Southern Colorado

I felt strangely unrushed when I woke up in Salida to a beautiful bluebird morning. I flipped on the Weather Channel and warmed my gigantic 7-Eleven sweet roll in the microwave. I savored it with an extensive breakfast of coffee, smoothie, yogurt, peach, banana and orange juice, then chased it with a round of peanut butter cups. I had no planned destination for the day, and therefore no required distance to stress about. And I was feeling so fresh and strong that I had no doubt in my ability to go far. I stopped in Poncha Springs to buy a new pair of sunglasses (I had a way of obliterating old pairs and went through a total of five cheapie gas station shades over the course of the trip.) I spent a half hour there talking with a GDMBR tourist who was traveling south to north (I've since forgotten his name.) He handed me $5 and asked if I'd give it to a couple he stayed with in Del Norte. "The big climbs in Colorado aren't too bad," he said of the passes south of there. "But watch out for northern New Mexico. It doesn't look like much on the maps but it will bring you to your knees."

The first climb out of the gate - Marshall Pass - was a monster: 4,000 feet of elevation gain along a canopy of 14'ers. The route followed an old railroad grade. I motored up the gravel feeling grateful that locomotives were notoriously weak climbers. They forced engineers to cut long, snaking paths up these huge mountains. Now, 100 years later, cyclists could enjoy maximum coverage of this beautiful terrain for minimal pain. The knee agony of northern Colorado was only a distance memory, the potential meanness of northern New Mexico only a vague promise. The entire Tour Divide seemed wrapped up in that one morning, and that morning was perfect.

I was likely humming happy Sunday School songs to myself when a Honda Element pulled up beside me. I quickly recognized the driver and he smiled back - I'm pretty sure just as surprised to see me as I was to see him. Mike Curiak and I had only met once before in person, on March 1, 2008. I had just woken up in McGrath, Alaska, race-addled and bewildered by the transition from the deep-frozen Iditarod Trail to a hot, crowded house, when I noticed him standing in the front room in his longjohns. He was supposed to be on an entirely self-supported tour of the entire Iditarod Trail and reportedly wasn't stopping in any buildings, so I asked him whether he was planning to beyond McGrath. "The future is uncertain," was all he said before I was whisked away to catch my plane home. Now, the future was here and we were both basking in Colorado sun. Life is strange like that. "What are you doing in this part of the world?" I asked him.

Mike told me Pete Basinger was going to be coming through the region that day and he wanted to surprise him with cold Pepsi and other sugar treats. "Really?" I said. "Pete's just behind me?" Pete is a quiet but gifted endurance cyclist from Anchorage. He was riding the route as an individual time trial, meaning he didn't start with any race but was out there gunning for the overall record. Pete and Mike Curiak had battled for that record during the Great Divide Race in 2004. In the end, Pete finished only 20 minutes behind Mike, who established the GDR record at 16 days and change. Pete had been working toward the elusive record every other year since. He was shut down by "total body breakdown" just 600 miles from the finish in 2005, and contracted food poisoning in 2007. "How's Pete doing?" I asked Mike.

"Good," Mike said. "He's still on record pace. But he's had a lot of issues with his bike. I sent him a big box of parts a week ago. Then he taco'd a wheel outside of Silverthorne and had to hitchhike back into town. He called me because he was debating whether to buy the one set they had at the bike shop. I said, 'Do you have a choice?'"

"Man," I said. "That guy can not catch a break."

Mike offered to ride with me up to Marshall Pass. He pulled out a bike complete with an Epic Designs frame bag that had a custom-built pocket specifically designed to hold Mike-and-Ikes. He offered me a handful of the colorful candies along with a Pepsi. "It's Pete's favorite," Mike told me.

"I'm not going to drink Pete's Pepsi!" I said.

"Don't worry," Mike said. "I have another one for him."

We pedaled leisurely up the road, both stopping to shoot photos of flowers and landscapes. Mike commended me for being a fellow camera geek and an unhurried participant in an endurance race. Above is a photo taken by master photographer Curiak himself. I love how I can hand him a point-and-shoot camera to snap a posed shot in front of a Continental Divide sign, and he can turn it into a dramatic retrospective of the sweeping Colorado skies.

Mike and I parted ways at Marshall Pass and I sped down to Sargents, where I ran into the same huge group of bicycle tourists that I had snacked with in Hartsel the day before. They had gone up over some road pass while I climbed and dropped and climbed and dropped in the Salida area, and we had somehow both ended up at the same point. My maps indicated that I was going to be on Highway 50 for 12 miles, so I asked if I could ride with them. We motored down the road, chatting about their house building cause while I further explained the Tour Divide. As we talked, my heart began to race toward levels I hadn't felt since I was actually able to climb strong back in Montana. I looked down at my odometer and we were doing more than 19 mph, on level pavement. The problem was they were on unloaded road bikes and I was riding 50 pounds of mountain bike beast. I mashed into the pedals harder, determined to keep up, sucking down big gulps of air between conversations so they wouldn't know I was maxing out. It seemed almost silly to waste so much energy on pavement, but I seemed to have energy to spare, and I was ecstatic about all of my unexpected company that day.

Highway 50 was choked with traffic. More than once, we were buzzed closely by RVs and honked at by truckers. "Man, I don't know how you guys do this - touring on pavement," I said. "It kind of sucks." They just laughed. "It's really not that bad," one guy said. "Tell me you don't have moments where you wish you were on pavement instead." (How true this would turn out to be.) Still, I was grateful to finally turn onto a nondescript dirt road and begin the lonely climbing anew.

I call this photo "Waiting for Pete." After Mike informed me that Pete was not far behind, me, I spent the entire day looking over my shoulder. I wanted to watch him power up from behind and mumble short but sincere words of encouragement as he flew ahead.

You could say I'm a big fan of Pete's. He's my friend, too. Alaska is a small state in a people sense, and we often end up at the same events. The first time I met him was at the 2006 Soggy Bottom 100. He was way out in front, but the race had enough out-and-back that we passed each other three times. He always said, "You're doing awesome," or "good job," which was a huge self-esteem boost to a totally new, very insecure endurance mountain biker who only knew him as an Alaska cycling powerhouse.

Since then, we became more acquainted through the Iditarod Trail Invitational. I went to him for winter survival advice, which he always freely gave. I brought him my poor dilapidated Pugsley for total overhauls mere days before that race, both years, and he'd blast through the repairs without even doling out the maintenance lectures I sorely deserved. I made a feeble effort to repay him by taking over the blogging duties for the 2008 Great Divide Race, and he still wrote me afterward and said he owed me his first-born child. "She's probably 7 by now," he joked. Yeah, Pete's awesome. Good-looking, too. ;-)

Anyway, I let myself get really excited about the fact that he was going to catch me that day. In fact, as the day wore on, I made less stops and rode later than I would have otherwise, for fear I was going to miss him. It seems pretty silly, and it was, but out there on the Divide, where you're running the high gears all the time, your mind seems to regress, almost becoming childlike in the process, and it's difficult not to fixate on simple things.

Meanwhile, the big picture was swirling all around me. I surpassed the century mark for the day and kept riding, cycling between daydreams about Alaska and an awestruck awareness of my newfound place in a big, big world. I was Jill Homer, Alaskan, pedaling myself toward the Mexican border. And I was Jill Homer, former recipient of multiple F's in seventh-grade gym class, riding in one of the hardest mountain bike races in the world. But the beauty of the Tour Divide is that it's only as hard as you want it to be. It can be tough, sure, agonizing even. But more often than that, it's fun, pleasurable, relaxing, and dare I say, at some perfect moments, even easy. I smiled because it was fun to know that secret.

Still, the fatigue of a 120-mile day with tons of climbing (someday I'll actually go back and quantify it so I know the real number), was beginning to wear, and by 10 p.m., I just had to camp. I was disappointed that Pete hadn't caught up to me yet, but there was a chill in the air and an inky thickness to the night, and I was tired and hungry. I pulled off the road into the Storm King Campground and grabbed a site next to the creek so I could filter water the next morning. I munched on a brownie, jerky and packaged tuna, and gazed at the golden moon, lonely but satisfied.

I'm not sure how long I had been asleep when I awoke to rustling just a few feet away. My automatic bear-alert mode caused me to jolt upright, but everything after that became hazy and dreamlike. I had been using sleeping aids the entire trip to help me pass out amid the adrenaline and high heart rate left behind from hours on end of riding. I always felt normal in the morning, but this was the first time I had woken up within hours of taking the drug. I gazed around the campground through a thick Ambien fog. I could see a silhouetted figure unpacking things from a bicycle. He looked up and a dull headlamp shined in my face. I mustered a smile, though even my face muscles felt sluggish. I fumbled for my own headlamp and couldn't figure out how to turn it on. I pressed the light on my watch, but that wasn't working either. Finally, I just laid back down because this was obviously all a strange dream. Within seconds, I was unconscious again.

Sometime during an ungodly hour of the next morning, noises woke me up again. I peeked out of my bag toward a shimmering glaze of stars, and right beside me was a dark figure packing things into a bicycle. The Ambien had finally worn off and I was alert enough to acknowledge that he was really there. And, based on the timing, I was certain it was Pete. The thought made me giddy. "I should get up," I thought. "Maybe we can start out the day together, ride for a while, maybe even all the way to Del Norte." But another voice said, "Ha! You wouldn't be able to keep up with him for a mile." I stuck my face further out to get a better view, only to be hit with a startling blast of cold air. The temperature was close to freezing, probably 35 degrees, and the dark was powerful. It was well before my awake time. Guilty as I felt about not even saying hi, I laid back down and closed my eyes, quietly wishing him good luck as we both hoped for a quick sunrise.

The morning ride into Del Norte was one of the most fun trails of the entire route, a bumpy doubletrack that rolled down red sand hills toward the Rio Grande. I still felt empowered by all the good days behind me, and I rode hard and confident, even catching sweet air on some of the larger bumps.

I rolled into Del Norte at about 9 a.m. and started winding my way through town, looking for the home of Gary and Patti Blakely so I could repay them the $5 that someone somewhere owed them for something. Patti, who was riding through town on her own bike, managed to find me first, and she brought me home and started reheating homemade pizza and peach pie. I gulped down several cups of sweet tea as Gary and I discussed the more nontraditional aspects of my bike set-up. He was especially interested in my platform pedals, which I suspect he never expected to see on any serious Divide racer's bike. I explained that my frostbitten toes never took kindly to any of the clipless pedal shoes that I tried, and in order to avoid needless toe agony, I finally just bought a pair of too-large running shoes and some $20 commuter pedals with cages and it was one of the best decisions I made.

Patti rode with me several miles out of Del Norte before wishing me well. I started up Indiana Pass, the biggest climb of the entire route. It gains more than 4,000 feet in 26 miles, topping out at nearly 12,000 feet elevation. The summit is certainly not the end - several smaller passes complete with steep climbs awaited me on the other side. I was mentally prepared for that one task to take me the rest of the day.

The road was steeper and looser than most other Colorado climbs, and I had to engage the high gear to get up it without walking. My mind was still amped up and I thought I had high gear to spare; little did I know that it was already slipping. I reached the top feeling thoroughly cooked. I looked out over Summitville, the mining ghost town that is now a Superfund site, toward an expanse of mountains that seemed to last forever. There was no relief in sight. Only more climbing road, and ruins of old buildings, and ominous-looking stormclouds.

The thunderstorm hit with maximum force just as I was starting down the rolling descent. Black clouds sunk in with little warning and rapidly disintigrated into sheets of rain before I even slowed down to put my rain gear on. Deafening bolts of lightning streaked through every corner of the sky, all around me, and I had nowhere to hide. I was at 12,000 feet, where even the trees were too small to cower behind. I finally decided that my best course of action would be to just drop down the route as quickly as possible. But the descent into thin tree cover continued to throw more climbs at me, and I was already shivering from the cold but too frightened to stop and put on more layers. My fingers felt frozen to my grips; my legs were stiff and quaking. The lightning wouldn't leave me alone, and the pouring rain was pooling in potholes and streaming dark mud down the soft road.

I pedaled as hard as I could, and the storm calmed a bit just as I entered a long, steep downhill. By this point, my teeth were chattering audibly. I was as cold as I have ever been on a bike, even all the times I rode in driving sleet in Juneau were just similar, not worse. Still, I thought I wasn' t that far from Platoro., and I could weather the wet cold a little longer. I pedaled a few frigid miles before I passed the first vehicle I had seen since Summitville - a police car. An officer was standing outside. He asked me if I was alone. "Yes," I said. Beside him, the road was shredded with swerving tire tracks. I assumed a four-wheeler accident. I continued down.

About a mile later, I came upon two ambulances inching down the road. I pulled up behind them and watched my odometer drop to 6 mph, and then 5. They were wide enough that they took up the whole rough road, and it would have been difficult to pass them, and I decided I shouldn't anyway. I rode my brakes and coasted behind them, shivering violently, becoming more uncomfortable with each maddeningly slow minute. After what seemed like an eternity, we finally reached an open clearing, and both ambulances stopped. The drivers got out with radios in their hands and started talking to each other. I was just about to make my way around them when one of the drivers saw me and waved me over.

"Are you with this biker?" he asked.

"Wait, that's a biker in the ambulance?" I said. The driver nodded slowly. "A cyclist?" He nodded again. "Who is it?"

He shook his head. "I can't tell you."

I felt a thick lump of bile gurgling up from my stomach. "Is it Pete Basinger?" The driver nodded. All the blood left my head, and I said in a broken squeek, "Is he OK?"

"He's responsive," the driver said. "He's talking to us."

"What happened?"

"He was hit by a truck pulling a horse trailer. Head-on."

"A head-on collision?" I sqeeked. "With a truck? Do you know what's wrong?"

The ambulance driver shook his head. "We have him stabalized and we're trying to call in to see if we can land a helicopter in here."

"Where are you taking him?" I said. "Can you tell me where you're taking him?"

"Not sure," the driver said. He leaned over to the other driver and mumbled a few things I didn't hear. Then he turned back to me. "Do you want to talk to him?"

"Um, I probably should just let you guys go," I said.

"We're not in a hurry right now," the driver said. "Either way we have to wait to see whether we can get him out of here."

I stepped into the ambulance and nodded at the two EMTs sitting inside. I was still shivering wildly, a combination of the cold and fear, and I braced to restrain myself as much as physically possible. Pete was strapped to a bed and his head was completely stabalized so he couldn't turn his neck. His long eyelashes pointed where his eyes were fixed on the ceiling. Based on the severity of the accident, the way he was strapped in and the fact that the EMTs were calling in life-flight, I was convinced I was looking at a man who was badly injured, possibly even paralyzed.

"Hey Pete," I said, startled by the shakiness in my own voice.

"Um, Jill?" he said.

"Yeah, Jill," I said.

"Heh. This is pretty crazy, isn't it?" he said.

"It's intense," I said. "How long ago did this happen?"

"It's been about a three hour process getting here," he said. "But I don't even know ... where are we now?"

"Stunner," I said at the exact same time he did.

"Stunner Campground," he said. "That's what I thought. Did you hit any rain?"

I smiled. He couldn't see me, but I was coated in mud and my hat and coat were still dripping rain water. "A huge amount of rain," I said.

"Yeah, that's why I left Del Norte right away," he said. "I wanted to beat the rain."

"Smart man," I said.

He laughed. "I'd say you had better timing than me."

"Are you in much pain?" I asked.

"It's not too bad," he said. "Now. Those rednecks who hit me were walking around me, talking about what they were going to do with me. That was the scariest part."

We paused and the silence echoed. I looked down, muddling for anything to say. "So did you see me at the campground last night?" he asked.

"Storm King? Yeah, I heard you come in. I was going to get up and talk to you. Sorry I didn't."

"That's OK," Pete said. "I didn't want to wake you up."

"I'm still sorry," I said. "I'm really sorry this had to happen."

"Yeah," Pete said. "Shit happens. Just sucks right now, three days from the end."

"Three days," I mustered a laugh. "I was thinking more like seven."

"It won't take you seven days," Pete said. "Where are you staying tonight?"

"I think Platoro," I said. "I'm thinking about just going to Platoro."

"Platoro's good," Pete said. "The cabins there are expensive, but they have good food."

Another pause lingered in the thick air. "Well, I should let you guys go," I said. "You're in an emergency and stuff."

"Yeah," he said. "Good luck."

"You too."


Outside, the sun was beginning to break through the clouds and a bright rainbow formed over the ambulences as they inched away in the opposite direction I was headed. I guessed the helicopter wasn't coming. I watched them until they drove out of sight, then turned to face the last climb into Platoro, Stunner Pass. Where the storm clouds cleared, a dark cloud of grief descended over my body. Here was a friend, a fellow Alaskan, a man I admired looked to for inspiration - mangled on the Great Divide. His life might be changed forever. I didn't really know, but in not knowing I let my imagination serve up the worst possible scenerio. I felt sick with regret and doubt. Pete had been out there, battling the same harsh elements, riding the same hard roads, pushing through the same physical and mental fatigue that I had been experiencing. We were out doing the same thing, this totally unique thing, riding the spine of the continent as fast as we were physically able. And to what end? To what end? What purpose could it possible have to net this kind of consequence? I couldn't get the image of Pete strapped down in the ambulance out of my mind. And out of that, the little voice in my head dug from my memory a haunting loop of "What Sarah Said" by Death Cab For Cutie ... "And it came to me then that every plan is a tiny prayer to Father Time ..."

I crested Stunner Pass in a depth of sadness. I could no longer muster the energy to ride my bike so I just walked it, even as the road dipped downhill. I stopped every few steps and just stared into the distance, hating the vile forest, the remoteness of it, the way it just swallowed space with its massive mountains and dark shadows. I thought about the things in life that were important, truly important - my friends, my family, my career. None of them were near here, not even anywhere close. I was riding my stupid bike through a strange land, and that definitely didn't seem important. I was angry with it all and I couldn't think of anything that would take that anger away, except to go home. I wanted Platoro to be a place that could take me home. I didn't really care how. I remounted my bike and dropped down a steep hill, finally emerging through the trees to a little cluster of cabins. And beyond that was more forest, just forest. Platoro was nothing more than a lodge. A remote wilderness lodge. There wasn't a bus station there. There probably wasn't even a phone. My anger bubbled to the surface until it erupted in a stream of tears because there was nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing.

P.S. You can listen to my call-in from Platoro at this link.

Central Colorado

Steamboat Springs was shrouded in thick fog when I limped outside at 5:58 a.m. The thought of sitting on my bike and turning pedals still made me cringe, so I walked my bike over to the bagel shop two blocks away. I had scouted out its hours the night before, so I was bewildered to find it was still closed. Closer inspection of the sign revealed it opened at 6 on weekdays, but not until 6:3o on Saturdays. It was Saturday. I stared longingly inside the dark window, contemplating just waiting a half hour for warm carbohydrates and coffee. But the little voice of guilt inside my head told me that if I didn't leave Steamboat right then, I was never going to.

The first miles out of the sleepy city left me in tears. I was gnawing on a Snickers bar - an unsatisfying sugar breakfast to supplement my dangerously undercaffinated blood - and my left knee hurt, it just hurt. Warm droplets streamed down my face but it didn't matter because the fog covered my whole body in dew. At least the commuters wouldn't be able to tell I was crying. But I had resolved to at least try to make it out of Steamboat. I couldn't help but draw parallels to Geoff, my now-ex-boyfriend, who really struggled as he was leaving Steamboat Springs last year in the Great Divide Race. He went back to Steamboat that day, tried to leave again the next day, and then quit the next town over, in Kremmling. I did not want to quit in Kremmling. But I wondered if I would even make it there.

The first climb of the day, Lynx Pass, was gradual with a good road, but I had to soft-pedal or walk up the first couple of miles. Every time I tried to push hard, sharp streaks of pain would push back. But as I gained elevation, my stiff knee began to loosen. It felt like the bad blood, the fluid, or whatever was causing it to swell was beginning to flush away. And as I began the descent, the joint was still sore but not unworkably stiff. The chains had been removed.

With my body happy, and my bike finally happy, I felt a new rush of excitement as I descended to the highway crossing and set out for the next rolling climb. A half mile down the dirt road, I come upon Dave Nice, who was waiting for me with a camera and a can of Pepsi. He had been traveling the Great Divide south to north from New Mexico, and I thought he was still on the route. He told me he ended his ride several days before, but he was convalescing at his parents' house, who just happened to live a few miles away, right on the route. He said he had been meeting nearly everyone as they passed through. He offered to ride with me and we forded a deep creek. Dave actually knew about a nice shallow sandbar across it, but didn't tell me about it because that would constitute outside navigational help, which is against the race rules. So after I flailed around with my bike over my shoulder in the thigh-deep water, he crossed ankle deep, laughing the whole time. We slogged through multiple patches of unrideable mud and finally ended up at his parents' house, a little oasis of kindness, where his grandma gave me Spanish rice and brownies. I rubbed ointment on my knee and pronounced myself healed.

Shortly after leaving Dave's house, I dropped down an incredibly steep, scenic road to a remote crossing of the Colorado River. I lingered at the bridge for a few minutes, watching rafts float by and thinking that if I had a raft, I could just float all the way to Mexico. The thought made me laugh at loud. That would be way too easy. I began the next steep climb with surprisingly fresh knees, strengthened by my new perspective on pain.

I gained a couple thousand feet out of the valley and then dropped right back down to the river at the Kremmling cutoff. I had been listening to my iPod since I left Radium, random shuffle, and "Wake Up" by Arcade Fire was playing when I crossed the highway. That intersection is the point where racers must decide whether to continue straight, to Kremmling, or turn right and follow the Colorado River to points unknown. Without even hesitating, I hung a hard right just as Arcade Fire was belting out the lyrics, "We’re just a million little gods causing rainstorms, turning every good thing to rust. I guess we’ll just have to adjust." My adrenaline surged and my muscles swelled. Even if it was just by yards, I had surpassed the point where Geoff ended his race last year. And we've stayed on good terms since the breakup, but I couldn't help myself. With the exception of the final pedal strokes into the border, it was the most satisfying moment of my entire trip.


I pushed late into Silverthorne and left relatively late the next morning. I was caught off guard by the sheer human traffic of the area - solid I-70 mountain town territory - and tried to temper my culture shock among throngs of Sunday walkers, hikers and recreational cyclists on their way to quaint little coffee shops and book stores. The route all the way to Breckenridge follows mostly bike paths, and also appears to intersect a heavily used road-touring route. A German couple on bicycles bulging with four loaded panniers and a BOB trailer flagged me down and grilled me in broken English about the road into Silverthorne. I couldn't understand their barrage of questions and mumbled "bike path" before slipping away.

I fought may way through wildlife-viewing crowds in Frisco only to meet the backside of a large group of walkers. As I wove through the first several dozen, I noticed many of them were wearing pink and carrying signs in support of survivors. It was a breast cancer walk. "You guys rock," I shouted as I slipped by one group. "Way to go," I said to another. I was wearing a pink breast cancer jersey myself and felt like I fit right in. But then a mile went by. Then two. And the path-blocking crowds didn't abate, they got thicker. My "you rocks" turned into guiltily terse "on your lefts," which was a pointless thing to say because nobody ever actually moved. I bounced off curbs and over grassy patches as slowly as I could handle the bike, but usually I had to stop and jog around the walkers. I felt so frustrated but I couldn't let myself be grumpy about it because it was a breast cancer walk, and these people were doing good, and I was just a non-local riding a dumb bike and I didn't deserve to be there.

The breast cancer walk ended up stretching all the way to Breckenridge, more than eight miles clogged with people. It felt so strange to be locked in a population center, which, I guess if you're going to cross an entire country, you're probably eventually going to have to go through at least one. But it was such a different feeling from the quiet solitude of the rest of the route.

The crowds continued up Boreas Pass, but they were mountain bikers, most of whom were faster than me, so at least they weren't slowing me down. The climb was the perfect combination of long and gradual; I motored along the cliffside views of Breckenridge and alpine meadows, my mood lightening with the air. It was my first time in the race over 11,000 feet - 11,400 feet to be exact - and that felt huge, coming from a cycling background that usually sticks close to sea level.

The descent off Boreas was gravelly and rough and I stayed right behind two guys on souped-up full-suspension bikes. The strong climb and swift descent were fueling almost unprecedented energy levels. I was approaching that fleeting but ideal state of being that I like to call "untouchable."

Right on schedule, thunderstorms moved in during the afternoon. I did not care. I smiled, put on my rain jacket and pants, and pedaled along the open high country as hail pelted down.

Climbs couldn't slow me. Descents couldn't faze me. I stopped in Hartsel for "rocket fuel" (ice cream sandwich and Pepsi) that I didn't even need, almost out of habit. As I was cramming the calories through a sled-dog-like excitement to just go, go, go, a couple of cyclists approached me. They said they were with a vehicle-supported group that was touring cross country to raise money for affordable housing. As we talked about our respective trips, one told me, "I can understand the mileage you're doing, but what I can't understand is not taking any rest days. How can you survive on no rest?"

I just shrugged, because I didn't know how to answer that question. But the thing I had learned since leaving Rawlins is that rest demands more rest, and movement demands more movement, and balancing the two is how we mere mortals can conquer the Divide.

Since I left Silverthorne somewhat late in the morning, I had just assumed that I wouldn't reach Salida, 115 miles away, until well after dark. But by the final climb, my body was firing so efficiently that I motored up with time to spare. I crested 10,000 feet elevation, and proceeded to lose 3,000 feet on the most jaw-dropping descent of the entire trip. The narrow road wrapped around sandstone outcroppings and cut through red-sand slopes. Without even warning, Colorado had dropped me in the Southwest, but it was a Southwest I had never before experienced - with 14,000-foot monsters surrounding hills peppered with juniper and pinion. And above all that, streams of sunlight filtered through the rain, casting heavenly beams over the foothills. As for me, I was in near-freefall, letting sheer gravity pull me toward the glistening valley below. I was so glad I had pedaled fast enough to experience it at that moment, in that light.

I rolled into Salida, grabbed a super-cheap motel room (I love the Southwest), did my most efficient stock-up ever at the 7-11, and settled into a comfy booth at a Mexican restaurant, where the waiter brought me at least 2,500 calories worth of fajitas, chips, beans, rice and root beer. I perused my maps as I wolfed it down, marveling at how great I felt, how revved up I was to keep moving, how perfectly the whole day - despite minor people traffic setbacks - had come together. I had biked 115 miles and three passes and I didn't even feel tired. I was a Divide racer at last.

P.S. The Juneau Empire did a story on my Tour Divide ride (I didn't write it). You can read it here.

Northern Colorado

The first real heat of the trip soaked into my skin as I rolled out of Rawlins at 12:30 p.m. The late hour felt like a huge setback, and I was grumpy about the fact that Steamboat Springs - 130 miles away - was now at an impossible distance to reach in a day. I was going to have to spend a night out with my bandaged freewheel and jerry-rigged brakes before I could hit up a "real" bike shop for the extensive repairs I needed. The last climbs out of Wyoming were huge and the hours moved too quickly. I resolved to ride late into the night to put myself as close to Steamboat as possible, but my heart wasn't in it. The 18-hour stop in Rawlins had initiated some kind of shutdown.

Divide racing is a fascinating example of humans turning themselves into machines by separating themselves from their own humanity. We ignore biological pleadings and powerful emotions for the simple, almost inhumane act of forward motion. Turning pedals becomes a mindless act and our bodies shift into automatic mode. I could out my head down and power up climbs without even making a decision to do so, all day long, but at the end of the night, faced with the chores of eating dinner, choosing my calories for the next day, washing my clothes and brushing my teeth, I'd be completely bewildered by the complexity of it all. Shifting back into "normal person" mode was becoming harder every day. But after 18 hours in Rawlins, with three big meals, 10 hours of sleep and several hours of intellectual collaboration with other humans, I had already started to adjust back to life on the other side. And, leaving Rawlins, I didn't want to be a Divide racer any more. I wanted to be a normal human.

The instant consequence of this desire was a powerful loneliness. I crossed the border into Slater, Colorado, and began climbing up the impossibly loose gravel of a ranch road right at sunset. My back wheel spun out every time I stood up from the saddle. The steeper pitches forced me to walk, and as I walked, the silence was maddening. I could see clouds building in the dusky sky, and sprinkles of rain were starting to fall. "Man, screw getting close to Steamboat," I thought. "I'm just going to camp."But all of the trees surrounding me were peppered with "No trespassing" signs. A sign at a cattle guard warned that private property continued for at least six miles. I looked out across the canyon, almost desperate just to see a porch light, just some evidence of humanity in the distance, but all I could see were the silhouettes of tree tops and the dim glow of my headlamp fading into a black expanse.

I churned up the hill for several more miles when I finally did see the warm glow of artificial light. I rounded a bend and saw a several log buildings; it looked like a lodge. Lights were on inside the largest building, intensely warm and inviting against the rainy, lonely night. I stopped pedaling and lingered for a few minutes, debating whether I wanted to bother whoever was inside for shelter I didn't really need. It was 10:30 at night. I shook my head and started up the road. I had pedaled about 50 yards when I head a voice say, "Jill?"

I turned my bike around and approached a woman standing at the door. "You hungry?" she asked.

"Excuse me?" I said.

"Are you hungry?" she repeated, but before I had a chance to answer, said, "Of course you're hungry. What kind of question is that? Come in!"

Wide-eyed and confused, I parked my bike and stumbled in the door as the woman beckoned me toward the kitchen. She placed a huge bowl of fruit in front of me - grapes, cherries, watermelon and mango. "I just cut that for you," she said of the mango. "It's a little soft, but they're better that way."

"How do you know who I am?" I finally asked.

The woman looked at me with a smirk as though she were both surprised at my ignorance and happy about her surprise. "Tour Divide!" she said. "I've been watching you all day. I thought you were never going to leave Rawlins."

"Neither did I," I said.

"I almost missed you, too," she said. "I just updated the site and saw your dot right on top of here, and I looked out the window and saw your headlight."

"Wow," I said. "I'm glad you did."

The woman told me her name was Kirsten. She ran the Brush Mountain Lodge and she was a huge fan of the race. She had helped out other racers in front of me, providing them with fresh fruit, meals and a bed if they needed it. She whipped up a quesedilla and chips to go with the fruit, a big glass of water and hot tea. We sat down to check out the Tour Divide standings.

"Did you know Michael Jackson died?" she asked.

I smiled. "No. No I did not."

She shook her head. "That must be so cool, really being out there like that."

She set me up in a room and asked me what time I wanted breakfast. "Um, maybe 7 a.m.?" I said.

"That sounds great to me. Those other guys all wanted breakfast at 4," she said.

I laughed. "Welcome to mid-pack! It only gets better from here."

Kirsten, just as promised, greeted me at 7 a.m. with a huge veggie omelet, toast, and coffee to my heart's desire. I was never in the mood to make morning stops, so that was actually the only hot breakfast I ate in my entire trip. It was amazing. I set out in light rain for the first pass of the day and my first foray over 10,000 feet, the Watershed Divide.

The fog thickened and the rain grew heavier as I climbed. I crested the pass in a near gray-out and started down the steep descent, where rivers of mud flowed between basketball-sized boulders. It was a hard descent to pick a good line, made even harder by the wheel-sucking mud that would have stopped my bike altogether if I wasn't plummeting down a 15-percent grade. The mud scared me more than gravity and I took it fast, pressing my butt deep into my seatpost bag, bouncing my tires of rocks and generally hanging on faith to get me down. I applied the brakes hard on a regular basis, until, at a pivotal moment as I was bouncing over a particularly gnarly rock garden, I pulled the brake levers all the way down and absolutely nothing happened.

In a split second I pulled one more time and then panicked, leaning hard to the left and bashing my left knee against a sharp rock as I skidded through a geyser of mud to a painful stop. My shoulder burned and my knee was screaming, so forcefully I was sure I could hear it, and I had to spend several minutes lying head down in the mud until I could hear something besides audible pain. When I finally stood up, the rain had resumed echoing loudly in my helmet and my knee had calmed down a bit. I tried bending it and realized it felt stiff but not broken. My rainpants had torn and I could see blood seeping through my leg warmers, but I didn't quite yet dare pull them up to inspect the damage.

I checked my brake pads. The brand new front pads that I had just barely installed the day before had worn to medal. The brake rotor and even hub were coated in a sticky black goo that I can only assume used to be the pads. They had completely disintegrated. The rear pads were worn to almost nothing, but there was a little life left in those. I adjusted the dials to their maximum setting and was able to get the back brakes to catch again, but the situation was precarious at best. I had at least six more miles of that nasty rocky descent followed by a dozen or so more miles of graded gravel descent before I finally hit pavement. I thought about walking. But the rain fell harder, the mud became stickier, my knee throbbed painfully, and I just wanted to be somewhere else. I decided to ride, said a little prayer, and held on.

By the time I reached the paved sanctuary of Clark, Colorado, I could add mild hypothermia to my list of ailments. I had been riding the back brake and inching down the route for nearly two hours, exerting almost no heat as driving rain soaked me to the bone. I stopped outside the Clark store and held a garden hose over my body like a showerhead, trying to wash away a thick, full-body layer of mud just so I could walk in the door. Inside, I ordered a big burrito and a bottomless cup of coffee, and huddled in the corner until I felt warm and brave enough to pull up my leg warmers. My knee cap was covered in road rash and fairly swollen, but not yet black and blue. It seemed like a goose egg of some sort - not horrible - but it still ached and seemed to stiffen even further as my body warmed. I could barely walk into the bathroom. "I'm totally toast," I thought. "I'll be lucky to make it to Steamboat."

Steamboat was only 20 miles away, mostly paved and mostly downhill. I couldn't face it. I just couldn't face it. It's hard to really describe how shattered I felt as I sat in the Clark store. I wasn't yet contemplating the logistics of quitting, but I couldn't fathom how I was going to ride into Steamboat. Finally, a woman came up to me with a towel and asked me if I wouldn't mind mopping up the puddles beneath me. I was terribly embarrassed, and - amusing to me now - couldn't face spending any more time in that store. Where courage fails, humiliation triumphs. I was finally back on the road, soft-pedaling into Steamboat.

By the time I reached town, it was 4 p.m. I hadn't realized how late it had gotten. I rushed to Orange Peel bike shop and asked them if they could help me. The mechanic asked if he could pencil me in for the following Wednesday. "Um," I said, my voice breaking, "I'm just passing through."

"Oh," he said. "Are you with the Tour Divide?" I nodded forlornly. He beckoned another mechanic over and they immediately lifted my bike onto a stand. Within minutes they were pulling off my bags as I filled out a form of the myriad of things I wanted done, in order of importance, knowing they only had until 6 p.m. to work on my bike: new brake caliper, rotor and pads, new freewheel, new cassette and chain, new chain rings, new cables and housing, and a new bike computer (my old one broke in the crash). I limped over to a natural foods store to stock up and assess whether I could continue on. I had only covered about 50 miles that day, but my bike was held up until at least 6 and my knee was throbbing. I finally decided it would be best just to call the day a loss and hope things improved in the morning.