Wow 5 years goes by fast! Can’t believe my last post was in August 2011. Lot of change in 5 years. New house, new job, sold the cabin, kid about to graduate from UofA and another about to start there. Time flies by so fast you occasionally have to sit down and look at your bucket list and set some goals. My big goal this year? Ride the Divide! 2,700+ miles self supported on the mountain bike riding from Banff, Canada to Antelope Wells, New Mexico.
2015 Tour Divide Route Map and Profile
The past few years haven’t been great in terms of cycling. Stress and other commitments have kept me away from ultra events. But the Divide is definitely on. Nothing quite like a big hairy assed goal to get your motivation up to get out and ride!
My training plan is to mix road cycling, mountain biking and bike packing between now and June. Road cycling helps you develop good cadence and helps you get comfortable for really long stretches in the saddle. I’m planning to do a full brevet series and have already completed the first 200k of the year (so my fitness level isn’t completely horrible). The 300k is Feb 6th, 400k in March and 600k in April.
Last year I bought a Niner Air 9 RDO full carbon (even the rims on my wheels), full rigid mountain bike. That bike is FAST. Love it (and thanks to Mike Cox at Curbside Cyclery for helping me with that). I’m planning to use Revelate Design bike packing bags. I’ll post a list of my gear later. I’ve been doing a lot of miles out at Usery park recently, but plan to expand to some gravel grinders as part of my training.
I’ve never been bike packing before, so this is going to be quite the experience. Leonard Zito is going to be my bike packing companion while training. He has a route defined to ride the Maricopa trail system (circles the Phoenix metro area through the mountain parks) that we will start with, then start spending some time up on the Mogollon Rim and around Flagstaff for weekend trips.
Stay tuned, I’ll start posting some updates as I prepare for this epic event. Take the time to live your bucket list folks, you only get one shot at your life, live it the way you want.
Heck Yeah Mike!! What an incredible adventure it will be! The little decisions you make everyday in prep for the big race will make all the difference. Looking forward to some good long bikepacking training rides!