TweetOdd year. A year of two distinct halves. Part 1: January through June we’re dominated by the one thing, the Tour Divide. Nothing else mattered. Work, nope. Friends, nope. Family, nope. Home…well yes, the only thing that mattered except training was homelife and future plans. Oddly, this near sole focus had little impact on the rest of my “normal” outside… Read more →
TweetI took quite a few photos this year. Some good, some bad. From them I’ve had an enjoyable (??) time trying to chose my favourite photo from each month. I failed. Too many stories, moments, actions associated to too many photos to cut down to 12. So I chose 24. One set of twelve for exercise; cycling and running mostly,… Read more →
TweetFirst set of words in print from the Tour Divide this year: http://grit.cx/magarchive/issue-009 – small paywall for digital at £1.50 a month, or £6 for the print issue. I’ve been working with the folks over at Grit.cx since its inception, what feels like many moons ago. I’ve always contributed from a cross perspective, and quite often just ranting about my own ideas… Read more →
Tweet The annual running of the bears. Or at least the annual trudging of the UK bike-packing community somewhere around Mid-Wales. As normal, I have a cold, but this time I am at least going to the start and worst case I’ll take some photos and heckle for the first few kilometres. Who knows. Either way, I should be starting… Read more →
TweetSo I decided to blog my whole Divide day by day while I was working on my photos – a lot of you have been reading them – so I’ve had to buy more bandwidth. Not a bad problem to have I suppose! But it can be a bit anoying to go back through the timeline, so i figured I’d… Read more →
TweetFirstly – For those interested, I’ve dumped some of my Tour Divide photos here: https://flic.kr/s/aHskFctRNz These are the ones that tell less of a story, but show more of the route itself. ~ I’ll start this postscript (brain-dump) with one of those photos: A snapshot my wife took after the traditional smiling happy rider finish shot was taken. This, this is closer to… Read more →
TweetForest past Pietown – Somewhere in the Gila Wilderness, NM ; 196km distance, 2,175m climbing, 12hrs 25mins moving time. I’d never intended to be hear on day 20. I should be finished, relaxing with my wife, doing holiday recovery things. Perhaps showering. Maybe eating some real food. Either way, I’m not, I’m rolling along a rode after relieving myself in a… Read more →
TweetGrants – Forest past Pietown, New Mexico ; 135km distance, 900m climbing, 7hrs 00mins moving time. INTERLUDE – crappy elevator music We hop in the car for the two hour drive to Albuquerque. It feels odd to move so far so fast with no effort on my part. I refuse to get out of race mode, wearing my jersey, keeping eating, thinking… Read more →
TweetSomewhere in Santa Fe National Forest – Grants New Mexico ; 235km distance, 1,650m climbing, 11hrs 20mins moving time. Uggh, I feel like crap when I wake up. My feet hurt, my back hurts, everything is sticky and I have a banging headache. I eat the last non sugar based food I have, drink half of what little water I have… Read more →
TweetCamp ground somewhere in Carson National Forest Nm. – Somewhere in Santa Fe National Forest ; 162km distance, 2,820m climbing, 11hrs 30mins moving time. Next time – I sleep here ^^ . Turns out US postal offices in the middle of nowhere leave their doors open at night. Where it doesn’t rain on you. And you don’t get sniffed by horses.… Read more →