Worms to Catch Read online

  I’ve always been able to sleep nearly anywhere (as long as it’s not in a room with my dad), but I took that to extremes on the Tour Divide. After a few hours kipping in the ditch, I headed off towards a six-mile climb to the top of Middlewood Hill.

  Somehow I was treating the challenge of it all as much like a robot as I could, and not letting myself get too emotional one way or the other. There were just little bits of high, little bits of low, nothing extreme either way. You have to have the attitude that says, Just get on with it.

  I crossed the border into Colorado, a new state at last, and entered the village of Slater. There was a little museum and the owner, a real nice woman, had opened a shop just for Tour Divide riders. I was the first person she’d seen. I bought a load of breakfast bars, bananas and grapes and paid a donation.

  Fifteen miles later I was stuck. The route led to a river, but the bridge was down. I waded into the water to see if I could cross, but by the time it was up to my chest and flowing like hell, I knew I couldn’t. I found a house to ask someone where I could cross, and they told me that I had to go back another ten miles, then ride another past this, that and the other, and finally get across.

  I reckoned the folk behind would know the course better than me and wouldn’t have made the same mistake, so I lost a bit of time to them, but, again, I wasn’t that bothered. What could I do about it now?

  The next decent-sized town was Steamboat Springs, a dead posh place and, by the official mileage, 1,511 miles in. I scribbled a note in the back of the guidebook: ‘Started Tuesday 7. Friday 17, Steamboat 1,511 miles. Eleven days, have done 1,511. Only 1,234 to do.’ But I’d done more than the official mileage because I’d got lost and had to take official detours. It was about half-seven at night as I pedalled into the outskirts of Steamboat Springs, and all that was going through my mind was, Show me the food. I dived straight into another Subway, giving them a spike in their profits they hadn’t expected.

  The next morning I got lost again while I was trying to cross the Yampa River. I set off at four in the morning and spent the best part of two hours trying to find the right route. I’d ride to the bottom of this dam, then back up again. The Garmin let me down, because I hadn’t downloaded the maps, and it wasn’t clear that I had to ride over the top of a dam. I was kicking myself a bit.

  By half-six the same morning, Mike Hall, the race leader, caught me. He had taken three days out of me. I quickly saw that he was carrying even less than me. He was riding a Pivot LES, with 29-inch wheels and Shimano electric gears, all charged off the front hub. It was a light 16 kilograms packed with all his kit, whereas mine was 25 kilos and I’d taken next to nothing. It was his third Tour Divide. He’d done the first in 19 days, and he told me that no one could set a record on their first attempt because there’s so much you need to learn. He’s a year older than me, and he’s from Harrogate, in Yorkshire, but lives in Cardiff.

  For the next few hours I rode with Mike, and there was nothing about him that made me think he was superhuman. He was just dead calm and a bit faster than me on the climbs. I knew his packed bike weighed less, but still, he was on it.

  We passed through the towns of Radium and Kremmling, not together as in side by side, but in sight of each other. He’d pass me, then I’d pass him when he stopped to change his clothes. I spoke to him a bit, though. I told him that I’d worked out that if we were over halfway and it had taken him three days to catch me, he could pull another three days on me between now and the end. If he was on record pace – 14 days or thereabouts – I’d still finish in 20 days.

  I wasn’t surprised he’d already taken three days out of me. I’d got lost and I wasn’t in the routine, plus I wasn’t trying to set a record time, so I’d sit a bit longer having something to eat. It’s dead simple: sleep less, ride more. Well, simple to say, not simple to do. The Tour Divide is not about riding faster, just riding further, every day.

  At the end of the day I wrote another note in the book: ‘Riding with Mike made me push. I like my own company.’ I was riding hard, not hanging about, but Mike made me ride a bit harder than I felt comfortable with at that time. I look back now and part of me thinks I should’ve tried to stay with him, but it was my first time doing a ride that long so I didn’t know what pace I could keep up. It’s so important to ride at your own pace in an endurance event like this, and realise that other people might be quicker than you in different parts of the race. You could set off like hell trying to keep up with someone, not knowing that they’re going to collapse halfway through and not make the finish.

  By the time I reached the Ute Pass I was on my own again. This was another climb that peaked at 10,000 feet. The whole of Colorado is a mile or more above sea level, so these climbs weren’t from zero to 10,000 feet, but the air is still thinner when you’re at the top.

  After the descent there was another stretch of tarmac road, eight miles or so, into Silverthorne. This was another place that seemed dead posh, somewhere I can imagine that people who’ve made a load of money would buy a holiday home in the mountains. It’s not far from Vail, a Colorado ski resort I’d heard of. I like the idea of living in a place like this, but only for a minute. I know I wouldn’t like the reality of it. Still, after not seeing anyone for hours, it was a nice place to roll into as the sun was setting.

  There was a good cycle path around Dillon Reservoir, on the other side of Silverthorne. The guidebook reckoned that the reservoir supplied the water for Denver, 50 miles east, through 20 miles of tunnel.

  Breckenridge was more of the same, posh as fuck. Between these towns I was passing rare stuff all the time, like a wooden water tank that supplied the old steam locomotives, and riding through areas with names like the Arapaho National Forest. I was never bored.

  Ahead of me was the Boreas Pass, at 11,482 feet, one of the highest points of the whole Tour Divide route. I thought it would do me good to sleep up there, giving my body some altitude training while I was resting. It was Saturday night. I’m not big on going out on a Saturday night, never have been, but I’ve never had a Saturday night quite like this one. It was cold, but not cold enough to keep me awake, and I was out like a light.

  I was up and away by 3.30 for a mint section of downhill to Como, then on to Hartsel for an omelette so good I even made a note of it in my book. By the time I walked into the café at eight in the morning, I’d done 40 miles of mainly off-road riding. If I’d been sticking to what the guidebook recommended for a half-keen cyclist’s daily average mileages, I’d have just finished day 46, even though the book did say riders could probably manage more. The author had worked out these mileages so no one was stranded from somewhere to get supplies or to a campsite. As it was, I was just beginning day 13.

  My first puncture of the trip came on that day too. I hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary, just hit a sharp rock in the right, or wrong, place. It was a one-in-a-million chance, but it was going to happen because of the miles I was doing on that terrain. After all, how many million times did those wheels go round? I had tubeless tyres, so I had to take it off the bead and stick a tube in it. In all it took about ten minutes.

  In Colorado I was seeing a lot more 4x4s on the remote trails I was riding. Most of the drivers were dead polite and slowed right down. Some didn’t and kicked up a load of dust. I can’t remember exactly where it was, as a lot of the route is a blur, but I was riding through a tight spot, not much room on either side of the trail and a big drop to one side, in the middle of nowhere, when a load of Jeeps came towards me. They all slowed down and waved. I saw they had all the gear on them, winches on their front bumpers, roll cages, special tow ropes and all that, and it made me wonder, Where are those boys going?

  I didn’t think any more of it, and got on with the job of pedalling and wondering where my next milkshake was coming from. A couple of hours later I got to the summit of wherever I was, and there was a bloke there, walking on his own. I said, ‘Now mate, are you alright?’ He explained that he’d h
ad a bit of bother. He’d been out with his mates, all in 4x4s. ‘You haven’t seen them, have you?’ he asked. I told him I had and he said he was at the back, but had got proper stuck and they hadn’t noticed and had driven on without him. He was walking to try to get some signal on his phone. He wasn’t panicking, though. Then he told me that he knew the route I was taking and I’d go near the campsite they were all staying at. Could I do him a favour and drop a note off? They had a big camp set up, apparently, and I couldn’t miss it.

  He described where the camp was and wrote a note with his GPS position on a bit of paper ripped out of my notebook. He told me they were the only people on the campsite, so if I pinned the note to one of the tents, his mates could find him from that grid reference. It was two miles out of my way, but no bother.

  When I got to their campsite I rooted through all their food and drink, had some milk and biscuits, foraging like Mad Max after the bomb’s gone off. I thought I’d been right by him, going out of my way, so it was OK to help myself to a bit of grub. They had loads of food, and I didn’t take the piss.

  On the trail from Hartsel to Salida I could look out west and see a row of 14,000-foot mountain peaks, called Princeton, Harvard, Yale and Columbia, after the exclusive old universities, and another, Mount Shavano. Bloody impressive.

  After a good downhill run I reached Salida, probably the coolest town on the whole route, and home to a mega ice-cream parlour. The whole town was retro – well, not retro, just unchanged since the 1950s. Like Lincolnshire. The next climb was brutal, 12 miles up to the Marshall Pass, where three mountain ranges all met.

  After the descent from there I found a café, in Sargents, that was just closing, but the woman who ran it got the grill fired up and made me a load of chicken, bacon, cheese and everything sandwiches, wrapped in tinfoil to take with me. I was just leaving when a northbound cyclist arrived. I’d meet a good few folk riding northbound, starting off in Antelope Wells and heading north. Some were doing it that way for the same reason I set off early, to miss the crowds and do their own thing, but if you’re setting off at this time of year you mean business. You’re not really just dawdling, so we were on the same wavelength.

  He was an English teacher from Texas, who’d lived in England for ages. He asked what I did, and I told him I was a truck mechanic, like I tell everyone. He told me he’d had a few problems with the bike, but he was still doing well.

  Then a car pulled up and the bloke driving said, ‘Alright, Terry. I know who you are.’ He had been following me on the Trackleaders website. It turned out he was a journalist, Neil Beltchenko, who wrote for bikepacker.com, and he was reporting on the race. He just happened to be passing when I was there. Then more bikes turned up.

  They all knew about me not really being Terry Smith, but I didn’t know how the word had got out and I still don’t. They said it had come out of England. I hadn’t made a secret about doing the race, so I suppose if someone really wanted to find out they could have looked through the list of entrants. I explained that I was just doing the race for me, and that was why I entered under a pseudonym, but I think I might have still put my hometown as Grimsby, so it wouldn’t have taken Poirot to work out who might have been me.

  Still, I had a good craic with them, and it was the first time, other than a bit with Mike Hall, that I’d spoken about the Tour Divide with people who really knew what it was. It turns out that Neil was the most hardcore of the lot, and he held the unofficial record. The riders were impressed that I had such well-sorted kit on my first attempt at it. Neil was saying it takes years for some people to get it right.

  I packed my sandwiches into the handlebar bag and rode off thinking, That was a bloody great meeting, talking to proper Tour Divide lads. Thirty miles later I slept for a few hours at the side of the trail again and was up at four the next morning. Not far ahead were two 10,000-foot-plus passes, called Cochetopa and Carnero.

  South of La Garita I was finding it hard to stay on the trail I was supposed to be on. The out-of-date Garmin and five-year-old guidebook were limiting me a bit, but I was alright. To retell it now it could sound monotonous: pedalling, Subway sandwiches, more pedalling, getting up at 3.30 or 4, pedalling, another 10- or 11,000-foot pass to climb … the truth is, I was loving it. My arse was hurting a bit, but I was tilting my seat one notch down, then one notch up, every couple of days to take the pressure off different parts of my backside. I was sleeping naked at night, when it wasn’t too cold, and blathering on nappy-rash cream, because it’s a bit antiseptic. My arse was red raw in places, and I didn’t want to get an infection. Every morning I had to climb back into the clammy, damp Sideburn magazine T-shirt I wore for the whole trip.

  I was 20-odd miles short of New Mexico, the last state line I would cross, when I stopped for the night at Stunner Campground, north of Platoro. It was a dead nice campsite, with a cabin you could sleep in and a shed full of logs for the fire. All you had to do was get a key off the ranger, but I arrived too late and everything was deserted. I knew that if I rode on to Platoro I’d be too late for food, so I gently jimmied the lock on the campsite bogs and slept in there. They were the best bogs of the trip – there was even a candle so I had a bit of heat. It was spot on. Other than sleeping in the old-fashioned covered wagon, in Ovando, I’d slept rough every night since leaving Banff. And the wagon was the type you see in cowboy films, so it was still fairly rough.

  There was a stream to fill up my bottles with in the campsite and I left at 4.30. Just near Horca, 30 miles into the day’s ride, I saw a sign on a shop saying ‘Open at 8’. It was quarter to, so I went off for a shit in the woods and, dead on eight, I knocked on the door. A woman answered, ‘Howdy.’

  ‘Oh, I’m dead sorry,’ I said, ‘but can I just buy some stuff?’

  ‘Yeah, no problem. We’re just having a cup of coffee.’ I sat and had a cup of coffee with the family and their dogs. Again, they were the nicest folk. I told them what I was doing, bought a load of cake and set off again, feeling the fittest I had ever been.

  By now I only had about 700 miles to go and was confident that this ride was not going to break me. Other than my backside, I was in good shape, and mentally I felt the strongest ever, with not one crack.

  Less than 20 miles after my breakfast stop, I rode into New Mexico, the last US state I had to cycle through.

  A proper find, the kind of place that helped make the Tour Divide so special, was the Shack in the tiny village of Cañon Plaza. A brother and sister had opened a shack to feed riders doing the Tour Divide, but it was the mother who was keeping an eye on the tracking website today and knew that someone called Terry Smith was close by. I was 85 miles from where I’d had coffee and cake with the family and their dogs, so I was ready for food, and there wasn’t really anywhere else to eat from there to Cuba, New Mexico, 120 miles away. I had three Pot Noodles, tuna, biscuits, crisps, Gatorade – just chucking anything within reach into my gob.

  I was still stuffed four miles later when I rode through Vallecitos, also known as Dog Alley, because it’s where the stray dogs go mad chasing riders. I thought they were going to rip my calf muscles off, they were going so mental.

  I slept in a farmyard near El Rito and was up again at four and into another hard day of climbing. On the far side of Abiquiú I could see Cerro Pedernal, a mesa, the kind of flat-topped mountain with steep sides you see in cowboy films or adverts for Marlboro cigarettes. I picked up another two punctures, which, along with the amount of climbing, meant that it took eight hours to ride from Abiquiú (pronounced Ab-uh-queue) to Cuba, even though it was only about 80 miles. The book recommended covering the distance between the two towns in two days, with the first day being only 23 miles of riding. It said: ‘Today’s mileage may appear short, but the effort expended to make those 23.2 miles will be considerable.’ I’d been riding before the eight hours for this stretch, and I was still riding long after.

  I bought some extra inner tubes in Cuba, because I was out of spares and the
slits in my tubes were so big I couldn’t repair them. The new tubes weren’t the right size, so I hoped I wouldn’t have to use them, because it would be a struggle. Luckily, I didn’t get another flat.

  The scenery was half-desert, half-forest, and dry with no mud – or no mud when I was going through, anyway. When it’s wet it’s supposed to be horrible. The scenery was not quite as beautiful as Montana, but still nice – mountains and low trees nearly as far as the eye could see.

  In Cuba, I was weighing up what to do and where to stay. This was the biggest part of the strategy for the Tour Divide, knowing when to stop so you’re passing places that sell food and drink when they’re open. It never entered my head that I’d have to plan like that before I started the ride, but I learned pretty quickly.

  The tailwind out of Cuba was mega. I’d had days with bad headwind, and it had been a real slog, but this was the other side of the coin and I was doing 30 mph for about three hours, making hay while the sun shone. If it’s good, just keep going.

  The wind started to turn at about 11 at night, the time I usually packed in riding for the day, so it made sense to stop. My lights were run off a dynamo in the hub, a dead clever thing, but as soon as I stopped pedalling it was pitch black. I took my head torch off the handlebars, and clicked it on to have a look around as I decided where I was going to camp for the night. It was all sandy with plenty of cacti, so I found a fairly clear patch, kicked some rocks out of the way and thought to myself, This will have to do. As soon as I turned off my torch a light came on, shining right at me, and a man’s voice asked what I was doing. I thought, Fuck! What’s this? I told the voice I was just having forty winks. Then he said, ‘You don’t want to sleep here,’ and then I’m sure he added, ‘There’s a Bigfoot about.’