Now then, here's my response . . .

In the early 1990s, a guy named Prentice Steffen, an emergency room physician at St. Mary’s Medical Center in San Francisco, left his day job to work with a newly formed cycling team. The new squad was mostly a group of disbanded members from the Subaru-Montgomery road racing team looking for work, and in 1996, they caught a lucky break: a slot for a U.S. team needed to be filled in the European pro peloton.

That year, those nine rookies to “the show” were demoralized by their European counterparts, and Dr. Steffen recalls how much they suffered, especially during the Tour de Suisse: “For one tough mountain stage, I was in the second team car, covering our guys who were dropped . . . My job was to jump out of the car and push [them] as far as I could. It was against the rules, but [they] had nothing left. After pushing [them] for a bit I would stop, jump back in the car, drive ahead, and I’d be ready to push [them] again as [they] came by. I kept that up for as long as I could, and man, I got a serious workout that day.”

This was the U.S. Postal Service’s first year on the European scene: nine started the 1996 Tour de Suisse, and only three finished (Darren Baker, Andy Hampsten, and Marty Jemison).

Nobody—pro, amateur, or weekend warrior—is naturally capable of handling the agony of racing a grand tour flat-out on their first attempt, and certainly not the Tour Divide Race. (If I remember right, didn’t it take Matthew Lee thirty days to finish his first-go?).

I will say that the growing pains of the TDR are becoming eerily similar to the Tour de France. In 1903, Henry Desgrange—who came up with the Tour de France to sell more copies of his newspaper, Le’Auto—had only fifteen brave souls enter. About all of these poor dumb bastards were unemployed and would somehow have to cough up the cost of the inaugural Tour out of their own pockets, just like a modern-day Tour Divider. So what did Desgrange do to attract more riders? Simple. He changed the date of the start! July 1st coincided with the completion of planting season, as most adventurous riders couldn’t afford to take off work from their fields and factories. Desgrange also upped the ante and chipped in compensation, covering riders’ expenses for what they’d be paid in their factory jobs. By the start of July 1st, 1903, nearly 80 riders had signed up.

It seems that for years, the TDR has kept a lid on itself until the recent success of the documentary Ride the Divide and Paul Howard’s memoir. More people are throwing their name in the hat because technology and word-of-mouth is getting it out there, and I don’t think it’s because people are doing it for a “party ride.”

Over the past several weeks, through email, I’ve become acquainted with the other riders from Texas who have signed up for this year’s Tour Divide Race (I'm voicing this on my own, and I hope they'll let me speak on their behalf, as well as any other "groups" from other states or countries). I assure you that we didn’t get drunk over a keg, throw up a toast and proclaim, “Let’s do this for the hell of it!” We do not actually know each other, and heaven forbid, have not done any convincing to drag another poor soul into Hell (er, well, in our case, the Arctic!). We all work for a living, have spent valuable chunks of time from our savings accounts and vacation calendars to attempt this thing, and for absolutely no prize or compensation at the end, if we make it. For us, it’s anything besides a rolling party.

And since “social impacts” have come up, I think no matter how the TDR grows, how can it harm the U.S. Forest Service, which is in dire need of revenue? And considering the state of our wrecked economy, I can't imagine shop owners complaining about us leaving a trail of lettuce along the way when they know we're going to fork over lots of it to keep ourselves alive, especially since oil is at record highs and most families will be keeping their SUVs parked this summer, as oil is predicted to climb higher still.

Some years ago, I watched black and white footage of Eddy Merckx in a late 60’ish, maybe very early 70’ish Tour. During each day’s stage, the peloton would collaboratively decide upon a village as a feed zone, and when they rolled into town, dismounted, and clip-clopped into the shops, the owners were honored, some to the point of weeping. It was a reverent act for the riders to ransack the joint, cramming loaves of bread, meat, and cheese down the front of their jerseys and stuffing bottles of wine in their rear pockets, replacing water bottles.

Who knows what the Tour Divide Race will morph itself into within the coming years. Maybe decades from now, those of us pioneering this thing will end up as one of those black & white posters with spare tires around our necks, toting bottles of wine and French loaves in our jerseys, and lighting cigarettes for our suffering comrades. Even those primitive Tour riders who Norman Maclean, the famous Montana native, would say “were as tough as their axe handles,” didn’t take themselves too seriously.