John Nobile: 15 days, 1 hour, 26 minutes!

From GDR blog:

John Nobile called from Antelope Wells at 1:26 p.m. Saturday. That means he finished the Great Divide Race in 15 days, 1 hour and 26 minutes. "It was a pretty grueling day," he said. In the last 3 days, he said he slept about 2 hours and has not slept at all in the past 48 hours. "I made it. It's hot as hell down here. Glad to be here, and glad to be heading north," he said.

John's finishing time is a new record for the Great Divide Race - 2 hours, 52 minutes faster than Jay Petervary's finishing time last year.

Day 15 leader board

Click to enlarge.

Note: the official leader board is showing Simon in third place - but that's just because Rainer hadn't called in when they updated it. He's since called in from Abiquiu - still ahead of Simon.

Horca- 5pm day 15

Simon just called from a place called Horca, still in Colorado. (initially I thought he said Hawker & couldn't find it on the map, but a posted comment suggested Horca, which still isn't on any of the maps here!)

He's done 73 miles so far today, and is planning to head on over La Manga Pass when it cools down a little.

He said the ride up Indiana Pass was a real toughy, it gets to almost 12 000 feet, it was nearly a four hour climb. The air felt pretty thin & there was a lot of rolling stuff along the top.

Arrived in Platoro in time for July 4th celebration community BBQ. $12 for a pretty good feed.

The downhill out of Platoro to Horca was pretty rough, serious corrugations (as bad as the road up to David & Jennie's old place in Hawea!), quite a lot of climbing and a headwind. Not quite so much fun.

He sounded reasonably happy, but he said that was because he was standing in the shade!

The plan is to camp high tonight. He's hoping to make it to Abiquiu tomorrow. New Mexico!

Day 15 - Friday 4th July

Update from the GDR blog:

Simon called from Platoro at 1:20 p.m. Friday. He said there were a bunch of Fourth of July festivities going on in town, and he was planning to hang out and enjoy some barbecue before moving on south.

And then:

Jenn called from Platoro at 1:51 p.m. Friday amid a noisy celebration that she and Simon were enjoying. She said they ate some barbecue and were planning to head down the road. "It's not too bad a day. It's not too hot," she said.

Day 14 call-in

Simon's call-in:

• Day 14, Thursday, Del Norte 2,097 KB, MP3

He's heading for Indiana Pass, on the way to Platoro:
Just north of Indiana Pass, heading south [Source]

Day 14 - GDR blog update

From the GDR blog:

Simon called from Del Norte at 9:25 p.m. He was staying at the place of a couple he bumped into on the trail. He had a cold night on Wednesday, bivying five miles over Marshall Pass. He said he froze pedaling down the pass, so he didn't go quite as low as he'd hoped. Overnight, the temperature dropped below the specifications on his sleeping bag, so he had an unpleasant rest.

But he got up early, and "once the sun came up, it was all good."

On Thursday, a mountain lion crossed his path. He planned to get a good night's sleep before heading over Indiana Pass in the morning.

Then, later Thursday night:

Jenn called from Del Norte at 10:15 p.m. She had a rough day out of Poncho Springs. She rode about halfway up Marshall Pass, but caught a "big wall of complete exhaustion." She felt she couldn't pedal through it so she had to stop and sleep for a while. She said she had a better day Thursday, but got caught in a thunderstorm and spent an hour underneath sign boards, waiting it out. Simon passed her near the top of a climb and she was happy to see another racer. "I haven't seen anyone for five days, so that was really good." She was going to sleep for a bit and head on to Indiana Pass in the morning.

Del Norte - end of day 14

At last- a phone call from Simon!

It's been a full on few days, with no pay phones insight...

After Kremmling Simon bumped in to Mary Collier, doing the Tour Divide, she recommended going on to Breckenridge after Silverthorne- which he did, got there about 9pm Tuesday night. Took about an hour to find some accommodation though.

Wednesday he got in to Salida at about 3pm, where he stocked up on food, collected his mail drop from the post office and ran in to Carl Patten, a friend from Wellington, in the bike shop! Also at the bike shop he had to replace his custom made Ground Effect jacket that had managed to escape his "foolproof" bungy system on the back of his bike, fortunately Absolute Bikes gives a 30% discount to GDR racers.

South of Salida - climbing to Marshall Pass [Source]

Headed off from Salida by 6pm, up the long climb to Marshall Pass, at about 11 000 feet, got to the top about 9pm. Went 5 miles down the other side and camped, it was pretty cold.

Got going about 6 this morning, still really cold, but he wanted to make it to Del Norte today- tomorrow is 4th July and he wasn't sure what would be open.

Coming down the second pass this morning, going along at a fairly good clip, came around a corner and there was a mountain lion halfway across the road! A big one. Simon pulled on the anchors and as he skidded to a stop about 20 metres away the lion looked at him, and then decided to go back the way it had come in to the trees.

Descending from Marchall Pass

A thunderstorm just missed him, he could tell from a spell on the tarmac that it had been pretty wet recently. He turned off on to a dirt road and there were two vehicle tracks and one bike track. He could tell that the bike was trying to follow in the path of one of the vehicles where the soft dirt had been compressed, so he new it was pretty recent. He picked up the pace a bit and not long before the top caught up with Jenn.

Amazingly, she had his Ground Effect jacket! A guy on a motorbike had picked it up, and seeing it was a small had presumably assumed it wasn't Simon's when he passed him, had caught up to Jenn and asked if it was hers- she recognised the GE label and said she would leave it somewhere for Simon.

[Simon is using a custom made ultra-light small jacket that is tight fitting - which gives less wind resistance. PK]

When they were at the top of the pass before Del Norte a guy called Steve arrived, out for a ride. He had been cycle touring in New Zealand a while back, and in the interests of international relations offered them beds for the night. Simon has given his newly aquired jacket to Steve as koha.

Here's what the trail looks like south of Del Norte

Simon said he's been feeling fairly flat the past couple of days, but it sounds like he's been going pretty hard out. He's been very lucky with the weather, just got caught in one thunder storm after he lost his jacket, but managed to make it to a wee cabin to shelter for a while (he actually said it was quite nice being wet, cos it's been so hot). His body is holding up reasonably well, including his mind (he's glad he's got he mp3 player though) & the saddle sores are doing ok (no better, no worse).

It was good to talk to him, feels like it's been ages!