T Minus One Day!!! 😬

Just a quick blog from Banff Canada.

The absolute first thing that needs to be said, today is “Thank you”!!!

The first thank you goes out to Lola 👸! I can’t even imagine the amount of patience that it takes to allow somebody to run off for about a month to chase their passion. She does so by completely supporting what I’m doing and not just begrudgingly accepting it. It’s a perfect example of uncompromising love. There is no way that I could attempt something like this without Lola 👸 as my partner. I was going to say I’m pretty sure, but I’m absolutely sure, that she has more confidence in me that I have in myself. I couldn’t do this without her, and I’m keenly aware of that.

Secondly, big things go out to Dave Rutledge. It takes a very special friend who is willing to drive you 2200 miles to the start of an event only to turn around and drive home. I sincerely value his friendship, company, and sincerity. I would be willing to guess there’s only a handful of us, Tour divide racers in Banff that got driven to the start by a friend. And in this case a really great friend.

Thirdly, I have to offer thanks to everybody who has been so supportive of me as I’ve gotten ready for this endeavor, as well as those that have sent me messages, texts, Facebook messages, emails, etc. offering their words of encouragement and support. It is at once both helpful and overwhelming. Knowing that you have so many people pulling for you and wanting to see you succeed is humbling.

I certainly don’t know what tomorrow is going to bring. I don’t feel as prepared as I could be, but I’m not sure if that’s not just how I am or if it’s actually a lack of fitness or training. I think when embarking upon a 2700 mile journey of this type, you’re absolutely always going to have your doubts and worries. I was calmed today when speaking to a gentleman from Great Britain who is a Tour divide rookie, and describing parts of the route, concerns along the way, and the beauty of the route. Just speaking to him, made me realize how much I learned last year, and what an advantage it is to have already raced this event once. I’m under no delusion that it will be easier, less, stressful, or less daunting, but I feel good knowing that I’ve seen the route, I understand some of the challenges better, I know what mistakes I made last time, and recall how I would do things differently. Putting these lessons learned in the practice is going to be the challenge.

I’m currently sitting in a room in Banff organizing and packing all of the things that have to go onto and into my bicycle and Cycling bags respectively. Trying to figure out what is an absolute necessity, what is a safety measure, and what is a luxury item. There’s certainly some things that I consider a necessity that others would consider a luxury item.(such as an inflatable pillow!). Trying to minimize luxury items and still stay safe and relatively comfortable is the challenge. The biggest problem with the Tour divide is you have no idea what’s actually going to happen once you’re out on the route. Is it going to be the Montana of 2021 when it was 106°, or is it going to be the Montana of 2022 when several racers were rescued by helicopter due to horrible snow storms in the same area. Right now it looks like it’ll be drizzly days for the first week or so. Nothing like torrential monsoons in New Mexico, but certainly rainy days all day. That said, only time will really tell what we’re going to see.

What I do know is that there are going to be circumstances and challenges that I didn’t anticipate. To use the phrase that Dave Rutledge talked to me about, I’m going to be “naïvely optimistic”. I’m going to go into this fully aware of what it takes to get through it, but looking forward to the challenges and the experiences.

I will do my damnedest to try and document this along the way, trying to bring everybody along with me, particularly those that have been so supportive. I know there will be days that I can’t send a blog, but I’ll try and make up for it as I can.

Thanks again for the support and for virtually riding along with me. It means the world to me.

Ride On!

Cadena