“Brutally beautiful” was the phrase Kevin Hall used to describe the new Flathead Valley section of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, a trail that follows the Continental Divide from Banff, Canada to the Mexican border.
But just as Hall wound his way back towards civilization near the Canadian border on the evening of his third day of riding, the path he had planned to follow all the way to Antelope Wells, New Mexico left him brutally bruised.
“The ride was going pretty well, my spirits were high and then BAM!” said Hall, 45, from his home in Versailles.
He had suffered a tumble off his bike, injuring his shoulder and knee and mangling the front rim of his ride, after negotiating the most difficult portion of the 2,745-mile trail in the Canadian Wilderness.
“I didn’t negotiate the last turn of that pass,” he said on his signoff posted on the 2009 Tour Divide Blog. “I went head over heels on my handlebars.”
Hall, a teacher and track coach at Franklin County High School, flew out of Louisville on June 11 to take part in one of the most challenging mountain bike races in the world, the Tour Divide, a single-stage time trial crossing two countries and five states.
The race began the morning of June 12 from Banff and will continue until approximately mid-July when the 40 other participants near the trail’s south end.
Hall participated in the race last year, logging 350 miles before packing up because of time constraints. His goal was to complete the entire route this time, but the wreck forced him to fly home after hitching a ride to Kalispell, Mont., only 250 miles into the trail.
“I never thought I would ever wipe out, but it just happened,” he said.
“I just said there’s no way I can go 2,500 miles on half a right knee and a beat up shoulder.”
The portion of dirt trail that ended Hall’s journey was 65 miles of pavement last year. The 105-mile reroute was made to traverse one of the most isolated and bountiful ecosystems in North America, the Flathead Valley, an area famous for its wildlife populations and natural beauty.
“It is beautiful,” Hall said. “I saw Bighorn Sheep, Grizzlies, snow rabbits.”
As easy as the landscape was on the eyes, Hall said, the terrain was just as unforgiving. Snowmelt and runoff made the trail “nearly impassable” at times as the cyclists were forced to trek through icy-cold water. In another section of the new route,
Hall said racers had to carry their bikes one and a half miles to the top of a peak on a slippery climb before descending at speeds exceeding 40 mph.
“It was worth it once you got to the top,” Hall said. “Once you hit the peak of it, this was almost just grip the handlebars and here you go...”
At the start line, Hall said the group of North American and European adventure cyclists made interesting company holed up in tight quarters before the event.
“It was cool,” he said. “A couple of the guys didn’t speak English.”
Matthew Lee, who won the Tour Divide last year after completing the race in 19 days and 12 hours, currently holds about a 50-mile lead as the pack nears the Idaho-Wyoming portion of the route.
“He said last year he did the whole thing by memory,” Hall said. “I mean, there are hundreds of turns on the route.”
Arriving home Tuesday afternoon bruised but not broken, Hall said he would follow the rest of the race online (www.tourdivide.org) as he plots another way to attack the alluring beast.
“It’s kind of become a personal quest,” he said.