map above shows my 35 (times 2) mile error.  I never made another one after this.  I sat in that tub with the Garmin until I figured out every last  setting- every last one.  I turned off something to do with rerouting and it worked 99% of the time – changing that setting stopped 99% of the “make a U turn” messages I kept getting.  At any rate, from that point on I never made a wrong turn.