Tour Divide Day 2

Oh man, I just realized I deleted all my saved daily tracks from my GPS at some point. Major bummer, I was stoked to have all that data saved. I guess my daily reported mileage will have to be my best guess from this point on!

Tour Divide Day 2-Sparwood to just before Whitefish, 110 miles (I think!)

This day started off well. The alarm went off at 4:45 and I was up and moving right away. Thank the good Lord that there was a gas station open at 5 as I was riding out of town, other wise I would have gone hungry on the way to Fernie (a town that wouldn't normally be on the route but due to the snow reroutes it was). Thanks to my early start I was actually near 7th place for most of the morning. Thanks to my slow pace I would fall way below that before night fall.

The paved alternate to Fernie was pretty stellar and it was my first taste of solitude in the race, a concept that I would later become VERY familiar with. I have to admit the loneliness was nice at first. It was like trying to eat a five gallon bucket of that crapy ice cream you buy for your kid's fifth birthday party. It tastes pretty good at first but then you get full and you are still two weeks away from the end of the bucket and you just want somebody to share the misery of finding the glorious clear plastic bottom of the ice cream container but there isn't anybody for hundreds of miles away and it's freezing one day and one hundred and fifteen degrees the next day....

That's what two and a half weeks of loneliness is like on The Tour.

Anyways, the ice cream was still tasting good at this point so I hammered away in the aerobars. This is where I would learn another lesson. If you are counting on a place for food, sleep far enough away so that when you start out in the morning you will have enough ride time so the stores are open when you get there. You guessed it, the stores were all closed in Fernie! Well, that's not totally true... I found a gas station but gas station food sucks when there is a restaurant that will open in fifteen minutes RIGHT NEXT DOOR.

Oh well, cheetos and OJ for breakfast.

I continued on the road out of Fernie and as I hit the dirt I was caught by Dave Goldberg of infamy from Marshal Bird's blog (awesome blog by the way). We rode together for a bit and we were quickly caught by a very strong rider, Ben Oney. The three of us rode together, took a few wrong turns together, and then the group broke up as Dave took off on a long climb and Ben and I stopped for a potty break/food resupply. I continued on as Ben sat to finish his snack. When you are a strong rider, you can afford to take breaks. When you are weak like me it's all about maximizing crank time!

I took this video en route to the border. Apparently I was pretty excited about how awesome my gear was working out. Also, I was adamant that I only stopped at the hotel because I was gonna stop at that time anyways. (Which is kinda true but still.... I should have camped.)

I rode towards the border and off and on with Dave for a while. We both stopped at the same store for food in Eureka. Again he stopped for a break and I kept riding. (He caught me later on a long climb/snow-hike-extravaganza). I discovered a renewed love of corn dogs on this stop. Get three to go, pull out the wood sticks, toss the sticks in the trash, and voila a perfect calorie and fat dense pellet shaped food.

The Fernie alternate was pretty easy with only a one mentionable section, the pass up and over to Whitefish. Even just the lower part that we did was covered in many feet of snow for about ten to twelve miles. I was still far up in the pack when I hit the snow. However, the lack of strength in my left leg (about 60% of my right leg) means that I'm a pretty weak hiker, especially in snow that is mid calf deep. For a time frame reference, I hit the snow about four pm and I hit the first real rideable trail about midnight. (That's like ummmmmm... 1-1.5 mph!)

Another 45 minutes of riding brought me down to the lake prior to town. This section was pretty freaking cold. As I started riding again I realized that I had slush completely filling my shoes not to mention the fact that I was completely covered in sweat. This made for a teeth chatter inducing descent into the humid night air.

According to Dave it was about 20 more miles to town so a group of us stopped for the night. I think it was Ben, Dave, myself, and some other dude (If you are reading this email me! I know we ate breakfast on day 1 together but I can't remember your name for the life of me.)

I set my alarm for 4:45 again, snuggled up in my bivy, downed some calories, and then beautiful sweet sleep.