Month: July 2022
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TD 2022 – Day 11 – June 21st, 2022 – Brush Lodge, CO to Silverthorne, CO via my favorite day of the race
This was my favorite day of the race. It started out cold with the lowest temps of the race with my Garmin bottoming out at 19 degF. But just 12 hours later, my Garmin would top out at 109 degF on the pavement climbing up from the Colorado River while getting swarmed by mosquitoes. In…
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TD 2022 – Days 9-10 – June 19-20th, 2022 – Pinedale, WY to Brush Lodge, CO via a Great Basin adventure
Within a mile or two of leaving the Jackalope, Steve Large caught up to me on the bike path outside Pinedale. It was great meeting him and finding out he is from a town near Birmingham, England. I told him I was from the other Birmingham – the one in Alabama. I also told him…
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TD 2022 – Days 7-8 – June 17-18th, 2022 – Idaho Park, ID to Pinedale, WY via a “Falute” Eddington 250
The day started out cold but with a beautiful sunrise over many flooded fields of flowers leaving Idaho as pictured above (39 degF and I had to hike/ride through that water in my sandals), traversed many flat miles of powerline ATV trails, merged with the Great Western Trail (rails-to-trail) for only a few miles, and…
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TD 2022 – Day 6 – June 16th, 2022 – Lima, MT to Idaho Park, ID via hot headwind hell
This was the first really hot day of the Tour. You’d think with that picture above that it would be nice, pleasant riding. But the gravel road got quite a bit rougher, and the route went past those mountains in the distance before I reached any shade at all, nearly 75 miles later riding from…
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TD 2022 – Day 5 – June 15th, 2022 – Butte, MT to a cave outside Lima
Note that the “cave” was really just a deep recession in a cliff, but it was enough to get me out of the steady wind that made the 30 degF temps feel that much colder. Also, note that I fell asleep in less than a minute after getting settled and even with a down blanket…
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TD 2022 – Day 4 – June 14th, 2022 – Lincoln, MT to Butte, MT via the most of everything (except peanut butter mud)
This day had it all – the most climbing per mile of the entire race with three passes and four big climbs, the most technical single-track, the most traffic of the entire race, the strongest winds of the entire race (knocking me off my bike once) and knocking over trees uncomfortably close to me, finishing…
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TD 2022 – Day 3 – June 13th, 2022 – Flathead National Forest, MT to Lincoln, MT via an epic store stop in Seeley Lake, MT
Don’t fall. The collage pic at the top of the post is a side-by-side comparison from June 13th when I crossed, from June 15th when David Landis crossed a couple days behind me immediately after the winter storm, and from June 11th 2021 one year ago when my friend Michael Rasch crossed the same stretch…
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TD 2022 – Day 2 – June 12th, 2022 – Eureka, Montana to a Montana Hilton in the Flathead National Forest via miles of beautiful winter scenes in SUMMER
Yes, I know that summer technically doesn’t start until June 20th. Sure, sure, but our summer starts by the beginning of May way down in Alabama. So for me, June 12th feels like the middle of summer. If you go far enough north and high enough into the mountains, though, you start to appreciate that…
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TD 2022 – Day 1 – Fernie, British Columbia, Canada to Eureka, Montana, USA
“Hi Brian, all I need is to see your passport,” said the US border patrol agent as I rolled up ahead of Theo. I dug in my backpack not registering that he already knew my name until I showed it to him and he wished me “good luck”. As I pulled away, I realized he…
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TD2022 – Day 0 – Banff, Alberta, Canada to Fernie, British Columbia, Canada
I will come back to this video later, but this is about 40 miles into the race, and it really captures the jaw dropping nature of the scenery. Really, the first 300 miles of the race had scenery similar to this … or we were climbing up and over the snow on one of the…