Alex Baker is setting his sights on The Tour Divide Mountain Bike route
Alex Baker has taken on the challenge of The Tour Divide next year, plenty of time to get himself into shape then! Here’s a bit about him and hopefully we’ll be following his training as he gears up for some long days next June. All images courtesy of Joe Cruz.
The sun beat down on my back as I tried to winch my self up the hill to catch my friends. My legs burned from the effort as I mashed on the pedals to keep the bike moving forward. I was less than a quarter of the way up the climb and I was finished, with a sense of failure and shame I dismounted and pushed the bike slowly up the hill towards the summit. My name is Alex, I am 10 years old, and I am hopeless at cycling, defeated by the hill outside my front door.
Next June I will be counting down to midday in the New Mexico desert next to a concrete boarder post (Staff:2) so I can race 2,796 miles across the Rocky Mountains to Banff over the border in Canada. I will be on my own and carrying all I need on the bike for 27days of riding over 100miles a day. Every day. The Tour Divide is penned as the world’s toughest mountain bike race and while the miles will be a challenge it is the loneliness that terrifies me and that is the part that will be the hardest to train for.
My cycling history progressed form a 24” wheeled, 5 speed racing bike to a BMX and on to a mountain bike. With the MTB came short cross country races that were popular in the 90’s It also turned out that I sucked at 1.5hrs racing in circles against the race whippets even if I shared their build. Why didn’t my legs learn to turn the pedals fast and hard like the other races? Despondent with the racing I went back to what I liked about cycling – the ability to explore and have fun.
In 2007 I signed up for a 9 day MTB race in India. I wanted to find out if I could ride up to 100km a day in the mountains for 9 days straight. The chance to eat curry for 3 meals a day, everyday appealed as well. I trained as much as I could which mainly consisted with trying to keep up with the fast guys in the local mountain bike club in the rolling Cotswold hills. I also started to plan what kit I needed with me. My love affair with the digital kitchen scales can be traced back to this point.
So 3 years later I am sitting in front of the laptop planning the craziest trip yet. The fitness, navigation, equipment, mental preparation all have to come together on the 10th June next year if I am to have a hope in hells chance on the long trip north. I might just surprise myself.
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