That "Other Tour"

With the downward spiral that road cycling has been suffering due to the admissions of chemical enhancements, I find that the Tour de France has lost a lot of it's appeal. Whether or not these admissions or accusations are founded in reality doesn't seem to matter. Then there is the constant bickering and chest thumping between the Pro Tour and the organizers of the Tour de France with occaisional appearances by the UCI thrown in to make things really confusing. What a circus!

I lost interest some time ago now. It's just lost any credibility with me and frankly, the sense of a simple man and machine versus time/course/competitors has been lost long ago. If we look back at the Tour's storied past. Way back to the begginings, we see something that I think made LeTour great and carried it for many years. Started as a rediculous publicity stunt for a failing newspaper, The Tour took the imagination of the people by storm with it's excruciatingly long, brutal stages taken on by men that were totally self supported. So self supported that they had to do their own repairs on their bike and had to finish the long route with the same bike as they started with. They fended for themselves for food and water, and in the remoter places of France had to carry with them what they could to survive over brutally rough country backroads and mostly unpaved dirt two track.

Hmmm.........sounds freakishly similar to another event I know of going on right now in 2007! That's right, and it's called the Great Divide Race, or "GDR" for short. It's got everything the first Tours de France had and more. Or should I say less! Less civilization, that's for sure. Bears, moose, deer, and wolves are distinct possibilities. The race isn't shut down for snowy roads, (it's already snowed on much of the main pack in this years edition) Less coverage. You won't find helicopter shots, motos whizzing by competitors, or Phil Ligget's fancy call of the action. In fact, all you can do is get periodic updates direct from the competitors and an occaisonal podcast.

This GDR thing is capturing the fancy of many mtb'ers and enduro nuts and it should be on your radar too. It's about as pure as any "tour" is ever going to get and certainly is heads and shoulders above that debacle that's about to start in Europe about two weeks from now. At least I think so. What's more is there is no money involved, no prizes, no grand parade at the end. Just a guy pulling into a spot on the U.S./New Mexico border near a small outpost town. In other words, the motives are perhaps a bit more pure in regards to the GDR.

At least I'd like to think so!