Tour Divide

graveyardman67

graveyardman67

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Not everyone even knows about this race. Basically you race the entire length of the Continental Divide from Banff to Antelope Wells NM, 2745 miles.

I met Calvin Decker at the Hike-a-Bike race at Lippmann Park. He is currently sitting 3rd in this beast of a race. http://trackleaders.com/tourdivide14 scroll to the bottom. Calvin also raced as SSaP this year. Super cool dude at the ripe old age of 21, so glad to see him doing well. Says he's from VT but he is NY guy, works in VT now.

Keep checking up - interesting stuff.
 
awesome stuff! self-supported racing is the bees knees. love the documentary on the tour divide on netflix
 
I've been addicted to the blue dots for the past week. What Jefe Branham is doing right now is beyond anything I can imagine. He's averaging 175 miles per day in some of the most remote, quasi-unrideable terrain there is. It's not human.

I really want to do this race some time. I just imagine how remote it must feel -- like the whole world is going about it's business, but all these guys are doing is pedaling a bike far off the grid for weks at a time, and for most it probably completely changes their perspective byt he etime it's done.
 
pearl said:
any of these dudes stick together?
Click to expand...

A lot of them do, both on this race and the "smaller" CTR. But I think a bunch of them also figure they just have to ride their own pace and end spending most of the time alone. I think the most challenging part of this whole thing has to be the navigation -- the divide trail is not marked in most areas, and they are DQ'ed if they ride off course (unless they track back to where they went off course and continue from there.) When you think about how tired they must get and then layer on top of that the need to be constantly aware of staying on route, I would think that has to be stressful.
 
Navigation is easy if you can follow a GPS and have the route pre-loaded (Like I did). If you're following the route notes based on mileage using just a normal cycling computer then yes, it's tough.

Toughest thing for a rookie is knowing where you can get food and water in the remote spots. Veterans have a massive advantage in that respect. I was often carrying too much water as I didn't want to run out.
 
This is getting really interesting now -- Jefe has been creeping up on the record (set last year by Jay Petervary), and is within 7 minutes at the Del Norte checkpoint. That's pretty much a dead heat.
 
6thElement said:
Navigation is easy if you can follow a GPS and have the route pre-loaded (Like I did). If you're following the route notes based on mileage using just a normal cycling computer then yes, it's tough.

Toughest thing for a rookie is knowing where you can get food and water in the remote spots. Veterans have a massive advantage in that respect. I was often carrying too much water as I didn't want to run out.
Click to expand...

So do you mean you can buy water in remote spots (in small towns) or pull it out of springs and creeks? If the latter, would you use a purification system? I imagine you'd have to.

How long did it take you to complete it? And were you north or south bound?
 
Jefe Branham ultimately won this year's in just over 15 days, but he didn't get the record. He's been writing about the experience on his blog, and it's quite a read for anyone who would consider doing this race.
 
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