Tour Divide 2015 - Day 3

We had set our alarms for 3am but Andres's alarm went off at 2am. Wrong time zone apparently. Fifteen minutes later, unable to get back to sleep I said "lets just go"? Andres agreed so we jumped up, packed our bikes and were on the road at about 2:30am. We weren't trying to be tactical, there was simply no point in not riding now that we were awake.

We rolled along slowly to warm up. It was very cold and for someone from Uraguay, bloody freezing so Andres kept stopping to add layers. I just pedalled along steadily and he would catch back up. We passed someone packing up their bivy in the darkness outside Grave Creek campground. I said "hey" but couldn't make out who it was in the pre dawn darkness. (Turns out it was Brett Stepanik who said he had a rubbish sleep as it was cold and the river noisy)

We had been climbing constantly now for a few hours and as dawn began to break got our first glimpse of the type of country we were riding through. Forest again.

After  three and a half hours climbing we crested the Whitefish Divide. There had been an avalanche come down the left slope and it had bowled over half the forest on the right hand slope. Quite a sight for someone not used to snow country and the power of avalanches.

We donned all of our warm gear here for the descent. It was still hovering around zero so we knew we would suffer but a least it was downhill and we would be making miles at a decent rate again.

We had to stop about 30 minutes later to revive frozen fingers and faces. It was seriously cold but the views were beautiful.

The road went downhill for many miles and we pedalled easily at about 30km/h. Soon, Kintla Peak in Glacier National Park reared it's cloud shrouded head on the eastern horizon.

We passed several people walking along this section of road. All were cheery and one almost lost his silly golden retriever to us. It kept chasing along with Andres despite the owner yelling for it to heel. I stopped as I could see this stupid pooch was just going to bound along all day with us and Andres followed suit so that the frustrated owner could get a hold on his dog. It was funny to me but I could see his blood was starting to boil.

Turning up Red Meadow road we soon caught up to Rob Orr again. He had slept out and wasn't having a very good day but as happens on the divide, he seemed to take inspiration from our presence and pedalled off over the hill in front of us.

The climb was quite steep and having been on the bike for six and a half hours already, my legs cried "enough" and I hopped off to walk one of the climbs. I found this gave my legs a nice rest and seemed to stretch some muscles. Getting back on felt like bliss again and I pedalled to Red Meadow Lake for a photo stop. I didn't end up getting one that took in the enormity of the lake and mountain so the following will have to do.

As we passed the little campground by the lake we got a few "woohoo, go the divide" cheers. Blue Dot watchers were everywhere!

The road now pointed down again and we covered some serious ground fast, dropping down from Red Meadow Lake. The road lower down had recently been graded and was very loose and very dusty making for some hard work despite the downhill grade. My Spot stopped working somewhere here and I had to replace the batteries after just two and a half days of use. The same brand of batteries that I replaced them with lasted for the next 18 days. Go figure.

The last few kilometres into Whitefish were along Whitefish Lake and were stunning. The shoreline was lined with holiday homes and I just wanted to stop to take it all in. My stomach had other ideas and we headed for the first resupply just outside of town, the Alpine Village Supermarket. In here, apart from the iced coffee and ice creams I found some burritos in the deli. I bought three and they were so good that I went back for another one!

Resupplied, we didn't bother going into Whitefish as it would just be a time suck. But where to push on to tonight? There was Columbia Falls and Big Fork. Ferndale was also an option. Because of our early start we had covered more ground than my modest plan called for and the only sensible thing to do was to resupply in Ferndale then push on into the wilderness toward Swan Lake.

From Whitefish to Fernadale was all sealed or really good dirt road and basically flat. I enjoyed pedalling along at speed with the nice tailwind. looking back towards Whitefish we could see a huge thunderstorm on the hills. While we enjoyed a dry, dusty run down from Red Meadow Lake there would be riders under that storm having a miserable mudfest. Timing.....

As I rode along I did a systems check. Knees-good, backside-good, ankles-good, hands-good. Apart from the obvious tired legs there wasn't any part of me complaing yet despite the 600km (372mi) and near 8000m (26500ft) of climbing so far. I was very happy with how things were going.

Then, I wasn't. About an hour later I started to notice an ever so slight squeak in my left heel. Oh, no. Not the dreaded achilles tendon. Lots of riders have issues with their achilles simply from overuse. It wasn't too bad, being just a squeak and there was no pain involved but I knew I had to tend to it.

We came to our last chance of resupply at Ferndale and rode slightly off course to get to the excellent Ferndale Market. This gas station/grocery had everything a hungry divide rider needed. We fed ourselves, stocked up and used some wifi to check the Trackleaders page, Hey! We were pretty well out the front of the TD conga line making it's way down the divide route! A quick count saw us in about 15th or 16th place. Not bad out of 150 odd riders.

I resolved to ride on and camp but first there was another 1000ft climb to get over. I took it easy on my heel and tried to modify my pedalling technique to limit the amount I flexed my left heel on each rotation. It felt better but there was still a "squidgy" sound that I could hear or feel internally from the heel. Andres was happy to pedal gently along with me. He realised that we had made excellent ground today and it was time to soft pedal for a while. Others smoked past us but true to Andres's opinion, they blew knees, ankles and heartlidges in the coming days and I caught some of them before the end of the race, despite my ailment. He caught all of them.

We decided to camp slightly off route, near Swan Lake. There was a river and a bridge and we thought we could wash up and refill our Camelbaks here. Just after we stopped and were about to set up camp two slightly drunk guys pulled up in a car. They got fishing rods out and told us about their plan to fish right near our camp. Being friendly I was chatting to them and they said "yep, we grill 'em soon as we catch 'em". Great. We would be camping right next to fish guts and the smell of grilled fish! We decided to move on and eventuall almost rode all the way into Swan Lake, about 5km off route. We found a small cabin by the side of the highway and set up camp there. It had a water hand pump that worked and we were set for the night. A family was camping in the main cabin and I felt secure in the knowledge that someone would hear me scream if a grizzly tried to snuggle up with me.

I told Andres that if he was up beofre me in the morning to just go. This was a race after all and he was under no obligation to wait. I wasn't sure about my heel and he was still riding strong so I didn't want him to feel bad about leaving me. We were all here to test ourselves and I knew Andres was going to be strong, with a chance of finishing very well.

This resolved, we ate then hit the hay. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.......again.

Tour Divide 2015 - Day 2

We were up before the alarm went off, gathering all of our clothes that were strung up around the room which resembled a Chinese laundry. They were nice and dry and a peek out the window showed a glow on the eastern horizon, indicating that the day would be the same! Awesome!

As we rolled out of town my natural pace was faster than Simon's as we warmed up, so I slowly pulled away from him as we climbed the pavement up to Corbin. The first 34km(21mi) were paved and I was starting to think that I should have pressed on last night rather than cave to the temptation of a warm, bearproof bed. Yes, I have an irrational fear of bear encounters and this next section was actually prime bear country.

Having said that, shortly after leaving Sparwood I came up behind another racer who I assumed had made an early start from Sparwood. The rider turned out to be Jill Homer. Jill has written a great blog for years and I first heard of the Tour Divide via her writings. We exchanged pleasantries and she commented on how nice and clean my bike was after yesterday's drubbing. I explained the car wash (but not my mild OCD that took me there) and she explained her slow pace as having just crawled out of her bivy by the creek. Wow! She had pressed on and camped out. This made me feel soft and like I had missed a opportunity to make more ground. Later, via her blog I would see that not all was as it seemed. Various riders that I spoke to who pressed on all had bad rest in the cold and subsequently had a rough day on day 2, whereas I was feeling good and powering on.

I din't get any photos of the pleasant river valley that led up to Corbin, just the one with the big, ugly mine tailings pile in it. You can see the thick dew/frost. It was a cold morning and luckily it was all uphill meaning that I kept warm.

I was soon back onto dirt road, climbing up to Flathead Pass. After climbing for a while I could hear bear whistles being blown ahead and above me. I was catching someone and they were doing the bear scaring work for me as well. The climb to Flathead Pass was rocky and rough going with careful line selection being important. Cresting the climb, there wasn't any reward in the form of a view. This pass was simply a low point in the mountains that was acceptable to put a road through. I began to blast down the descent, staying off the brakes as much as possible to maximise the use of elevation gain. Somewhere here one of my dishwashing (waterproof) gloves abandoned ship but I wouldn't notice for an hour or so.

I caught the whistle blowers as we came to the section of trail that doubles as a river! An icy cold, rapidly flowing river.

I could see Greg and Evan, the kiwis but I didn't know the other riders with them. There was no way through here but to wade into the stream and just put up with icy feet. That certainly got my attention and I did my best to catch the guys but they weren't hanging around despite my valiant attempts to ride sections of this road/river. Not an issue although the company would have been appreciated.

This road/river got old very quickly as I continued to bath my feet every few minutes. I couldn't imagine what it was like last year in the rain and snow. I had it easy!

The road soon open out into flowing forestry road and I began to make good time again. I came to a large river, the Flathead River, with a big wooden bridge across it where a rider was sitting in the middle of the bridge eating. I stopped and chatted then asked if he minded taking a photo for me.

Thanking him, I pressed on and soon caught the Kiwis having a bite to eat. I rode with them for a while until they stopped again to adjust something on one of their bikes. They were sticking together like glue it seemed.

I rode on until I came to Butt's patrol cabin where there was a small picnic ground opposite, complete with picnic table. I stopped here to tuck into the sub I was carrying from last night and to shed my rain jacket now that it had warmed up somewhat. Maybe it was 10C!

Shortly after I stopped, Andres Bonelli stopped to have a bite to eat as well. We chatted and were both ready to roll at the same time so rode together for a while. I picked him as about 28-30 years old but was a bit surprised when he told me he was actually 38.

We pedalled along discussing everything from where we got our interest in the race, to training and race ethics and bears. Andres had done a massive amount of research on the race and the route and it later showed with his strategy and knowledge of services along route. I could only dream of having the time to have researched the route in such an in depth manner.

As we chatted we continued to climb the next pass, Cabin Pass. This one was worthy of a photo or three as it was quite spectacular.

We donned our lightweight wind vests for the descent. While the climbs here on the divide seem to go on forever, so too do the descents and it is easy to get very cold while roaring down the mountain. We enjoyed a long, rough descent until we were again pedalling along a valley floor in nice warm temperatures. Here we caught up to Brian Steel again and his buddy, Josh Daugherty topping up with water from a fast moving stream.

They informed us how crap their sleep was last night as they had pushed on up to Corbin rather than stay in Sparwood. They were really suffering as a result and crawling along.

We slowly began climbing as we made our way up the valley toward the famous "wall" section of trail. The wall was a quarter mile section of trail that went almost straight up a steep hillside. It was a cheap and nasty way of linking one forest road to another when the ACA created the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. It was in no way rideable, but we were hoping that as it was dry it would be at least walkable. From reports, in the wet it was barely that.

We passed several groups of riders along here prior to the wall.

There were a few groups of tourer along here as well. It certainly was a very pretty section that probably deserved a touring pace, not the race pace we were using.

The turn to The Wall appeared and we made our way along the thin little trail to the base of the climb. The Wall itself turned out to be a straight forward hike-a-bike. 

I would rate the ride from the forest road to the base of the Wall as far more taxing and worthy of some respect on a heavily loaded bikepacking rig.

We stopped at the top for a short break. It was time to down the second half of that sub I had been lugging for 158km(98mi). A few riders, including the Kiwis, passed us here but we reminded ourselves this was a looong race.

It was getting pretty hot in the sun now and more so as we began to climb Galton Pass. Galton wasn't anything super steep or lofty but it was all business going up then down quite briskly for a divide road.

I was still being a bit precious about drinking stream water and had all but run dry, so I had an hour wait until my Aquatabs worked their magic on the icy, clear water that I scooped out of a stream near the base of Galton Pass. On the upside at least I wasn't hauling unnecessary weight up the pass!

But the downside is that I was getting a bit cooked in the heat and dehydrating. I countered this by hopping off my bike and pushing for a while. My pride wasn't too big to allow me to mix things up and when I did hop back on the bike, my pedalling muscles felt rested and good to go again. Sometimes you just have to get off that damn seat!

The descent off Galton was a big one and FAST. We donned our wind jackets again and pushed over the edge. It turned out to be a brake searing descent. I actually had to stop mid way down for 30 seconds to give my hands a rest. No suspension and hauling on the brakes had left my hands with no strength but I was happy to do it. We weren't climbing!

Near the bottom of the pass were several cars and vans parked on the road. There was a guy standing in the middle of the road taking photos. I gave him a wave but didn't stop as I wanted to get to that border crossing in Rooseville and more importantly, the food in Eureka!

We dropped onto blacktop again for the roll through the border. Nice! The border crossing itself took all of about 20 seconds which surprised me. I wonder if the guard was Blue Dot watching and knew who was coming along next?

The last few kilometres into Eureka were into a stiff wind which put the finishing touch on my hunger as we rolled into the first gas station which just happened to have a Subway and a motel attached. We joined Rob Orr there eating and perusing his map and Marshal had grabbed a room, muttering something about SRAM rear derailuers as he pushed his bike by.

Looking at the next section of trail and it was going to be a long, isolated section with no services again and two passes. These were the Whitefish Divide and Red Meadow Lake, one of my "must see" carrots. We elected to call it an early day and stay in the motel. This would allow us a good rest rather than camping up high in the cold and we could start early to beat the heat later in the day.

Stats for Day 2 were 204km (126mi) with another 2750m (9000ft) of climbing. I didn't feel too bad but that last photo shows some sign of fatigue. Twelve and a half hours in the saddle will do that!

Tour Divide 2015 - Day 1

I thought I heard a few rumbles of thunder during the night but race day morning dawned bright and reasonably clear. I was up pretty early to make sure I had everything squared away for the 7:30 roll off from the front of the Y. In fact, I was one of the first out there. Keen!

The race starts at 8am but there is a rider brief/group photo in front of the Y at around 7:30. Billy Rice took it upon himself to give everyone a reminder about the ethics of the Tour Divide and suggest how riders "self seed" for the roll to the Spray River Trailhead, which is the official start line. Seeing how hyped up some riders were it was probably a timely reality check to help everyone chill. "Crazy Larry" Melnik (on far right of photo) gave everyone a bit of a cheer and some more pep before it was time to mount up and roll out.

Courtesey of Alex C 

Just before we did roll out, Josh Kato came over and introduced himself and said "hi". We had been corresponding a bit in the lead up to the race via our blogs and email. I thought it bloody decent of him to seek me out to say g'day as he had only arrived in Banff the night before and he needed to hustle back over to his bike as he was self seeding in the front row. He looked strong and with some insight into his training via Strava, I knew he would be pretty competitive.

The ride to the trail head was chilled in the mid-pack where I was. It was nice to see no silly argy-bargy as we just flowed smoothly past the trail head along the Spray River Trail. Very soon we were quite spread out. And just like that we were racing the Tour Divide !

It was difficult to know how hard to go. I took it easy for a while to warm up but soon I was passing quite a few riders with what felt like an easy pace. I kept the camera out snapping away but the reality was that it was spread out and I was mostly alone.

As we came to Goat Creek trailhead there is a short, steep climb to the car park and quite a few TD junkies were there cheering everyone on. Crazy Larry was running around taking video and asking each rider "whats your name"?

Courtesey of Alex C.

I remember seeing video of the riders last year at this point in full on snow so the few drops of rain that were splatting on us were of little concern.

I passed Mick Eyb here and had a quick chat as we rode on. The road opened out onto a wide, flatish gravel road and he being on a single speed was quickly spun out. me having gears, pulled away fairly briskly which was a bit sad as it was the last time I saw Mick for the race. He is a real character and I would have been happy to ride many more miles in his company.

Mick Eyb

I passed a heap of people along here. I was probably going too fast but it felt soo easy. I kept getting the camera out to force myself to slow down. We all know the long distance race self-check. If you think you are going too fast, you are. If you think you are going the right pace, you are going too fast. If you think you are crawling along, you are going the right pace!

The scenery was absolutely breathtaking and I was having a ball. This day had been about 5 years in the scheming. 

Turning across the top of Spray Lakes Reservoir was another magic view.

We rode along the western side of the reservoir for quite a while and I chatted to several other racers. Marshal Bird told me that the first two days were the most scenic by far. While that didn't bode well for the rest of the ride it was confirmtion, not that I really needed it, that this was stunning riding.

We rolled through a few showers in some forest containing single track that showed plenty of evidence of bear activity with piles of jet black bear scat everywhere.. Whilst I had bear spray, I had no intention of actually having to use it and so began my program of whistling as I rode along. I wish I could hold a tune, it wasn't pretty but then again, I didn't see any bears....

We crossed a few gushing streams emptying into the reservoir.

I saw my first rider with a mechanical, a flat tyre. I asked if he was ok as I rode past because that is what mountain bikers do. Then I remembered that I couldn't help him anyway as that is against the rules. We all needed to be totally self-sufficient. Looking at the photo now, it looks like Patrick Dowd, a nice young guy from San Fran who I would later ride with for a few days around mid-race.

Along here I noted that we had covered 50km(31mi). The first 50k! It didn't feel like it had taken long at all.

I caught up to a small group of riders as we entered a burn section of forest. it was quite eerie and I was glad to have some company through here.

But stopping for photos saw me lose contact again.

The trail emptied out onto a forest road and I soon saw Marshal on the side of the road, fitting his rain gear. It had been sprinkling for a while now but while it was cold I was feeling pretty comfortable. I rode with Marshal for a short while discussing his unusual rain kit where he had some cut down rain pants which was his "light rain" gear. I mentioned how I wasn't feeling uncomfortable despite the drizzle and he replied with some sage advice- "better to cover up early than to get wet and cold then suffer". I pondered these words for a few short minutes before the snow flakes began to drift down. I stopped and donned my rain gear pronto!

My gloves were wet and despite the washing up gloves over the top, my fingers were freezing so I stopped again to fit my winter Garneau gloves under the washing up gloves. This resulted in toasty digits and cemented Marshal's good advice in one dramatic lesson.

The snow soon stopped and gave way to intermittent drizzle but I remained warm and dry. This made me incredibly happy as my rain kit was, while top quality, as yet untested by me in the field. It was hard to find rain in Brisbane in the lead up to the race.

The forest road dumped us onto some blacktop and after a climb we were passing the 60mi(100km) mark, which meant we were passing Bolton Creek campground and it's shop. 

I didn't really need anything but I decided to err on the side of caution and top my water up and have a bite to eat. Crazy Larry and Joe Polk from MTB Cast were there shooting the breeze with several riders and I said a quick g'day as I topped off my water and inhale a chocolate milk.

Even though I kept the stop very brief, many riders went past as I found myself passing them again as we climbed to the first divide crossing of the day, Elk Pass. Elk Pass wasn't very inspiring as the trail up to it was simply a powerline service trail and it began to rain again.

This time the rain was here to stay and it continued for several hours making the trail a bit slippery on the clay sections but I didn't really have any issues.

I was still warm and dry but my drive train was starting to make grinding noises. As a rider this tends to do one's head in. Brian Steele and I were tooing and froing for a while and as he passed me once again he mentioned how much the grinding was getting to him. I decided to act, letting him go while I used my empty Camelbak bottle and a roadside stream to hose down my precious drive train. Around this time the rain stopped and I then rode the rest of the way to Elkford with a quiet, happy drivetrain. 

Dealing with issues before they became a problem was my race strategy and I later heard horror stories from day one that just didn't happen for me. I will credit my strategy for this(and who knows, maybe some luck?)

The hours ticked away as I pedalled for Elkford. There were plenty of climbs and some super fast descents where I felt I was making good time. 

Arriving in Elkford I went straight into the gas station looking for something warm but it all looked like junk. I settled on a turkey sandwich and more chocolate milk then joined the other riders sitting outside in the cold. A huge storm was blowing past, resplendent with seriously scary lightning and thunder. It drifted across the valley onto the hills that we needed to cross to get to Sparwood.

I pedalled out of town with Brian Steele, chatting as we ground our way up the 1000' sealed climb to the next section of trail. There was some new and interesting single track before we found ourselves riding along forest road through what until very recently been a forest. It had been logged out and was open and barren now, coated in a fresh dump of hail that looked a lot like snow it was so thick. Yes, as we sat at the gas staion eating, that storm had dumped on the mountain big time. As I was to learn throughout the Tour Divide, timing with the weather was the key to an easy ride or utter despair. Today, we were lucky and only had to deal with thick mud in a few places.

We encountered riders trying to dig mud out of their frames as their wheels were totally gummed up. I silently thanked my choice of the Muru BNT with it's wide tyre clearances versus those of the cross country race bikes that were now expensive walking sticks.

As the mud met the blacktop outside of Sparwood I again saw Marshal, as well as Rob Orr standing by the trail. Not sure if they were fixing something or just resting but I passed them and powered on into Sparwood.

Once in town I went straight to the big green truck, the Terex Titan to get a photo. 

Yes, it was one of the "carrots" that I had set myself along the route. My carrots were psychological goals to keep me motivated to make forward progress in case my will was being tested that day. The truck also had a webcam trained on it that updated every minute or so. I had told my family I would wave to them once I got to Sparwood. To be honest I didn't think they would be interested but as it turns out they had been following my dot all day and saw the webcam snap me just as I turned away from the truck (not waving like an idiot as I had been).

I had made Sparwood at 9:00pm. 

224km(139mi) in 13 hours was pretty good for an old bloke, especially with all that climbing. I still felt good and race wisdom was to ride on past Sparwood but I decided to get a room so that I could rest well and dry my gear. After I secured a room I went to the gas station to pressure clean my bike and my rain gear. Here I met Greg and Evan from New Zealand who were following suit. Once back in the room I showered (how good did that feel?!) then headed out to get some food. I bumped into Simon Cross from Beechworth in the foyer and he asked to split the room as we had done in Banff. "Sure thing" I said and we headed over to the Subway where we met Beth Dunn and Doug Wenger tucking into a small feast each. Simon and I bought dinner and a sub for tomorrow's ride. 

Tomorrow would entail riding 200-ish km(124mi) and climbing three passes, namely Flathead Pass, Cabin Pass and the real arse kicker for the day, Galton Pass. These are all in wilderness area with no resupply other than stream water. Lights out was around 11pm with the alarm set for 4am. Day one was successfully completed, now to back it up again!

Cheers and thanks for checkin' in.