2013 Tour Divide Race Report: A journey to the start

     Well, it's been over a week since I finished up the Tour Divide and I have re-gained enough feeling in my hands to do some single finger typing, which means it's story time! I am going to do my best to translate the intense physical pain and emotions of Divide racing to text......we will see how well I do with this task. Bear with me and hold on tight.
   
     Any good Divide story has to begin with the first major accomplishment, which is making it to the start line! Let me just say that this is no small task. To succeed at this goal, one must have an incredibly supportive family and, of course, a job that either allows a month off from worldly duties or is gracious enough to fire said racer days before departure. In my case, supportive employers would be my lot, but not so for other racers that I would come to know during this ordeal. As for a supportive family, I am the luckiest man in the world! My wife and live in sister-in-law not only let me go for a month to race, they listened to me incessantly speak of the Divide for over a year, and of course, they warmly welcomed my fully loaded mountain bike to reside in the living room during that time. Then, of course, there is the logistical nightmare of physically getting oneself to the seemingly mythical start line in the fairytale land of Banff. Well, let's just say there are as many ways to arrive at the start as there are racers, but my chosen experience was a one-way rental car, piloted by none other than myself, accompanied by my highly supportive father and navigated through some rather beautiful country along the way. The story within the story: the one way rental car rate from San Francisco to Banff was $130!

     To say Banff is a beautiful and majestic place would be a gross understatement. For someone who is terrified of natural predators, and who is using the Tour Divide as a fiery furnace to burn out that fear (someone such as myself), a better description of Banff might be one of foreboding opaque rivers bordered by jagged mountains and dense forest filled with all manners of predatorial beast. Needless to say, as I sat in Banff awaiting my start, my nerves seemed to string tighter and tighter with every passing minute. Luckily, I had my father and my dearest friend to help keep my demons at bay. While in Banff, a ride was going to be necessary to keep the cycling system from shutting down and that ride was going to be a solo exploration of the first seven miles of the Spray trail. Not only was this ride my first in Canada, it was my first in grizzly country, and that had me a bit on edge. Starting my ride in downtown Banff was only threatening from a  traffic standpoint, as it is a hub for Rocky Mountain tourism. I soon found myself at the start of the Spray trail, which had a very real air of intensity to it, not due to predators, but to the realization that this defined threshold was the very place my 2,800 mile odyssey full of the unknown would start in only a matter of two days. The ride that followed was beautiful. It rolled through majestic terrain, following a true mountain river. It put me past huge bull elk and it calmed me down. It calmed me down a lot. I suddenly realized that although I was afraid, I could overcome my fear and function as a cyclist. I knew that it would get easier to conquer that fear along the way, I just had no idea how many opportunities I was about to get to practice that laying down of fear.

    The night before the start of the Tour Divide seems a bit hazy in my recollection. I sat quietly and introspectively around a campfire at the Tunnel Mountain campground, relishing in the company of my dearest friend, whose sole purpose at that moment was to prepare me, a warrior, for the epic battle that was about to ensue. I don't think either one of us knew just how important that preparation was to the completion of the upcoming task, but we were fully aware that I was about to embark upon a journey of epic proportions both physically and spiritually. I found myself contemplating the long journey to arrive at this very terminus, remembering when the dream took root and all that followed from that moment: the fears confronted, the countless hours of long, dark and lonely training rides, the ridicule from the naysayers, and all manners of financial sacrifice that surely comes to all that follow the path of a Divide racer. The time had come. No more training, no more doubting, no more waiting. Just a deep breath, a night of sleep and an 8 am start the following day.