Dark Divide 300 Bikepacking Race Day 4/4

Dark Divide 300 Bikepacking Race Day 3/4

Dark Divide 300 Bikepacking Race Day 2/4

Dark Divide 300 Bikepacking Race Day 1/4

RIP my derailleur cable

We woke up at 7:25 AM feeling not very refreshed at all. After a bleary pack-up we shwacked out of the thick forest onto the road around 8:45 AM. The watts were not readily available this morning. A 6% grade on the loaded bike took me down to my granny gear. We had the crux of the ride looming ahead of us as the day started to heat up. Juniper ridge is a 11 miles of steep singletrack that would be largely hike-a-bike. The fire road climb in the sun was brutal to the extent that I was almost happy to have to start pushing my bike up sandy 20-30% singletrack just for a change. Then, the scale of our day started to set in. The slog was endless and slow. It's hard to overstate how demoralizing it is to put in my best effort but barely make it 25 miles from camp by 4PM. When we finally crested the second peak, the sun was starting to dip, and we just wanted to get past the rutted moto singletrack before we lost the light. Fortunately the trail soon gave way to one of the best paved descents I've done in my life. I don't think I hit a single pebble on the smooth pavement, and the views of Mt Adams in the evening glow were heavenly. I was finally starting to feel a bit recovered from yesterday. We rolled up to our intended bivy around 8:30 PM with a town tempting us just 25 miles down the road. This put us in the exact same situation as last night, but we had learned our lesson and threw in the towel where we were. We got to sleep around 10:00 PM with a beautiful view of the stars above the dark divide.

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Wyatt Warner

Dark Divide 300 Bikepacking Race Day 2/4

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Dark Divide 300 Bikepacking Race Day 4/4

Dark Divide 300 Bikepacking Race Day 3/4

Dark Divide 300 Bikepacking Race Day 2/4

Dark Divide 300 Bikepacking Race Day 1/4

RIP my derailleur cable

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