Two Wheels on my Wagon

A Bicycle Adventure

in the Wild West

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Epub ISBN: 9781780570631

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Copyright © Paul Howard, 2010

All rights reserved

The moral right of the author has been asserted

First published in Great Britain in 2010 by

MAINSTREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY

(EDINBURGH) LTD

7 Albany Street

Edinburgh EH1 3UG

ISBN 9781845965617

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any other means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast

This book is a work of non-fiction based on the life, experiences and recollections of the author. The author has stated to the publishers that, except in such respects not affecting the substantial accuracy of the work, the contents of this book are true

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

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T
here are many people who helped me participate in and complete the Tour Divide, not least the people I met and rode with on the way, and of whom there are too many to name individually. You know who you are, and I hope this book goes some way to repaying the debt of gratitude I owe.

There are also several people to whom I wish to express particular thanks: to Rod Lambert – Seaford's very own Mr Cycles – for his support, enthusiasm and lessons in bike maintenance; to Eddie Start of Open Spaces in Brighton for his fund of useful advice about life in the wilds and the best kit to take.

Thanks also to Tony Harris at ATB Sales, distributors of Marin Bikes, Ian Young at Zyro, distributors of Camelbak and Altura products, and Dain Zaffke at WTB, manufacturers of Nanoraptor tyres.

I would neither have trained nor enjoyed all the riding as much as I did without the company on many rides of Ian Craig. I could still be stuck in Silver City were it not for the generosity of its cycling community in general and Barin Beard in particular.

I would like to thank all those behind the Tour Divide, especially those who made it possible for family and friends to follow the race with such enthusiasm (and to those same family and friends for their virtual support, which had very real benefits). Particular mention must also go to Matthew Lee, who found time while organising the event and preparing his own ride to guide me from novice mountain biker to Tour Divide finisher.

Finally, thank you to Catherine, Molly, Benjamin, Thomas and Freddie. I'll only do it again if one (or more) of you wants to come with me.

I
t seemed like a good idea at the time, though the context no doubt had a lot to do with it. Driven to despair by a prolonged stint at a grey job in a grey office in one of London's greyer suburbs, I eventually sought refuge via the virtual distraction of the Internet. After extensive and disconsolate searching through the inevitable chaff, I finally found something to fire my imagination.

That something was a news story on a cycling website about the inaugural edition of the world's longest mountain bike race. The Tour Divide was just about to start in Banff in Canada, and would take those bold or foolish enough to have signed up nearly 2,800 miles down the spine of the Rockies to the Mexico border.

Curiosity quickly became obsession as the race itself unfurled. Although physically still very much trapped in my mundane surroundings, I was transported vicariously to the magnificent Rocky Mountains. The story of sixteen cyclists attempting to ride such a long distance off-road, to a high point of nearly 12,000 feet and with an overall altitude gain the equivalent of scaling Mount Everest seven times, was compelling. The bears, rattlesnakes, tarantulas and mosquitoes all encountered en route merely added to the drama.

It quickly became clear the story was as much one of survival as victory. Unlike the Tour de France, there were no entry criteria and no entry fee. Nor was there any prize money. There were also no defined stages to keep racers together. Riders soon became strung out over several US states. Half dropped out, not always those near the back of the field. More notable still, there was no backup or external support allowed, other than that which could be found along the route. Everybody started together in Banff, and everybody had to try and reach the same remote border post in the New Mexico desert by following the same route along the Continental Divide, but apart from that they were on their own, often quite literally.

It had everything life in an office in London didn't. I had emails and deadlines. It had solitude and timelessness. I had crowded commuter trains and a horizon broken only by shopping malls and office blocks. It had cycling and it had mountains, thousands upon thousands of them. It fulfilled all the requirements of the essential equation of Albert Einstein's ground-breaking theory of cycling relativity: E=(mc)
²
. Enjoyment = (mountains × cycling) squared.

‘I thought of it while riding my bike,' the great man had said after his eureka moment.

He also said: ‘Life is like riding a bicycle. To keep your balance you must keep moving.'

Full of useful tips, that Einstein. Not wanting to contradict such a profound thinker, I decided to take his equation to heart. The Tour Divide had seduced me.

While I had been happy to be tempted when sitting in a London office at a safe distance from the badlands and the bears, a sense of guilt at having had my head turned was the overwhelming emotion when, six months later, I had bought a plane ticket and registered my intended participation. For a start, there was the small matter of not having a mountain bike. Indeed, I'd never owned a mountain bike.

The fact they had two wheels and two pedals like the road bikes I was used to was some reassurance. Yet this carried little weight in the face of my previously ambiguous experience of actually riding off-road, which amounted, as far as I could recall, to two fairly disturbing misadventures. The first came in the form of somehow becoming trapped in a bone-dry canyon in France. An hour-long lunchtime ride turned into a seven-hour survival epic as I ran out of water under a Provençal sun and ended up climbing first down and then up two twenty-foot rock walls – with a bike. The second was slightly less alarming – it was in Sussex on the South Downs – and largely involved lots of cursing at the discomfort induced by such an inefficient means of progress over bumpy ground. Nevertheless, it culminated in a silent vow never to become a mountain biker. Neither had whetted my appetite for more.