Tl:Dr; the hard part is hard, harder in the dark. I have to go do it again to stay in Touch Divide, but tomorrow. Today: rest.
Strava: https://strava.app.link/7p2rJkr50Kb
Today (June 13) is when the real racers (Willy, Everett, Steven) showed up to prepare for the Grande Depart. Great to meet them. Willy & Everette were really awesome, I didn’t get a chance to chat with Sean much, he arrived later. In the evening both Everett & Willy went for short rides, I tagged along with Willy & formed a reasonable sounding but ultimately insane plan: ride the Continental Divide Trail (CDT) section north-to-south in the evening (sun up, much lower heat), then reverse from south to north at night (foreknowledge, no heat). Part of this was due to me wanting to not throw in the Tour Divide (TD) towel just yet – to stay in the race I had to complete the CDT section S to N.
The Great Divide Mountain Bike Router (GDMBR) follows the road from Antelope Wells, but the Tour Divide route runs through a 15 mile section of the CDT. On my first day I decided against it because it was very hard to see the trail at night.
On June 13 I decided to scout it out, from north to south. Willy (a serious racer) & I rode out to recon the first few miles Thet were very tame, and I was totally pumped – I decided to go for it. Turns out my first impression was right – very hard to do at night. Maybe the hardest ride I’ve ever done (Ellensburg to Wenatchee on the x-wa is in the running).
The overall elevation gain is just under 2,000 feet, which is a bit but that’s not what made it hard.
There are deep, fine sandy sections that just rob you of speed and control, plenty of wipe outs.
There are a bunch of mini woop-de-do canyons, 10-20 feet deep. Many of them are rideable but my light mount was acting up, making it hard to see what was happening (and hard to ride).
And on the south end the plants are just angry. The combination of angry plants and sand meant I met one of them up close. Not very bad, but not very fun. I’m a bit worse for wear.
There was a bunch of hike a bike, route finding was *really* hard, especially on the south side. And around 1:30am when I finished (going the wrong way) I knew I was done for the day. I rode back to Hatchita, and settled in.
In the morning when I looked at TrackLeaders it said I was camped back and the s. End of the CDT. My tracker popped right out of the bolted on harness.
Thank God for Jeff, who drove me back down to pick it up. We found it pretty quickly, but not before Jeff tried finding it on his own for an hour. I’m glad to have it back.
Still thinking about whether I’ll go back and do it the right way during the day.
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