Tour Divide 2009

[Kevin Montgomery]

Is there a way to get my hands on a cue sheet of the new re-route??? Would love to try it out this summer when up there;) Thanks, Rich

Rich, we made the cue sheets available to anyone who stops in at The Ski Stop in Banff.

[Kevin Montgomery]

OTOH, I checked the routing in the Flathead re-route on Tourdivide website (http://tourdivide.org/dividenews/td_course_change_09) and it seems that one there is one discrepancy. (It's the red segment between aqua and yellow ones, following the Wigwam river.)

Just after sharp left turn onto Wigwam FSR (from Cabin Pass FSR), after about 200-300 yards from the crossing, there is a bridge (the longer one), and the official ("planned") re-route makes a left turn before it and follows through the woods on the left side (Eastern) of the river. All the racers though, based on SPOT trackers, crossed this bridge and followed Wigwam FSR on the right side (Western) of the valley.

I don't know anything about this.  Last time I spoke with Matt he didn't mention having to change the reroute.  Again, the cues at the Ski Stop should tell all.  They will hopefully be posted to td.org within a month.

[richNYC]

Cool, thanks Kevin, I'll stop by the Ski Stop next month and pick it up. 

Rich, we made the cue sheets available to anyone who stops in at The Ski Stop in Banff.

[ScottM]

Scott - awesome work on the leaderboard, split chart and playback!  

Thx.  Don't forget Kevin and Joe Polk of MTBCast for their roles in the TD coverage as well.

You might be doing too good a job on these things as it makes TD more fun to watch than a NORBA ever was.  You might be figuring out how to bring ultra endurance MTB to the masses for entertainment, and we know that will change everything...

Yeah, that's funny but definitely something to think about.  

[ScottM]

Glad you like the tracking system.

No news from Brunello and no new points.  Many racers have been through, so if he were in trouble there were plenty of people to help.  He may just have forgotten to turn his SPOT on, or something innocuous like that.

It seems Brunello is back at it and sending SPOT points.  He should be in to Whitefish right now.  Nice job recovering from some serious 'bonus miles'!!

[MrsPivvay]

It seems Brunello is back at it and sending SPOT points.  He should be in to Whitefish right now.  Nice job recovering from some serious 'bonus miles'!!

Wow, way to persevere Brunello!!

Why does the Plesko/Refsnider/Meiser/Petervary track seem to be heading UP Richmond Peak?  Are they supposed to go up it or skirt around it like the track shows?  Just curious...

[ScottM]

Why does the Plesko/Refsnider/Meiser/Petervary track seem to be heading UP Richmond Peak?  Are they supposed to go up it or skirt around it like the track shows?  Just curious...

They're on course.  Just zoom in a little in the 'terrain' mode and you can see the road they are on.  The red line is a little too simplified (for bandwidth/speed) to get small details like that area.

That's a cool section of the route, BTW.  It actually feels like singletrack, even though it used to be a road at one point in time.

Here's Paula riding it from our trip:

[700see.]

...some serious 'bonus miles'!!

Check out Bruce Giroux's track...I think he might get the bonus mileage trophy so far!

I'm really impressed with Deanna Adams riding as well as she is on a 73" fixed gear so far - she's doing great! I'm sure she's having to do plenty of walking, but in retrospect that might not be such a bad thing since the main issues one can have with riding this way (on skinnies to boot) are with your contact points. Dieseling or walking definitely saves some pressure on the posterior, not to mention being able to ride on the flats and slight downhills more comfortably. I don't think I would want to do that...but Rudi and I both suffered so much riding the benign road grade down into Helena on our low gears.

Such a great race this year. Thanks to Scott, Kevin, Joe, et al for all their efforts. Looking forward to the GDR getting going this week too.

[Kevin Montgomery]

Yeah, looks like Bruce might be out of the race because he hasn't backtracked to complete the route :-/

[GBUTLER]

Here is part of what everybody has been waiting for - the cues for the portion of the Flathead Valley reroute that I scouted.  It is pretty detailed up until Cabin Forest Service Road, but after that, they are not as detailed since I did not get to travel that section.  REPEAT, this is not the entire cue sheet, and after the turn off to Cabin I am going to try and give some details by memory.  Here goes....

Below is the write-up of my cue sheet - all mileage is from Sparwood

- In Sparwood, turn left and head East on Hwy 3 for 6.7 miles

-  After 6.7 miles on Hwy 3, turn right onto Corbin Rd (there is a prominent sign for Teck Mining Coal Mtn)

-  Head down Corbin Road (nice paved road) for 14.3 miles

-  At mile 21.0 from Sparwood, turn right onto Flathead FSR (This turn is right before the gated entrance to the mines)

- At 28.2 miles from Sparwood, cross a small bridge

- At 29.1 miles from Sparwood, cross a small bridge

- At 32.1 miles, you pass McLatchie FSR road on the right (Do not turn, stay straight on Flathead FSR)

- At 33.9 miles, an unnamed SFR road enters Flathead FSR from the left

- At 34.1 miles cross a small bridge

- At 38.5 miles cross a small bridge

- At 40.0 miles from Sparwood, pass Packhorse Creek Outfitters on the left

- At 41.1 miles, cross a small bridge

- At 43.7 miles from Sparwood, pass Lower Harvey Creek FSR (Lodgepole) on the right

- At 43.8 miles, cross a small bridge

- At 43.9 miles, pass Harvey FSR on the right

- At 45.8 miles, cross a small bridge

- At 52.0 miles, pass a small cabin on the right

- AT 53.7 miles, TURN RIGHT ON BORDER FSR

- At 54.1 miles, pass group of cabins named Butts Patrol Station

- At 55.6 miles, turn right onto Cabin FSR (One should see a yellow 77 kilometer sign on Flathead FSR just before this turnoff, and then after making the turnoff onto Cabin, one next sees an 88 yellow kilometer sign)

THE FOLLOWING CUES WILL BE ARRIVED AT IF A RIDER MISSES THE CABIN FSR TURNOFF

- At 56.9 miles, cross a small bridge

- At 61.1 miles, Couldrey Creek FSR road enters from the right

Once on Cabin FSR, this leads for approx. 27 miles to Wigwam FSR and the left turn that people are referring to.  Also, one of the previous posts was correct in that the official route had the racers stay on the West side of the river, ie taking the West Wigwam Road.  I believe (once again going by memory now) that riders stay on Wigwam for about 12.5 miles, until just before a bridge crossing the Wigwam River tey make a right turn onto the one mile single track section.  This single track section ends at the end of Phillips Creek FSR and one then just rides that FSR over Gallatin Pass and down a nice downhill section to Highway 93. 

If anybody is going up there, I would highly recommend finding a copy of "Backroads of British Columbia" containing this section of BC.  It is a publication that is similar to our Delorme Atlases here in the states that have topo maps.  The racers had a copy of the applicable map on the front of their cue sheets.

[ScottM]

Thanks for the cues.

Trevor Browne got his SPOT working, so now there's no one stuck in Banff anymore.  Yay.

[ScottM]

Yeah, looks like Bruce might be out of the race because he hasn't backtracked to complete the route :-/

Yep, it definitely looks that way.  Too bad, I wonder what happened.

[richNYC]

Here is part of what everybody has been waiting for - the cues for the portion of the Flathead Valley reroute that I scouted.  It is pretty detailed up until Cabin Forest Service Road, but after that, they are not as detailed since I did not get to travel that section.  REPEAT, this is not the entire cue sheet, and after the turn off to Cabin I am going to try and give some details by memory.  Here goes....

GBUTLER,

Thanks so much. This is what I needed;) THANKS!!!

[GBUTLER]

RichNYC,

Glad I could help out with the cues.  Here is a little more beta, the first 14 miles on the road down to Corbin are paved and flat - can easily be done in under an hour.  Then the Flathead FSR starts and it is BAD right away!  The first 13 miles took me exactly one hour in my land rover, and after that, the road starts to get a lot better.  Nevertheless, the entire section is still rideable in one long day.  My wife made it to the start of the singletrack about 20 miles from the end, but she had started in Elkford in the morning, about 30 miles up the road! 

[richNYC]

RichNYC,

Glad I could help out with the cues.  Here is a little more beta, the first 14 miles on the road down to Corbin are paved and flat - can easily be done in under an hour.  Then the Flathead FSR starts and it is BAD right away!  The first 13 miles took me exactly one hour in my land rover, and after that, the road starts to get a lot better.  Nevertheless, the entire section is still rideable in one long day.  My wife made it to the start of the singletrack about 20 miles from the end, but she had started in Elkford in the morning, about 30 miles up the road! 

Thanks, really helpful;)

BTW, hope your wife has a great ride. I checked out her website and why she is doing the Tour Divide. Amazing cause, small donation forthcoming...

[Marshal]

OK, I admit I am a blue dot junkie, 1st thing I do when I get back to my hotel is check the leader board.  

So as of my last looky see seems we gots 1 with the big lead (but its way early in the game) 3 in a strong chase group and looks like a second chase group shaping up.............

Now I got to go check and see have DN is doing on his S-N ITT

[ScottM]

Here's a vid from the first 4 days of the race, top 10 riders only.  The leader and two chase groups form up pretty clearly.

[MrsPivvay]

Since I really have nothing better to do... any ideas why Matt seemed to take Continental Dr (by i-90) instead of Harrison Ave (Hwy 2?) after Butte?  

[ScottM]

Ah, that looks like an error in the route file (red line).  I believe what Matt followed is the correct GDMBR route.

[MrsPivvay]

Oh ok, thanks for clarifying!  I assume Matt knows where he's going after all these years