WINNERS and SCRATCHERS


Winners and scratchers all happening in significant numbers since my last blog. On June 23, 2023 these three reached their goal on the 2745 mile race on the extreme continental divide route. 

Note-  the great throw together podium. 

 



FIRST WINNERS

Ulrich (Uba) Bartholmoes from Germany finishing first in the 2023 Tour Divide with a time of just 14 days, 3 hours and 23 minutes, making the second-fastest time ever recorded. 

Followed by Justinas Leveika from Lithuania who finished second at a time of 14 days, 16 hours, and 57 minutes and Joe Nation from New Zealand takes third place. 

(The men's record still belongs to the legendary late British rider Mike Hall, who finished in 13 days, 22 hours, and 51 mintutes.) Sadly Mike was struck and killed instantly by a car on an inaugural 5000km Indian Pacific Wheel Race across Australia on March 31 in 2017. 

We chuckled looking at the photo of Justinas. It's obvious in his outfit that he did what Tim spoke of doing. You need that something to wear on the plane home because you would have holes worn through your bike shorts and smell badly. So a trip to the Goodwill store would be in order. Looks like he took a liking to the all American beach attire. 

The other day our friend Doug who only sleeps when Dave sleeps, pre-guesses where and what he might eat and what it looks like where he sleeps and who will ride daily to put his head and muscles in sync with Dave at his home in McKenzie B.C. began texting me with urgency. He was texting with big "oh no's" saying you have to call Dave- call his wife..... he's going the wrong way, he's going downhill!! The problem with calling would be an elimination for Dave as it would be considered outside support. Something everyone is very careful about in this race. By the time I got online to look at Dave's track he had already corrected it and was headed back uphill. He was at high altitude too so if he had not caught it when he did he could have lost a lot of time going fast downhill. His GPS does have a warning beeper if you get off route so thank goodness it worked, or he felt something was wrong. After zooming in on the route at that point I can see it would have been an easy visual mistake. 

Dave is doing amazing. Almost done with Colorado, next state New Mexico, the last one. Someone said this race was made for him. He's endured just few normal (and some not) wear and tear issues on bike and body but nothing is stopping him now. Take a look at how far he's come and how far he has to go. The heat will be on now. I think this will be a very difficult time from what I've seen in the videos of past racers. Tim also pointed out that where he is right now there doesn't seem to be very many options for buying food. This would mean finding something that can sustain life under these extreme circumstances for the next day or two till he can reload. 

FYI- Lael Wilcox the women's record holder has completed her race 1 day and 15 hours ago.  I need to now deep dive online to learn how that compares with her previous record. 

In the next week will likely see a photo of Dave stepping up on the funky podium. Last I checked there were only three Canadians left in the race. 

Stay tuned! 


FOLLOW DAVE RUTLEDGE

http://trackleaders.com/tourdivide23i.php?name=Dave_Rutledge


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