Tour Divide Race: Day 16, The Squid and the Whale
Time to confuse you some more. This isn't confirmed, because so much has become veiled in mystery in the Great Divide Race, but it's apparent from scanning the forums that former mystery rider Pete Basinger rode his own Canadian prologue to the GDR, then started with the two other riders in Roosville, Montana, on the border, at high noon on June 19. It appears he's officially in the GDR now, but also gunning for the Banff-to-Mexico record in his own Individual Time Trial. Pete's split in Steamboat Springs yesterday showed him just four hours behind Matthew Lee's split a few days previous; by Silverthorne today (Sunday) he's narrowed the gap to one hour. The two racers are riding in entirely different weather systems and trail conditions and it's possible Matthew doesn't know that Pete is on the course. (And I'm not sure whether Pete took the Adventure Cycling Association's official GDMBR route through Canada, or Matthew Lee's "new" and much harder "wilderness" route that eliminates a lot of pavement and bothers a lot more grizzly bears. Many TD riders were grousing this year that nearly 20 miles were unaccounted for in the map cues handed out the night before the TD start. It'll be interesting to see if the ACA adopts the new, wilder route for future official maps.) Fine, that's the nature of an ITT. But if the speeding elites are out on the course anyway, wearing transmitters, think how much more exciting it would be to watch their SPOT dots play Rocky Boppers down the Divide. I'll argue that Divide racing is the most interesting racing in the world in large part because it's not like anything else, say, pro road racing or NASCAR. Pedaling from Canada to Mexico self-supported and on the honor system should be enough for Divide racing to retain most of its organic compounds; you're interfacing with the sublime as much as you're competing with other racers, whereas with other types of bike racing there is an attempt to engineer weather and other variables out of the event. All three forms of Divide racing, the GDR, Tour Divide and ITTs, are grass roots and serve a purpose, and grass roots is beautiful, but it's still racing and not touring; racing is a spectator sport, otherwise just go tour real fast and don't tell anyone. But part of what makes Divide racing unique may also threaten to make Divide racing, as it evolves, appear somewhat silly as asterisks blow across the route like a blizzard on Richmond Peak.
Chris Plesko is, admirably, doing everything in his power to dodge an asterisk as he charges at new single speed records. His wife Marni is doing a fine job of updating his insightful blog, Slip Angle with words and photos: slipangles.blogspot.com/ Tour Divide, the race Chris lined up for in Banff on June 12, allows cell phones. The GDR does not allow cell phones. Kent Peterson holds the border-to-border GDR single speed record, set in 2005, the record Chris is now ahead of as he rides through northern New Mexico. In order to not call a new record into question, Chris is not carrying a cell phone and has even eschewed using others' cell phones offered to him along the route. Rigid indeed. What's interesting, as Marni points out in the blog, is that as cell reception widens, the forlorn phone booth and payphones in general have largely become relics of the past and it's a handicap to leave the mobile at home--you can't call ahead from the saddle to hold a mechanic after hours, order a bike part or a pizza, or reserve a motel room. I recall one phone booth in particular, in Hachita, New Mexico, that still stands a few feet from the route, but the receiver was ripped off the cord in 1982.
If only everyone could get along and work together like Jay and Tracey "T-Race" Petervary on a tandem. T-Race reported in a recent call-in that Captain Jay has given up dairy, his beloved ice cream, to improve the air quality for his wife back in the engine room. That's love. Jay compared recent days to snow biking: 3 or 4 miles per hour and lots of hike-a-bike through mud. But both Petervarys are veterans of Alaska snow racing, wherein Blue Bunny isn't a performance-enhancing substance.
Matthew Lee and the chase group's SPOTs will show them off course; they aren't off course. Rather, they're on the Cuba-to-Grants paved alternate route because the dirt at the base of the San Mateo Mountains is actually bentonite clay and impassible in wet conditions. At least it makes for a slow walk. More confusion, as riders reported near-impassible conditions in Montana and Wyoming earlier in this year's race. For the same reasons I think NASCAR should run in the rain, maybe no alternates--at the danger of more asterisks--should be considered for future races.
NOTE TO MATTHEW LEE AND PETE BASINGER: Though the geological Continental Divide extends south of the Mexican border, an epilogue into Chihuahua is not recommended this year. --Jon Billman
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your math seems off to me. if pete started at high noon on the 19th and was through silverthorne today then he would be about a day ahead of matt's time from the border to silverthorne. i guess what you're talking about might be their times from banff to silverthorne but does anyone actually know what time/date pete started in banff? it seems unlikely that he took a day longer than matt to get from banff to eureka which is what he would have needed to do for them to be even in silverthorne (provided you're info. is correct that pete rolled through silverthorne today).
Posted by: dtyupe | June 29, 2009 at 02:06 AM
i believe pete began wed the 18th not thursday the 19th.
Posted by: john gardner | July 05, 2009 at 10:53 PM
ACA does plan to update the Great Divide Canada map and use the routing that Matthew Lee plotted through the Upper Flathead Valley in BC. It eliminates many miles of pavement and fits better with what the Great Divide Route was envisioned to be - an off-pavement cycling route.
Posted by: Carla Majernik | July 07, 2009 at 04:19 PM