Dave’s Nice Visit & Tour Divide Start

Dave Nice (a nice guy) flew in to Tucson last Monday, acclimated himself to desert heat, and started his Tour Divide Individual Time Trial yesterday.

Follow his south-to-north ITT here, on Topofusion.

Read Dave’s blog.

Also, you can listen to all Tour Divide racer call-ins on MtbCast. We’re sponsoring the podcast, more on that in another post.

When Dave arrived, he collected his gear, got things in order… and waited patiently while I worked in the shop. He did a fair bit of sleeping too.

Dave Squared = snooze time…

We got out for a spin in Tucson Mountain Park

I drove him out to Antelope Wells yesterday, so he could start his Individual Time Trial (ITT) at noon sharp. I passed on an Egg McMuffin- a favor returned from Mary from last year’s start in Banff.

We met Tim the Border Guard and had a Nice© visit.

Shortly after noon- strong wind, warm but not hot temps, big smiles!

I headed up to Silver City to tie up some loose ends. I packed my gear and headed south on the route. Can you count all the hand positions on my Song? Very Fredular.

The ride out. Great pedallin’, just putting miles away in the New Mexico desert…

I ran into Dave about 40 miles out, shortly after this sign. *Note to racers: when you see this sign, go straight. 😉

We cruised north for a while before finding camp

Camp… err, windblock

5:30am, no coffee in sight.

Near camp. This windmill was made in Chicago and made the trip all the way out here… Like me.

Would you want to drink from this? We didn’t.

On the road to Silver City. Tricky aero technique on a fixed gear…

yeah, right…

I wanna race.

Instead, I’m back to the shop… traded yesterday’s work day for tomorrow. Metal shavings here we come!