Divide Days 1, 2 & 3

First, props to Princeton Tec for finding and posting the start of the race. Can you spot Justin’s Euro ensemble?



I’ll admit it. I’m addicted to the leaderboard. I didn’t even get out of bed this morning before I checked it. And when I clicked on Justin’s link, my heart sank. According to his SPOT, Justin hadn’t started riding yet and his individual page said he’d only ridden 184 miles in two days—not good. The little green tent on his map told me Justin had spent his second night in Roosville, MT. It was 8:00 a.m. there. Why wasn’t he pedaling yet? I thought incredulously. Wake up! I willed the sleeping dot on my laptop screen.

Five minutes later the cell phone rang and I heard Justin’s voice for the first time since he started the race. This is what I found out from the call:

He was awake(!) and currently in Eureka, MT, not Roosville. He started riding at 6:00 a.m., but hadn’t turned on his “tracker” yet. He rode 110 miles the first day, spent the night in Elkford, and rode 150 miles the second day. (The leaderboard isn’t calculating his total mileage correctly. A relief since it was reporting pretty slow progress!) A bad storm hit the first night, so Justin, Alan Goldsmith and others split a hotel room and separated from Jay and Tracey Petervary, the couple racing tandem, who pushed through the stormy night. The second day, yesterday, was “really hard,” he said. 150 miles of big climbs and hiking the bike over avalanche debris.

Justin is in good company at the moment, able to keep a similar pace with a few other riders. When he called, he was eating French toast with Steve Wilkinson, a Tour Divide racer who starred in this exuberant throwback from the 2007 race.



Right now it’s the end of the third day, and it looks like Justin is nearing Columbia Falls. Current leader Matthew Lee reported from Columbia Falls that there is a mile of snow-pack over Red Meadow Pass. Here’s hoping these guys don’t waver too much in the white stuff!