The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
The mack-daddy of long-distance unsupported races sees a strong local showing this year
Every year near the beginning of June a small band of long-distance mountain bikers heads to Banff, Alberta to kick off the annual Tour Divide mountain bike race, an unsupported ultra-cycling event running the length of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route from Banff down to Antelope Wells, N.M.
This year the race saw three Gunnison Valley residents, Ethan Passant and Josh Shifferly of Crested Butte and Jefe Branham of Gunnison, lining up at the “Grand Depart” of the race on June 10.
The three quickly distinguished themselves as some of the top contenders of the race, as recorded remotely via SPOT Trackers that each racer uses to help race followers and organizers keep track of the relative whereabouts of the participants.
As of press time, approximately 3 p.m. on Wednesday, June 22, Kurt Refsnider of Boulder, Colo. was in first place in with Jefe Branham right up there with him. They were south of the New Mexico border.
From the look of the time signatures on their SPOT Trackers, they were probably buying groceries together. Passant, in third place, spent Monday night at Sargent’s on the west side of Monarch Pass and by noon was crushing out the miles somewhere near Cochetopa Dome, after having arisen around 5 a.m. By Wednesday he was closing in on New Mexico as well. Shifferly, having spent the night in Dillon, Colo., was doing the long lonely time-trial through South Park, well on his way to hitting Salida by evening. He was in fifth place as of Wednesday. At their current paces, these riders should be finishing the race sometime around June 25.
For more information about the Tour Divide and the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, go to www.tourdivide.org. Up to the minute results can be found at www.tourdivide.org/leaderboard. Additionally, riders often call in from the road and their recordings about their experiences during the race are posted at www.mtbcast.com.
