Tour Divide 2010

[Pivvay]

Not sure about weather but my personal SPOT freaks out in steep terrain. You should see where the points are sometimes when I'm climbing in RMNP.

[MrWaves]

Well done Marshal! Looks like an early morning finish, to a great ride.

[DaveH]

Wow, Marshal Bird - congratulations on such a fantastic ride.  Your hard work and months of obsessing have paid off big.  It helps to be one tough bird eh?

IIRC you were shooting for 25 days.  One of the parts of this genre I enjoy most is seeing riders break through to new levels and performing beyond expectations.  Way to raise the bar for yourself. 

Your call ins have been really fun too - what was that about drugs in Montana???

[Pivvay]

Way to go Marshall!!! That was a fantastic ride

[JML]

Finally Erik L. & I are home.  here are the photos of Blaine and Eriks finish.  at the store in Hachita, 15 miles from finish, the actual finish and then one day later in the Silver city bikeshop with matt.

[JML]

A few more

[JML]

some grainy pictures of Erik Lobeck's bike taken on that fateful day outside of Lima. Erik's final thoughts/commentary still to come. He claims bike weighed "at least 90 pounds" and was forced to portage as his rear wheel would not turn. Note rear derailleur still intact, likely because bike was unridable.

[Marshal]

Wow, Marshal Bird - congratulations on such a fantastic ride.  Your hard work and months of obsessing have paid off big.  It helps to be one tough bird eh?

IIRC you were shooting for 25 days.  One of the parts of this genre I enjoy most is seeing riders break through to new levels and performing beyond expectations.  Way to raise the bar for yourself. 

Your call ins have been really fun too - what was that about drugs in Montana???

Opp’s I never finished that thought

Main TDR drugs are:
Caffeine (soda, red bull, 5 hours, no-doz)
Aleve (naproxen)
Benzocaine (topical like anbesol gel)

But think of all the other stuff, not ‘drugs’ in the classical sense but……..
Sunscreen
Deet
Chapstick
Chamie creams
Etc etc

[Marshal]

I be back with the living

Beaver work center to AW in one push got it done

more later

Marshal

oh, for the record my wheel hit the gate at AW at 3:25 am

[JeffOYB]

Wow for the heavy mud bike pics.

And wow for the skinny guy pics.

Blaine wins my "calm cool and collected" prize. (Listen to his near-finish post-mud-slog phone-in.)

[elobeck]

Hi All, this is Erik Lobeck,
I'm back in civilization on the internet for better or worse and following the proceedings with great interest. This is a post race note, and I would like to begin by expressing my condolences to the family of Dave Blumenthal, I was quite emotional during the latter part of the course after the incident and found myself contemplating and getting quite emotional indeed. I too had embarked on the selfish pursuit of the tour divide, leaving a cute wife and daughter behind for the duration, and dared not contemplate the negative aspects should something happen to me during the event. I cannot imagine the pain and sorrow likely currently being experienced by his family. It took me quite some time to reconcile the events during the race. Finally I decided, perhaps inappropriately, that Dave would have wanted us all to keep going. And so I did. I would like to dedicate my finish to Dave and his family.

Unfortunately, I must address further unpleasantries which detract from my efforts, the debate regarding my assistance to get back on course following a mechanical disaster short of Lima. Whatever the outcome of any decision with regard to the matter, I can say with all my heart I rode the course to the best of my ability and in its entirety, and feel I did so completely within the intent and spirit of the race. Previous posts discussing my actions included foul language and I would like to encourage a rational and peaceful discussion, if any, and only upon completion of course by all riders, so as not to detract from their efforts. The 18 1/2 day finish will be mine and with me forever, whether it is officially recognized by the TD as such or not. If I am relegated for a "grey area transgression" so be it, however I must speak in defense of my actions/thought process. The rule transgression in question is #4a, and I made a judgement call at the time to accept assistance on course, as there were no alternative routes to proceed "off course" to aid (backwards or “parallel” assistance was completely out of the question, look at a map). Overall I see the intent of the rule to avoid gaining advantage by moving forward in a vehicle, receiving aid/bike fix, and continuing from the forward point of the repair. This makes sense and I did not do this. I picked up where I left off, and at a significant disadvantage. The rule does not specifically address situations in which no alternative routes exist, no rule can address all nuances and situations. In the end I did not "move forward" on course by vehicular assistance. I can say I gained absolutely no advantage by this physically, emotionally, or financially. I had to dig deep emotionally and physically to put myself back in action. I was not seeking a “loophole” or "easy" way out. Had an alternative route existed for assistance, I would clearly have taken such. In the spirit of self support, I sought help from a public source, fixed it via commercial means, and was assisted back to course by commercial means on the only route possible. I see it as being in the spirit of self support.

In closing, regards to all that attempted this years race and its absurd conditions. I would like to have talked more about my positive race experiences rather than the negative, but have taken up enough space at this point.

Erik Lobeck

[luckylarue]

Congratulations Erik on a great ride.  I believe most people would've thrown in the towel dealing w/ that kind of setback.  I hope it's obvious to all that there was no "advantage" gained in your situation.  Ignore the cackling hens & naysayers. Thanks to you and all the racers for the inspiration to ride further on up the road/trail.

[MrWaves]

Isn't it time to stop trying to make the rules fit the game? Each year there is another exception that adds to the rules, and so somehow they will never be sufficiently complete to fit every circumstance. Perhaps coming from a country witthout a written constitution, I can see the benefits of a simple statement of intent as being sufficient to cover all cases and with some way - say a public vote on this site, after both parties have given their case.

After all, we all know that Erik had no choice and if he had not had the mechanical problems to deal with he would have probably been fighting it out with Matthew all the way to Antelope Wells - equally it could be argued that the reason that Erik was catching Matthew before he trashed his drive train was because Matthew was taking better care of his. All conjecture, but in the spirit of the rules there is no dispute of the outcome - Erik, you deserved your joint second place in a fantastic time and managed to cope not only with the dreadfull conditions but also the mental struggle of getting your bike back on the road.

On another note - is there any attempt to note the age of contestants? I had first assumed that "Veteran" refered to some age limit until I realised it was just the converse of "rookie" - just asking ot see the time both to recognise the achievements of some of you guys, and also to see the time I would have to beet!

To everyone though who has taken part, fiinishing or not or if the "rules" are against you - we are all just knocked out by what you have achieved.

[mtbcast]

Just finished posting some calls. Sorry for the delay but I was on a long ride today.

[mtbcast]

I just posted Shawn Sheppard's call. He finished at 2:07a so that should give him 22:14:07, I believe. Other finishers - Jacob Johnsrud 22:15:45, Tom Moriarty and Derek Reichert 22:15:47, Grant Crosby 22:15:50, and Dave Preston 22:20:17.

In regards to course deviations, rules, etc. I can only tell you what Matthew told me. Any decisions about such things will be determined at some point after the race. I think he believes, as I do, that it's more important to go complete the route and figure these things out later. That's one reason why I said very little in the way of commentary on the subject during the race and I like this approach. Thankfully this year there were no blatant infractions like we had with the Italians last year, where racers on the route were compelled to comment.

[SueF]

Hope this is not a double post, I had trouble with attachments.
Congradulations to the group of 5! What an amazing accomplishment, for them, and for all the riders that attempt the race. Here are some photos as this group left Abiquiu, with thoughts of pie on down the road. Hope you all got some!

[SueF]

And not to be left out, the SPOTless rider, Shawn S. Along with a few more riders as they came through Abiqui.

[SueF]

Wow, sorry about the photo size.

[naked indian]

I concur.

I dont see that Erik should be relegated.

And I dont think he will be.

Great ride ALL, way to kick ass out there Marshall, I was hoping you were going to tough it out.

Tell me how did that saddle work for ya?? 

Aidan is BEAST, is all I got to say,  Everyone this year has been super impressive, I definetely have lots of inspiration to complete my attempt in 2011.

[csfisher1963]

Thanks for the pics Sue!  All of us from SC and Ga especially appreciate the photos of Shawn, our spotless rider!  Congrats to everyone who has finished so far and also to those still on the course.  My heartfelt thoughts and prayers go out to The Blumenthal family.