Tackling the Rockies on a Single Speed Bike

June 22, 2010 - 5:39am
in

Imagine an off-road mountain bike race that begins in Canada near the US-Canadian border, follows the Rocky Mountain range through the continental US and ends along the US-Mexican border. Racers must navigate treacherous scree covered slopes, snow covered mountain passes, grizzly infested wilderness, huge swaths of desert and all types of other unimaginable terrain in between. Now, imagine doing this on a single-speed bike.

Kent “Mountain Turtle” Peterson, an intrepid bike shop manager from the town of Issaquah near Seattle in the US, is doing exactly this at this very moment in the Tour Divide Mountain Bike Race , which kicked off on June 11 in Banff, Alberta, Canada. Kent wrote a nice poem about the red Dahon Curve D3 that he rides to work and he graciously agreed to let us reprint it in our 2009 product catalog. When not writing cute poems, he’s out riding super endurance mountain bike races on single-speed bikes.

The Tour Divide follows the 4,418 km (2,745 miles) route laid out by the Adventure Cycling Association’s Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. This is Kent’s second race along the spine of the Rockies, with the first being in 2005 in the Great Divide Mountain Bike Race. During that race, he set a course record for a single-speed bike, having completed the course in 22 days. This time, Kent is out to reclaim his record, which was broken in 2009. The time to beat is 19 days.

We wish Kent all the best in this great endeavor. You can follow the position of all the racers in this year’s Tour Divide in real time from their website .

Comments

He was riding a real mountain

Submitted by Anonymous on June 29, 2010 - 10:21am.

He was riding a real mountain bike in the Tour Divide race, a singlespeed with 29-inch wheels. The headline and photo may make it seem like he was racing the little Dahon, but the text of the story says he just enjoys riding the folder to work.

BTW, here’s a link to Kent’s blog, including the scoop on how the race turned out: http://kentsbike.blogspot.com

why?

Submitted by midtoad (not verified) on June 22, 2010 - 5:41pm.

I own a Dahon Presto Lite single-speed with 16” wheels, and while I’ve ridden it on 4 continents, I don’t think I’d choose it for an off-road tour in the Rockies. I think the 16” wheels are just too small to make for a comfortable ride on rough ground.

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