Durango was the host for the 2012 USA Pro challenge bicycle race from Durango to Denver in seven individual stages. The town has been preparing for the race over the last six months and especially the last week. Every volunteer possible was setting up for the race.

The town was expecting 20,000 visitors but the realists were only expecting 10 to 12,000. I was a volunteer on two different days. The first date bagging parking meters and the second day I was a Course Marshall (Word Press sucks).  Some anxiety rose in the days leading up to the race as there just weren’t the crowds checking into motels and crowding the the merchants.  However on race day all was right, the crowds swarmed the starting line 5 to 10 people deep.According to the race coordinator, “the best overall start to any stage race in the US that he’s ever seen”.  The enthusiasm has lasted thru the week as many Durango folks (including some that never ever watched a bicycle race before) are glued to their computers and mobile devices watching the remaining stages of the USA Pro Challenge. http://radioshacktourtracker.usaprocyclingchallenge.com is the URL to watch for yourselves.  And if you just want to see a uTube video of the start, check out this URL http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJ-kQ5g3bLM

Last pass was Carnero at 10,166′

Knowing that I wasn’t going to go past Del Norte made the last day almost anti-climactic except for the climb to Carnero Pass.  Just south of Del Norte is one of the tougher climbs up Indiana Pass to 11,910′, but I’ll have to do that one another trip. The entire Great Divide route is 2,900 miles from Banff, Canada to Antelope Wells, Mexico.  I’d done much of the Colorado segment, somewhere close to 500 miles in 5 days and was happy to know I can tackle this kind of adventure.

Cannondale Super V tricked out for bike packing. Full camping, clothing and food on board. Water and electronics in a small backpack

My generously-donated 90’s Cannondale Super-V, is in need of some serious help.  The rear shock is almost spent, the bottom bracket needs an overhaul, and the brakes won’t adjust far enough from the rims that they don’t occasionally drag.  It has served me well for a number of years on many bike-packing and single track adventures, but now I need to investigate alternative saddles and figure out what the loud creaking is when climbing under torque.  A new(er) mountain bike could be in my future.

Here’s the Spot track if you didn’t get to follow along.  The URL for my Spot device I carry on all my solo hikes and rides is http://share.findmespot.com/shared/faces/viewspots.jsp?glId=06sdbN7n5jDTx6JLO0a2IU4QYlG5sK3Hn  

I’d heard that Al in Indy was really fascinated watching my Spot track on the web, probably much the same way we enjoy watching his track across the ocean in Dragonfly.  So as I climbed the next 3 passes I kept wondering if Al was fixated on his computer hitting Refresh to see how I was doing.  I hadn’t published the site beforehand because I wasn’t so sure I would complete the journey, but Stanna let the word out as people checked in and learned I was quixotically challenging myself.

With a couch to sleep on and a warm shower it was easy to manage an early start, hoping but not planning on summiting two of the last three passes on my limited Great Divide route.  I knew I’d have to camp, it was just a matter of how far and when.  The butt butter got me much farther than I’d imagined and the only thing stopping me from the second pass was the terrific blasts of thunder and lightning not to mention dark black skies threatening to stop me just about at the summit.  So I bailed out about 3 miles from the top of Cochetopa Pass and hunkered down in some tall pines.  As it ended up, not a drop of rain came but the storm front winds sure blew hard.

Over the pass, I learned three young ladies were just ahead when I stopped to ask about water from a camper.  They weren’t that easy to catch on the downhill and it took several hours to catch them just starting uphill.  These gals each had a mountain bike with a Bob trailer carrying “I don’t know, probably 35 pounds” each.  This was the third year in a row they tackled a one-week segment of the Great Divide Trail and were happy to manage 35 to 50 miles a day.  They reported never having to “hike-a-bike” any of the route so far which is impressive considering they were pulling trailers.

Here’s a shot of my alpine bike packing camp just before Chochetopa Pass halfway between Salida and Del Norte.  Click on any of the photos to enlarge.

By the time I reached Salida in the mid-afternoon of the third day, my butt was talking to me, and I’d already decided that I’d look up a close friend of the Georges (my sister’s family) who lived in town and often put up travelers who pass thru.  It was a great decision as I not only got a good rest, excellent home-cooked Salmon Packet meal, but realized I could purchase some “butt butter” in the cycle shop two doors down from her apartment.

I’d, once again, met two cyclists just as I entered the crux intersection to Salida.  These two 21-year-olds from California were doing the entire Great Divide route as a summer training exercise for their college cycling season.  They asked, after learning I was from Durango, if I knew any of the Fort Lewis College racers they competed against.  (FLC has a nationally known, highly competitive team).  They also encouraged me to head out with them, but fortunately I needed re-suppling and a good night’s rest.  They evidently are only averaging 70 miles a day, so I figured I might catch them, but never did.

I was continually surprised to learn, upon asking, that no one seemed to know how much weight they were carrying.  As you can see from the photo they had quite a load as well.  My base weight was 12.5 pounds – “Skin-out” total, without food and water, was 16.5 pounds.  Add in 15 pounds of consumables, of which 6.5 pounds is water and I had just over 30 pounds on the bike when fully loaded.  Fortunately my weight would go down by 2 pounds for each liter of water I drank.

One provisioning trick I learned purely by chance was to buy a foot-long Subway sandwich in the towns I passed thru and use half for dinner and the other half for my breakfast (breakfast being after about an hour early morning cycle).  The energy pick-up I got shortly after half a Buffalo Chicken special was remarkable.  And half a Subway was little more than the cost of a granola bar in the convenience stores.

One morning I realized I wasn’t cycling alone

In Durango we forget about long shadows in early mornings and late evenings.  This morning I wanted to photograph my shadow with my iPhone (not an easy task just getting the Ap turned on, let alone framing a photo).  Fortunately one is worth showing here.

By day three I was feeling almost cocky, having knocked off almost 200 miles in two days and as I came into the waypoint town of Hartsel, Colorado I saw another cyclist coming the opposite direction toward that same intersection.  We met up and I asked if he was perhaps the Italian racer I’d noticed on the Great Divide website who was since coming north.  He said, “No, I’m Austrian and my wife (pointing down the road south) is from Switzerland”.  He was more fully loaded with panniers than any tourer’s we’ve seen, rigged with both Ortlieb front and rear panniers, a large Ortlieb duffle on the rear rack as well as a handlebar bag and a frame full of water bottles.  His wife had the same set-up when she arrived.

Of course I asked where and when they started, and immediately felt like my previous two days were meaningless in comparison to their cycle from Patagonia heading for northern Canada.  It was also interesting to note that they were sporting German 14 speed internal hubs with a single front chain wheel.

First Camp on private land at dusk after about 108 miles and 2 passes from Kremmling

Second day was the longest at somewhere over 108 miles.  (My odometer bellied up in the rain the first day so I don’t have an accurate measure other than using the maps.)  It’s easier to ride long days when you’re solo, have great distances to cover, prefer to find some camp with trees, and the late afternoon thunderstorms are brewing.  Rather than set up a camp and sit out a passing storm I often opted to ride though until about 7 PM hopefully skirting the storm and reducing my “tent-time”.

By this time I was surprised to learn that the Great Divide route was primarily on back county roads, Forest Service and old logging roads.  I’d envisioned single and double track segments which really aren’t included, unless to regard the narrow line thru miles of washboard roads as single track.  As many forums and articles said you don’t need a FSR mountain bike for this route.  My “craigslist” aluminum road bike (which I treated as a rental car in Thailand) would have navigated all the roads dispatched by the Great Divide trail maps.  This was by no means a disappointment, just a frank realization that almost anyone can traverse this course, given motivation, time, water and food.

South Park

For example crossing South Park on a back road is a long, long open plain.   Fortunately I was able to traverse it early in the morning before the strong winds fetch up.  I’d heard from the Warmshowers travelers that this section in the wind was a 6 MPH grind.