Published June 10, 2011 05:33PM
Tour Divide: Only 2,745 Miles to Go
The Tour Divide kicked off June 10 in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Look for updates over the next two weeks on Singletrack.com
It’s a mountain bike race, but don’t go looking for results any time soon.
The Tour Divide kicked off June 10 in Banff, Alberta, Canada and will likely end around the end of the month, give or take a few days, on the Mexican border in Antelope Wells, New Mexico.
That’d be, oh, about 2,745 miles. And this year 83 riders will undertake the “race,” which doesn’t offer a prize purse and requires participants to be 100-percent self-supported — no support teams at all.
Out of the 48 riders who took on Tour Divide in 2010, Matthew Lee won in 17:16:10 (Days:Hours:Minutes). A total of 23 riders finished the route.
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Ah yes, the route: It travels through the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia, and then through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. It will zig-zag across the Continental Divide more than two dozen times while climbing nearly 200,000 feet of vertical (equivalent to summiting Mount Everest from sea-level 7 times).
Of this year’s 83 racers, 15 will start in New Mexico (is that going up hill?)
All the riders are carrying GPS units and can be followed here. Meanwhile, look for updates on Singletrack.com.