Tour Divide 2009 Kicks Off This Week!

The 2009 Tour Divide starts this Friday!  I am stoked!  I found out about the Great Divide Race and the Tour Divide in 2008 after both races were already over, so I didn’t get to track the SPOT leaderboards.  This year you’d better believe that I’m going to be all up in it.

I checked the start list this morning and there are now 41 competitors scheduled to race.  Wow!  That’s the largest field in the history of the GDR and the TD.  The biggest name that has just been added is the one and only Matthew Lee, former champ and current record holder for the full GDMBR course.  If I’m not mistaken, he was going to sit this year out to help care for his new baby, but apparently the siren call of ultimate suffering was much too strong for him to resist!  Rock on!  (6/10/09 Update – as of this morning, Lee’s name has disappeared from the start list!  Methinks his wife had other thoughts??)

And what’s this?! Former GDR champ Jay Petervary is racing with his wife in tow!  The first tandem racers in GDMBR race history!  Double wow!  I am very interested to see how they do.  I imagine that such an endeavor holds the intrinsic capacity for bringing them closer than ever or causing them to despise each other!  (I TOLD you make that left at Albuquerque!)

Besides the more well known guys, so many unfamiliar names are competing as well.  Unfamiliar to me, anyway.  I wish I knew more about them, and what they have been doing as far as training.  That’s one of the reasons why I’m keeping this online training diary…there are many rider write-ups that we get to read post-race, but they include so very few details about their training.  If I happen to complete the TD in 2010, then perhaps my training log will be of use to future hopefuls.  

Anyway, good luck to all of the 2009 Tour Divide studs!  And good luck as well to the Great Divide Race competitors who kick off their shindig on June 19th.  You are pioneers, and a rare breed of adventurer, and I salute you! 

Now head on over to tourdivide.org to see the start list, leaderboards, etc.  And also bookmark mtbcast.com so you can listen to the racers’ call-ins.

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