The 2010 Tour Divide started last Friday.

49 self-supported amateur racers are on course, headed down the spine of the country, from Canada to Mexico.

2745 miles!

Check out the live SPOT tracking at: https://tourdivide.org/leaderboard

So far 20 riders have passed the second checkpoint at 367 mountainous miles in about 2 days. 180 miles a day! The first two were clustered an hour apart at 1 day 21 hours. Several others hit the checkpoint a few hours later. In a race this big, that's close action.

The first SS rider -- and first woman! -- crossed the 2nd checkpoint at 2 days 7 hours.

Get ready for a few weeks of exciting armchair action!

Racers call in podcasts when they find time and a cell signal or payphone. Some also post pics and reports to blogs. In a race this long there's a lot of adventure, emotion, place-changes, races-within-races, stories-within-stories, encounters with big critters, big weather and interesting people. Yeah!

The current leader (and organizer), Matthew Lee, hopes to break his old record and average 160 miles a day for 17 days. ...Carrying all his gear, taking care of himself.

No entry fee, no prizes, riders taking care of themselves (like adults), taking pics, posting to blogs along the way -- I'm into it!

FWIW, Kent Peterson is on a SS, a Redline Monocog Flight 29er. He crossed the 2nd checkpoint at 2 days, 3 hours, 14 minutes, but I don't know if he was the first SS to cross the border. Kent also biked to the starting line in Banff, AB from Issaquah, WA (~600 miles, I think).

Kent has a blog that "puts you there" with always insightful event reading. He's already posted that if he got time off for every photo he's taken he'd be in the lead by now, or something. He's bringing up the rear of the 4 singlespeeders, but the lore is that Kent comes on strong. Makes for good drama! The main SPOT Leaderboard is fun to use because you can deselect all riders then pick the ones you want to track and compare. --JP

That is absolutely cool - I followed this a couple of times a few years ago. I guess these guys all have GPS and no one is getting too lost anymore. And I did see there are indeed two sorts of "packs" with 4 or 5 riders each keeping at least some form of contact - like say "hi" at the checkpoint.....

It will be couple of more days before they are out of the danger zone. Couldn't a snow storm (night time) still blow in - at least until they get down to Colorado?

Thanks for the info. Three of us did the U.S. portion of the route back in 2004 on dual sport motorcycles. It's pretty incredible what these folks are doing on bicycles. It's going to be fun to follow along.

Jim

Can anyone say how to view the equipment the contestants are taking? I'm curious..

check out bikepacking.net

https://www.bikepacking.net/category/individual_setups/

this will give you an idea of what folks are taking.

here is dave b.'s setup from his blog:
https://type2fun.wordpress.com/2010/0...ide-gear-bags/
https://type2fun.wordpress.com/2010/0...tarp-bug-bivy/

Some of Kent Peterson's gear:
https://kentsbike.blogspot.com/2010/06/pack-details.html
https://kentsbike.blogspot.com/2010/0...t-systems.html

Race Leader Lee Mathews has not sent a GPS signal update for nearly eight hours. Interesting!
Latest GPS Second place rider Eril Lobeck is closing at 4MPH at moving currently at speeds up to 11mph

Thanks for all the info and links guys.
Go Mountain Turtle, Go!

Useful! Thanks!