So on to the pics.

First frozen fog covered photo of the day. I thawed out for about 5 hours when it warmed up to 35.

Spokes got frozen over as well as the spoke cards. I even had to break the ice off of my grip tape at certain points.

Someone should get this horse a blanket, twas effing cold.

#BikeBloc

What are you looking at?

Yes, I dried my clothes on the chicken carcass warmer at Fred’s whilst drinking a crappy Pete’s coffee latte at the 200 mile point.

Near the end my headlight battery died so I had to use my cellphone to light the way. It made some really cool shadows. This photo was attempting to capture the shadow, and instead is just a lonely night shot of a bicycle speeding northward through the valley.

Yep, still dark out, probably rode in 14 hours of darkness.

The final frost covered photo of the day, this was right before I hit the wall. It was another 30 miles of riding after I hit the wall with a 30 minute stop in Newberg. My pace was slowed but it was near the end. Overall, I’m totally ecastic. The triple century is complete!

What’s next you ask?  Olympia, WA to Salem, OR to stop the CRC.

1.  To raise awareness of the need for dedicated and separated cycling infrastructure
2.  To raise funds to build industrial weight capable bike trailers, please checkout the WePay and consider donating to fund this awesome project

When: Saturday January 19th, departing roughly at 3AM
Where: Portland to Coburg and back via the Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway
Who: Me!
How: Through the aid of numerous caffeinated beverages
Donate

Watch livestreamed videos as I ride!

Check out the route and follow along with my spot satellite tracker. If this map isn’t updating with my current location, check out this site. Download the KMZ file and open with Google Earth to view my progress in real time.

See you in the Valley!

Quitting something that you’d spent months planning for is never fun.  While at times I may regret my decision mildly to pull the plug on that last bike race, mostly I’m glad and have used the past year and a half to focus on what I please.  That focus has led me to the 325 mile day which I look to knock out some time in the upcoming months. Below is a map of that route, it’s an out and back starting in PDX. The route mostly consists of the 132 mile Willamette Valley Scenic Bikeway.

And what ride would be complete without an elevation profile, read left to right, then back to the left. About 8,000 feet total.

So I’m doing this mostly for myself, but also to raise funds to build an industrial bike trailer. Check out the WePay. Basically, if I can get the funds for the wheels, the frame materials will be pretty inexpensive.

Donate

I’ve spent a lot of time training for this ride, the route that I’m riding is relatively car free. However the cities it passes through can be very unsafe in certain conditions. There are lots of ways we can improve paths for cyclists here in Oregon. The video below from Bikes Belong gives some good insight on how our cities could be designed.

I feel that my hometown of Portland, OR has what it takes to make better bike infrastructure like in the video above.  I hope that the construction of an a bike trailer makes it a little more evident to the vehicular traffic the necessity for bike specific space.  A trailer isn’t going to be the “be all and end all” of bike infrustructure but it’s a path to a better vision of the future.  If you are interested in helping fund this creation once again here’s the link to the WePay.

I will be doing delayed livestreaming of the big bike ride.

See you in the valley.

It started pouring and we realized our spot was going to be flooded in no time. Fortunately there was a higher spot to move to that was still covered! Dylan did the quickest camp move known to man. Dude was up and down the stairs like a madman, all after being up at 4AM and having ridden for 4 days straight. I was seriously impressed. I rather comically hopped up some the stairs in my sleeping bag with my pad and laid back down. The super storm was all the reason we needed for a slow start to the morning. It worked out pretty well. I needed to consolidate my bike stuffs and proceeded to do so.

Around 6AM the storm had mostly passed and we were ready to get on the road. We headed back into Ovando to see if the store was open, it wasn’t and we bailed. I had six twizzlers for breakfast today as that’s all that really sounded good, my stomach was still roasted from the “Chicken Coop” the night before. We started off for the easy morning roll out.

After searching for the first good break spot of the morning, we found a nice spot out of the wind and in the sunshine. I snapped some photos.

The essential bike ditch shot.

There were still some remnants of the superstorm drifting around.

It was a mostly solid tail wind along 30 miles of pavement to reach Lincoln. The Unabomber lived in a cabin near Lincoln, not sure where though. That’s about all of my local knowledge for the area! We passed some old ladies touring, their bikes were loaded, and they were moving. I started to feel bad that some old ladies on loaded touring bikes were going so fast in comparison. Dylan agreed they seemed to be cooking, just goes to show you what people are capable of.

We arrived in Lincoln in no time. I sprinted in a good mile ahead of Dylan. For some reason I was excited to be able to push it so hard on just six twizzlers for breakfast. I stopped feeling bad about the old ladies and pulled into the first grocery store in town. “You guys got coffee?” I asked. “Sorry, no.” replid the cashier. Off to the gas station I went. I stopped here last year and knew they would be stocked. Dylan and I started buying snacks and chugging java. The place was blaring some crap pop country, Dylan and I strangely enjoyed it. We had been on the bike too long and were starting to go crazy, it was funny in the “OMG am I enjoying crap country sorta way.” There was a pizza shop inside the gas station, they had vegan breadsticks so I ordered six to go. Never in my life have I been so excited by breadsticks, but it was and it was my incentive to ride so we hit the road.

I remembered the climb and the descent pretty well from the year before and knew it was a piece of cake. The climb was moderate but the downhill was amazing, one of those that makes it all worth it. Dylan and I arrived at the bottom with smiles on our faces. It may have been day five and we were showing wear and tear, but good times were indeed being had.

The ecosystem wildly changed after getting down into the valley. We had finally got into the drier, “big sky” country of Montana. We stopped for a sec to eat, it was windy as all get out. I rather deftly set my bike in the ditch and used it as a wind block while I laid down and ate. Dylan was jealous of my setup, we laughed pretty hard at the fact that I was so cofmortably lying in the ditch while snacking on some breadsticks. Several cars drove by and gawked, I’m sure they were thoroughly confused. We were on a reroute so people through there weren’t used to see divide racers/bike bums.

After break we pedaled up the hill. Oh yeah, it was dry over here! We stopped to shift our attire to handle the dryness, off came the warm socks, leg warmers, and arm warmers. Wouldn’t need those until the evening, as opposed to every hour or so like up north. It was a chill climb up to the Maryville ski resort followed by a curvy bomber descent. We attempted to race to intersect a train down the hill but it beat us by a long shot. The road curved more and still mostly descended until we reached the highway into Helena. It was either pizza or subway and neither of us seemed to be feeling pizza, subway it was. I wasn’t paying much attention when the “sandwich artist” made my sub but she didn’t put jack for veggies on it. Sometimes people aren’t used to making veggie subs and forget that where there is normally meat and cheese that there is room for more vegetables. So I got kind of a weak dinner.

I shot some texts back and forth to my parents to check on my placing. We had made it up to the high 20′s, this was the sort of news I had wanted to hear. I may have not been on track to finish the race as fast as I wanted but at least I was advancing fairly rapidly. It was the sort of shot in the arm I needed, it made me really determined to get to Butte and in good placing. Knowing that I was advancing on some of the top endurance racers in the world was a confidence booster. I’ve been able to hang at the back of the pro pack in local races, but something of this distance is in my favor. It was cool to finally have some sort of comparison, life changing in some ways.  I knew I wasn’t faking the funk at this point, not that I ever really doubted I was but it was a sort of validation for my efforts.

We went to the grocery and did the routine gatorade stock.  Helena is kind of a weird town, I don’t like it too much.  It’s just a bit too exposed I think.  The weather probably gets pretty rough there I would imagine.   There was a nice city park on the way out of town that was inviting us to stretch out in a shaded area with lush grass.   It was a solid break, one of those where you really stop to smell the roses.  Helena didn’t look so bad after eating and chilling in the park, but we had riding to do.

The climb out was pretty gentle, there was a detour before the actual climb so it really didn’t even count as a climb.  Just a big roller.  After the summit was a good 10 miles of pot holed roads.  I didn’t have too much fun going down them.  My packs were not loaded tighly enough and I ejected a water bottle as well.  This stretch caused me to really wish for a lighter setup.  I was starting to realize you don’t need much on the divide except for the will to ride.  Every single thing just weighs you down.  If I were to do this again, I’d adopt a more strict strategy.  It’s easy to take too much clothing, extra socks, extra gloves, extra ear warmer or something.  It’s stupid, you don’t need that many back ups.  If you lose the one you have, deal with it until you can find a replacement.  There is peace of mind in losing pieces of gear and knowing that while you may be suffering more, your kit is lighter.  For me at least,  maybe I’m nuts!

I could feel my feet were taking a pretty serious bruising from the potholed descent.  I was well aware before I started that they were going to be taking the brunt of the blows and I really hoped I could just tough it out.  Nearly everything else on me was fine, but the relentless pace plus a poorly loaded bike does not add up.  This stretch of road fully convinced me to mail some junk home when I got to Butte.  Once again, I was on the divide with “TOO MUCH CRAP”.  My Americanness finally caught the best of me.   I was doing less with more and was disappointed in myself.  I brought so much junk in 2010, how could I still bring too much a year later?!?!  The small sandwich I ate at subway was fully burned up and I was kind of in the dumps mentally.  I knew what the highs and lows of the divide can be like though, so really this was just an irritating footnote.  I was still riding 115+ miles a day and could at least hide my pain, which means it’s not a “big deal”.

Finally we hit some pavement, this lifted my spirits mostly.  I can’t complain about pavement, it started to turn the night around.  Dylan and I strategized for the evening.  Dylan had a wild hair to push another 40 miles to Butte.  I knew there was no way I could do it without turning into a late night psycho monster.  I started moaning about the upcoming climb and figured we would end up getting trapped in the cold most likely rather than making it to Butte.  Dylan agreed and we searched for a bivy spot, we found a really stealthy spot just off the side of the road with good coverage and a fairly scenic setting.  I would rank it a B+ for a divide bivy.  We had to push up a slight incline to get to it and there was the remnants of a barb wire fence.  Just enough to be a little tricky but not really a deal breaker.  I was worried about forgetting about the fence in the morning and stabbing myself or popping a tube.  There was cell service though, so it was cool to know I could say hi to my GF before going to bed and a hello to the parents in the morning.  Dylan and I agreed to an “up and at ‘em” 4:30 start and knocked out, day five was over!

I was ready to ride today knowing that I was starting to get into the groove of the race.  The morning was pretty uneventful, it looked like we were due for a relatively easy cruise.   About 20 miles of flat, a 10 mile slow climb with a 5 mile descent, and then a 15 mile pavement ride into town.  I think today  was probably one of the best days of the divide in terms.  The weather was solid, I felt good aside from wear and tear on the body, and I just knew we’d gapped people.  It made me happy to finally use my experience on the divide last year to better my placing rather than just have to force my way to the front by riding extra hard.  My confidence was starting to grow, though I was still mildly disappointed with overall daily mileage.  I knew it was minimal though at that it could still well be made up.

We made it to Seeley Lake around 4 or 5 PM.  I had looked up a restaraunt on my GPS and were cruising to it.  It was a mile off route and we were willing to settle on whatever we found closer.  It was about a quarter mile down.  It was called the “Chicken Coop”.  It was a mistake.  So let me set this up.  I just wanted to something to eat that wasn’t from a convenience store, maybe some fries and a crappy salad.  Not too much to ask for in life right?  Well they didn’t have salad and I’m nearly certain the fries were fried in the same oil as the chicken.  I don’t know maybe not, but that shit was gross, undercooked, and greasy.  Dylan’s CFS and burger didn’t fair well with him either.  Neither of us ended up hospitalized, but wished we could have been.  We reluctantly got on the road and pedaled out of town and up a mild climb.  I like taking a break after eating, but Dylan and I both HAD to take breaks after this place.  Just wretched!  We were both sitting their, miserably full and grease-bombed when this crazy lady with her dog on a choke chain comes along.  Except the dog was pulling the lady down the rode, essentially choking itself the whole way.  Both lady and dog were miserably stupid and it was sad.  The dog barked from second he saw us until he passed, gasping for air in between screwed up choked barks.  The grease-bomb plus the weird encounter put things into full on over the top divide racing moment.  It was so sad that we could only laugh, we weren’t sure if we felt worse for the dog, the lady, or ourselves.  It was an introspective moment that revealed little, but it was a memorable moment nonetheless.

Storm clouds were moving around from all directions and the sun was at that angle that makes them look worse than they actually were.  So we didn’t really worry about them.  It turned out to be a beautiful evening, tranquil as all get out.  So I finally broke out the photo camera, as opposed to the video camera I had been using.   I hurriedly snapped a photo of Dylan when I saw the rainbow, I kind of caught him offguard with it.  I would have said to smile but that would have just seemed to cheesy with the rainbow in the background so I took it anyway.  I keep joking that the face says “Don’t eat at the Chicken Coop”.

I decided to keep the camera handy.  It was picturesque.  If you want to see an idyllic section of Montana, go hang around in the mountains around Ovando.  Good times will be had.

I got this really cool pic of my shadow and the bike in the ditch.

I think this may be one of the coolest pics I’ve ever taken.  Others may be underwhelmed but this one goes really deep for me.  The ditch is your home on the divide.   It can be your bed, your kitchen, your bathroom, your friend, and your enemy.  You have to try and stay on the ditch’s good side.  It’s always there ready for you to bail into if a car comes too close.  It’s always there if you want to get off the road and just take a break.  It might be a good ditch, it might be a really bad ditch.  There is no telling except by constant examination, this is why it’s a good idea to keep your eye on it.  You need not focus on it as you will most certainly ride right into it, but be aware of it at all times!  When things get bad, it could be your only real bail point.  I could go on and on about ditch life; how to make oneself comfortable in the ditch, how to find a good ditch to sleep in, and how to just enjoy the ditch!  I will save that for another blog post.

A sideshot.

Nature is rad.

We enjoyed the sunset, it was from a nice vantage point and knew we weren’t too far from a good stopping point.  Today was ridiculously textbook.  We were total pros aside from slightly short mileage.  We made it into Ovando just as the last of the daylight escaped.  We rolled by the hotel and saw a couple bikers, it made me happy to see them in a hotel.  Wusses!  Hah hah, while that was me in 2010, this year I was Captain Bivy and proud of it!  Dylan wanted to find a legit camp spot.  I could have cared less and just wanted to go to the school which was just down the road.  I had marked it off on my GPS as a possible sleep/water spot.  Dylan was tired and gave up on finding somewhere legit.  We realized school was out for summer and that there was little worry.  I suspected rain was coming and opted for a covered piece of concrete with the lights still on above.  Dylan again was less than stoked, but I tried to point out the cover.  It was a crapshoot, sleep on the grass behind back in the dark and get some serenity or play it safe and not get rained on.  We opted to play it safe and slept on the covered concrete with the lights.  Dylan set up a makeshift tarp thing to block out the light.  It was funny to me how adamant he was about the light, I just kind of knock out after the day.  But sometimes it’s the little things in life that drive you insane, and I fully understand his tarp light blocker.  We knocked out pretty quickly, the “Chicken Coop’s” toxin’s still hard at work.

We made our way on to the trail. We knew today would be the day that tested everyone. We all were expecting a ginormous snow hike before Whitefish but since the first snow hike turned out to be a major bust, I was highly skeptical, perhaps naive. I set a 21 day time goal, and it wasn’t just a goal, it was a limit. If I wasn’t going to look like I could make it in 21 days, then I might as well quit. I only had 3 weeks vacation book ended by one day to get to the route and exit. A narrow window but sometimes you just have to aim high. I know plenty of the Euro’s have tickets booked well in advance of completing the race and that is half the incentive to finish right there in itself. So in one way it could be viewed as setting myself up for failure, and in another as an incentive. Divide racing is crazy, and most of the tactics employed in it are insane. Batshit strategies can and ofter do work, just because of the realm that the event takes place in. It’s pretty much as over the top as it gets for a bike race/ride. Things like drinking canola oil to survive, riding miles on just a few There are so many little weird coincidences and synchronicities that take place out there, it’s tough to describe it all without sounding like some sort of deranged bike bum. Enough, here’s a bright eyed morning vid.

We made our way up the climb to the snow. The climbing was easy, until we hit the snow at the top of a long flat pass. At first it was okay, you could still kinda push on the side of the road, no big deal. Then it got to where it was a few feet deep but it was really packed down from all the riders coming through. You could step in their tracks and not sink to far, likewise for the bike. We hit it early in the day by planning and a bit of luck. I suspect those who came later in the day have horror stories of the most horrid snow trek known to man. Fortunately I am here to tell only of a mildly crappy snow trek, about 10 miles, over a mountain, with a solid thunderstorm near the end. Let’s put it this way, I got kind of irritable up there. For the first few miles, I was fine with it. A couple miles in snow over a pass is par for the course, literally. So no getting worked up over that. Once we neared five or six miles, things started getting epic. Travel was at two miles an hour at MAX sustainable speed. It was appearing like there was no end in sight, realistically I knew it couldn’t have been much more than 10 miles, but it honestly felt like it was going to be a 30 mile snow slog to Whitefish. It was really unrelenting, I joked with Dylan about how it would just be the worst if it started storming in the middle of all this. He kind of shrugged and turned away. Yeah I know, way to speak the unspeakable, I’ve always been captain obvious when it comes to worst case scenarios. So enough talkin’ bout the snow, let’s see it! (Possibly seizure inducing shaky cam ensues)

I was starting to hit the first level of bonk about half way through the snow. I had been hydrating as much as possible on the way up to the snow but I went into it intentionally with zero water. There’s water everywhere, so it’s not like I was in danger. I just did not want to be carry a single ounce that I didn’t need through that crap. But after three hours I was starting to get dehydrated and it wasn’t exactly a blast. So what else would you do when exhausted and dehydrated after trudging over a snowed pass for hours, shoot a video of course!

So we pushed and pushed and pushed, the thunderstorm hit and I got soaked. It was so epic that I didn’t care, it was full on divide absurdness staring me blankly in the face. “Hah hah!”, said nature, “Meh!”, said I. I shot another video.

After about 8 miles I was officially hating life, it’s not that it was impossible, it was just so slow!!! I’m riding across the freaking country and here I am pushing at 2 miles an hour going full tilt, dehydrated, and just losing time on the day and then finally…. DOWNHILL!!! There was a quarter mile section that was exposed to the sun that was rideable. I took off blasting downhill without my helmet on, we had long ditched the helmets onto the bars. I did stop once realizing this, I rarely take my helmet off while around the bike. It was an easy mistake. Unfortunately, we just got back to more snow, but it was down hill. I launched into an insane downhill snow sprint, the things legends are made of. Running through the ditches and snow with the bike at a brisk four miles an hour. I kept this up for a good 15 minutes until it started to flatten out. If there’s anything I’ve learned in life that I’ll probably never forget, it’s this: USE YOUR MOMENTUM. This is what got me back to the main route which was still at least another two miles of snow trudging. At that point though I at least knew we were reasonably close to the end and I was starting to dry out of from the storm. I thought Whitefish was another 17 miles further than it actually was, so I was hyper enthused once we finally hit town. Dylan being a former Montanan knew where the best pizza place in town was so we went straight there. I was shocked to find that had soy cheese. A vegan pizza and it’s only day three? Life is good! Not only that but bread-sticks to boot. I was in heaven, the waitress walked by with a tray full of beers. I was STRAIGHT LEERING at these beers unthinkingly as she walked by. She turned her head at me rather snottily, I’m pretty sure she thought I was looking at her chest. My eyes were still glued to the beers though before realizing what was going on and she turned her head away, most likely realizing that I really was staring at the beers. I mean it was obvious, men can be pigs and all but clearly she should have been able to tell where my burned out divide racer mind was, it was comical.

I sent texts back and for to my parents while Dylan chatted away on his phone. Reaching out to the outside world is a serious part of this race. I’m sure there are some people out there who could care less about calling home, but I’m all about my little pieces of comfort zone so I stay fairly well connected. After thoroughly caching the pizza restaurant we were uot on our way.

Whitefish is about 15 miles or so from Columbia Falls so we pressed on quickly to get there and resupply. I felt sluggish on these same roads the last year and was feeling like a million bucks after a vegan pizza. Even Dylan was impressed by the way we were clipping along. An hour after leaving the pizza place we were in Columbia Falls stocking up at the local grocery. It was good to see american sized beverages and reasonable prices again. 3 jumbo bottles of gatorade for a dollar each, what a country! I did my shopping and proceeded to do my favorite leg propping ritual outside the store. There’s nothing like just kicking your shoes off and propping your feet up outside a grocery store, makes you really feel like you should carry a jar around to pee in as well. Yes this is what life is like on the divide, you a half bike racer, half crazy bum just abusing any public place for all of their resources. “Oops, sorry about your bathroom/store.” is pretty much the motto of every divide racer. But it’s friggin’ backwoods redneck country, so we get away with it if we have enough charisma and buy lots of junk, which most of us do.

We hit the road knowing that we weren’t too far from a modest climb. We got to it nearing dusk and summitted just as the sun disappeared completely. We wisely stopped and put on every layer we had, it was going to be a chilly decent and through bear country. I led the way down as I knew it was a bomber of a downhill and that’s mostly my specialty. Me and Dylan were having fun yelling stupid crap to keep the bears away. Mostly a bunch of random guttural grunts and howls. My voice was roasted for days from this, not the best decision. It was fun though and I have good memories from it so it’s not all a wash. After what seemed like an endless chilly downhill we finally reached the bottom and began the search for a flat spot off the road. We agreed to cruise a mile searching for such a spot and would just bivy in the road if we couldn’t find anything. Fortunately Dylan spotted a pretty rad spot and we were set up nearly instantly and asleep. I think we knocked out 115 miles even with the 6 hours in the snow, and all without caffeine as well. We freaking earned the nights rest and did not even discuss a wake up time. I told my circadian rhythm to STFU and went to sleep. And it was good sleep, I tell you!

So after a slow 20 minute pack up I was on the road to the quickie mart, I arrived 5 minutes past their opening time which further proved to me that I was starting the day off right. A quick wash up, 3 bottles of gatorade on the small paved climb out of Elkford. I knew about 2/3′s of the day’s riding would be on pavement, flat, and that I could probably make it back stateside in the same day. I had a well of motivation to ride that day as it was still early in the race and it was too soon for any major fatigue. I pedaled the 30 miles to Sparwood in about three hours including a short break. I rolled into town, hit up the A&W for 3 orders of hash-browns. I rolled over to the gas station for a hot cup of coffee and got back on the road. You know there’s nothing like cruising along down a hill at about 15 mph with no hands, sipping on some fresh coffee after knocking out 30 miles in the before 8 AM. A total pro moment, felt good. I may not have finished the race, but I had a lot of moments where I knew what I was doing and felt damn good, and this morning was one of them. I started at the back of the race and knew I had climbed my way into the middle of the pack with relative ease.

I rolled along the 15 miles or so to Fernie, chatting with the occasional racer passing by. Everyone seemed to either be in jerky race face mode, or was SUPER FREAKING COOL. I really hope I fell into the latter category. Upon arriving in Fernie I was greeted by another A&W, “I’ll be modest and just get a double serving of hash-browns this time.” Fried starchy fast food goodness/crappiness. Cheap vegan nutrition is tough to find of the divide, fried potatoes go a long way. I hit up the local grocery store for some gatorade, it was called Overwaitea foods. Say it, “over-weight-eee-a”. Not exactly what I would choose to call a grocery store but hey, we’ll just let this one slide under it being Canada and all, eh? And of course they didn’t sell large bottles of gatorade, just little dinky 20 ounces for $3.29 each. GEEZ CANADA, WE AMERICANS LIKE OUR STUFFS OVERSIZE!!!!! 10 dollars for a third gallon of gatorade from a grocery store??!?!? I expect this from nowhere fishing shacks that nobody visits but talk about robbery. I deliberately went to the grocery store thinking I could get stocked on fluids for 4 dollars and came away sorely disappointed. WHY DOESN’T MY MONEY WORK SO GOOD IN CANADA? Hah hah, I had fun being a dumb American in Canada, it was my first time out of the country and I enjoyed feeling like a boisterous, overconsuming, ass! It’s what we Americans do best! Okay, all kidding aside, Canada is rad, even with their “commie healthcare”.

So leaving Fernie I decided to shoot a rather bland pavement video, I was rather stoked at the time though so the enthusiasm at least carries over.

It had been a mostly tail wind sort of day but the storms were chasing me. I got a solid drenching downpour for about 30 minutes and then it lightened up over the next hour. It’s tough to get upset about the weather so early in the game, and living in Oregon it’s easy to suck it up and say “It’s just rain.” I yoyoed with a bunch of riders as we made our way stateside. No one seemed too sociable, the rain put a damper on an otherwise chill pavement cruise and all the americans just wanted to get stateside, home essentially. Just any little piece of comfort zone helps out there. I shot a rather exasperated and un-enthused video just before turning on the highway to roll to the border.

And the tail wind did indeed push me down the road pretty quickly. Soon I saw the port of entry and felt a major relief. This was where I started my race last year and from here on out I knew I would mostly be on roads I’d already been down once before, score one for the comfort zone. I rolled up to the border real chill like, because that’s how I roll… The border guard was straight cranky.

Border guard: “Passport and snarky mumble….”
Me: “Here you go and huh?”
Border guard: “Pass port and place of residence!”
Me: “Oh uh, Portland, OR”
Border guard: “Okay here, GO ON!”

I figured he was just having a bad day, but his attitude was poopy. I gave it little thought and headed to the First and Last Chance Bar to hit the payphone up and call the parents for an update. I had made it up to about 35th place riding through unfamiliar territory. My parents were impressed and excited, we talked about the weather and various divide news. I recall eating four sticks of vegan jerky while talking, first time I’d had a real protein craving so far and boo ya, there’s my protein! I kept things reasonably brief as I saw another batch of rain was coming in from the north and my dad said rain was indeed on the radar. Time to drop more people I slyly thought. I got on the rode with the distinct feeling I was going to beat the storm despite another rider at the bar saying rain was inevitable. “Buddy I watch it rain all day in Oregon, I will tell you when rain is inevitable!” I rode, I beat the rain and I got a chill Montana valley rainbow on video, win!

The rainbow and being stateside pretty much solidified it as a good day on the divide. I can’t remember much from it so that means it was a good day. It’s the days I remember all too well which are the bad ones for me. I made it to the subway around 7:30, I noticed some riders were already getting a hotel for the night. I smugly patted myself on the back knowing full well I was going to eat and keep on riding until I found a nice place to bivy under the stars. There were plenty of racers coming in and out of the subway/quickie mart, stocking up and doing the maintenance thing. I was in a great mood and looking to be sociable and of course, most were unwilling to chat for long. One dude was being cool though, he seemed kind of frantic but was really chatty. Not too frantic but just that sort of “okay I just rolled into town I gotta get all my ducks in a row and move” type of frantic. I felt it last year on the divide and worked my hardest to suppress the feeling this year. Cool as a cucumber was my general approach to normal aspects of the divide this year, I didn’t want to be “gas station freak out dude” because it happens. People can lose their marbles after being in the middle of nowhere and then finding some sort of semblance of civilization. It’s like a wild ape that’s been chased by a pack of dinosaurs for days wanders into a shell with a credit card and the brain doesn’t know what to do. Anyway, enough ranting about divide gas station drama. I started chatting with Dylan and he seemed reasonably focused, we shot the bull and ate until we decided to team up for the night and find a nice camp spot before dusk. We both got too caffeinated and didn’t ride too far before calling it a night. I was a little disappointed we didn’t go further before calling it a day but then I realized an early day can easily be remedied by an early start, so no big deal. We found a fairly chill spot next to a lake, the mosquitoes weren’t too bad and the view was decent. Dylan and I were over-caffeinated and chatted until too late, but it was great to finally hang with someone and share the experience. I asked Dylan if the border guard was snarky, “Yeah” he replied. Turns out all the Euro’s had been running the border without stopping and showing their passports. I don’t know how anybody could think that they could run an American border in this day and age. They are lucky they didn’t get shot! I really hoped the didn’t attempt to do the same upon reaching Mexico, then they really would get shot trying to come back. Not to joke around about people getting shot here, but jeez, just stop at the border crossing, it’s not hard. Would you run the border crossing between Gaza and Israel? No! So why would you try and run a US border? I don’t know. We knocked out around 11 and slept through a rather calm night. Day two was cached!

After scarfing down some tofu scramble it was time to say goodbye and hit the trail. But wait, a spectator had come to watch the proper scheduled start at 9:00 AM. Well turns out it was Tony Huston who had flown all the way from Houston, TX and had not been informed of the proper start time. Mostly absurd, kind of hilarious, and a bit of a bummer, but hey that’s divide racing if you ask me so… Tony snapped a pic of me still sporting the OGC gear.

Credit: Tony Huston

Tony was clearly following self imposed fan rules and made his conversation brief with me, knowing full well that a divide racer really doesn’t have time to chat no matter how much they would like to. It was a bummer because I was already ready to crack a beer and start shooting the shit, but that’s life on the divide, gotta MOVE!

As I’m getting ready one of the riders from the pack comes along, Paul from the UK/Germany, he had forgotten his “mobile” at the YWCA and had elected to go back and get it before riding across the country, smart move Paul! A rather cool guy named Bob from Virginia also elected to start late, I had the opportunity to lend him my floor pump before we darted off into the woods. Bob was a cool dude let me tell you.

So Peri snapped some pics. This one says, almost ready.

This one says rather mutedly, “Yup, here we go.”

And then one last pic with Peri to bring with me.

I made my way onto a singletrack trail and waved at Peri until I could see her no more. It was rough but I didn’t tear up, so that at least meant I was off to a good start. So out of 68 racers I was second to last on the trail as Paul still hadn’t made his way back with his “mobile”. It was a good feeling know that I was doing the chasing. I saw a ginormous elk about 8 feet tall withiin the first hour or so, pretty crazy. After a couple hours Paul had caught back up to me, he shared some stories about his custom packs and how he’s working on some sort of business involving them (ortlieb maybe?), I was starting to hit the first lowpoint of the day and didn’t really care too much at the time. We rode up the Smith Dorrian Spray road until running back into Tony again, we yelled/waved at eachother but I was too lost in race mode to even stop to yack, my brain was hell bent on catching up with the pack after starting late and I just recently had caught a couple racers so I was “ON”. I pushed for a good 50 miles and went through a crappy mud section before finally reaching a nice spot for a video.

Some vid of a river and a mountain and me ranting.

I pedaled along for a bit and then shot another rant/video.

The snow section turned out to be a non issue, it was muddy and some parts were deep slushy snow but it was your typical divide grab bag of course conditions. I like it when it’s diverse like that. After that was a 40 mile cruise to Elkford. I saw four black bears in the span of a couple hours, they seemed like the were scared and ran off. Black bears seem like no big deal, glad I haven’t run into any grizzlies. The roads to Elkford were rolling and mostly uninteresting in comparison to what I had just seen in Alberta. I was relieved to be through the first of the dreaded snow sections and cruised into town around 11PM. I was unaware of my exact placing until I talked to my parents at Roosville the next day. I judged at least 15 bikes at the Elkford campground so I knew I at least caught the back of the pack. This put me at about 46th place for the day, not bad since I started one spot of last! I bivvied quickly and plotting my morning attack, “How early can I get up, how quick can I get moving, and how many people can I drop?” It felt good to be racing on the divide as opposed to my solo effort last year. It was cool to be able to measure yourself against other nutjobs who ride bikes in the middle of nowhere for no pay and little recognition. I feel asleep pretty much instantly despite the fact that there was a major podunk town drinkathon going on at the bar/hotel across the street. They were loud and drunk, but I was exhausted, score one for me!

So here is the Surly all rebooted for 2011, the seatbag was new this year versus a pannier and trunk bag last year.

Here I am demoing possibilities for my USB solar panel.

The cockpit with handlebar mounted video camera.

Cruising the rented Impala somewhere through Idaho, en route to Banff.

Well that’s pretty.

Not bad for car shots.

And the mountains KEEP going.

Nearing sunset.

We arrived in Banff around 11:00 PM Mountain Time. This meant about a 4 hour car bivy before the race. Not exactly an ideal way to start a bike race across the country. But hey, 4 hours of sleep is better than none.