Tour Divide Journal

Day 21

June 29th

5:10 am to 2:56 am (21:46)

190.2 miles – 2732.2 total miles

RSC near Hoyt Creek to Mexico

I gave Miro and David a 15 minute head start to get ready, and I still waited 15 minutes for them. Even worse it was really cold too.

It wasn’t long after getting up before we rode through the area where the smoke from the night before was coming from. There were actual flames on either side of the road and everything was burnt. It was crazy.

We made it to Sapillo Campground fairly quickly, then had a little trouble following the route through the campground. The CDT alternate was burley, between the heat and steepness there was a lot of pushing. Miro took a wrong turn at one point and then crashed. It wasn’t his day. The whole section was an ass kicker.

We exited the CDT alternate on to pavement, which raised the spirits are what we just went through. We climbed to Pinos Altos and felt every pedal stroke.

On the descent into Silver City, NM, Juan a friend of Miro’s passed us in his minivan. Turns out he was Dot stalking us. He had lunch with us in town while Phillip got some last minute TLC at the bike shop. As we ate we made the decision to go for the finish.

On the way out of town while riding Hwy. 15, we saw Jeff, another trail angel/shuttle driver who had 3 guys who had just finished. They gave us encouragement then we were off.

The section between Hwy. 15 and Separ was all dirt roads and lots of sun. At times it got really sandy. It was an area you felt like you were the only one around for miles. It was just desert.

Night fell on us between Separ and Hwy. 146. This was also our last dirt of the race. From Hwy. 146 to the finish was all pavement.

When we got to the store in Hachita, the 3rd place finisher was help out by running the store. We stayed way too long and left the store at 11 pm for the border!

The ride to the border was crazy. We saw 3 cars in 45 miles, I rode on the left shoulder, Miro on the right and David on the center line. David had the only working light. There were so many rabbits. 

At this point in the race nether Miro or I had working lights on our bikes, but just headlamps. David had a working light so that is why he was in the middle. I had the only tail light, so when the three cars came I was in back, Miro was in the middle and David was in front.

With 3 miles to go I sprinted away from David and Miro. I wanted to finish alone. I worked so hard for this finish. As I came up on the border David’s wife was there and she yelled to me to ask where he was. I turned to answer her and this distracted me to the fact there was a chainlink fence across the road. When I finally saw it I barely had time to stop.

Finishing blew my mind, but even more so was the fact that I had just rode 190.2 miles in a single day and was on my bike for 21+ hours. David and Miro were not far behind and my alone time at the border was nonexistent.