Aidan Harding

Category: biking

  • My Tour Divide in Pictures

    My pictures with slight commentary. Mostly taken when riding with Josh (hence not much after Silverthorne):

    Robin shows me around his local singletrack in a Banff shakedown ride.

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    Josh pushing through snow on the Whitefish reroute. I think it was over 10 miles of snow, but at least it was well packed and we could chat along the way.

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    LONG train on a beautiful misty morning at a level crossing in Montana.

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    Taking water from a good-looking source. I like to be choosy over where I take it from and drink it untreated wherever possible.

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    There was an extra reroute around this flooded road, but we couldn’t understand the directions and just went straight through the water. Josh was pushing in an attempt to preserve his bike. I just rode through like a buffoon (with dry feet!).

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    Zooming down towards Polaris with Parker and Rob (the Georgia boys).

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    Looking back towards the sunset as we finish off Montana with a 180 mile day.

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    After the rail trail in Idaho, some well-earned nice trail.

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    The Divide Basin is one of the first big, remote stretches. But don’t get cocky… once you finish the off-road, you’re faced with this flat road, and then another Divide crossing before you reach Rawlins. One of the most mentally taxing sections when it comes at the end of an already big day.

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    A couple of pictures of a serious land-slip on the road going from Wyoming into Colorado.

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    We pushed on past Steamboat Springs to avoid the gravity and cost of a hotel room. Unfortunately, drizzle became rain and I set my bivi bag next to Josh’s tent sort-of under some trees.

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    Getting my frame repaired at Kent Eriksen’s workshop (Kent in the green t-shirt).

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    The result of the repair: new welding along the crack, and an extra strut between the chainstay and seatstay.

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    The final road to Antelope Wells. Not much fun on a singlespeed and passing this mountain is about the only thing that happens in 65 miles.

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    They are constructing a new building at Antelope Wells. That meant there were some workers there instead of the usual emptiness. And that meant, they happily gave me food and beers to celebrate the end of my ride. True Zuni Indian hospitality.

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    Everyone has to take this picture 🙂

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  • Tour Divide Decompression Begins

    It’s all over and I came in 6th place. I’m currently staying at Jamie’s house (Jamie seems to know everyone in Silver City) along with Kurt Refsnider. It’s a very nice place to be hanging out post-event. There are all kinds of thoughts, pictures and words to get out there. First, something that I spent a lot of time pondering in the second half of the event:

    When I had problems with my frame, I was in 4th place. To get it fixed, though, I had to get a bus from Silverthorne, Colorado to Steamboat Springs. Having found the problem the night before, I didn’t get to Steamboat until about 4pm. The clock was ticking. Fortunately, some of the best Titanium welders in the world live in Steamboat and Kent Eriksen made time to repair my bike as soon as I arrived. Fantastic, I was back on the road.

    Race rules and allow you to travel back up the route in a vehicle, but forward movement must be under your own power. Since I had already ridden the route to Silverthorne, I could pedal the road but it still left me with 87 miles to cover and a nearly 3000ft climb on the way out of town. I had to get on with it, though, I wanted to sleep in or near Silverthorne and be just one day behind.

    As I rode along in the dark, I had my head light on, a flashing rear light and reflectives on my jacket, shoes, and leg-warmers. Nonetheless, I was stopped by a local Sheriff. He told me that reflectors were required in the US and he was concerned about my safety. So he drove me to the county line – It was kind of tense inside his car. I was overheating after the cool of the night and he seemed pretty humourless. When he dropped me off, I tried not to hum anything from The Dukes of Hazzard.

    It was otherwise uneventful. I slept in a rest area, and got up in the morning to make Salida. I was pounding out the miles and trying to figure out why cruising wasn’t enough. The race for 1st was beyond me, and my chase was pointless. But Divide racing as a whole is pointless unless you put your body and soul into it. Only then is it elevated from just being a long ride into being something that can change and inspire you. So I had no choice other than to ride with everything I had.

    Had I not had problems, I would have attacked that hard then anyway. Until that point, I hadn’t felt physically ready to kick on hard. And the terrain of the re-routes didn’t favour me. I like mountains, and obvious challenges. I can get disheartened when there’s nothing to deal with. Looking at how it panned out, I may have given Ethan a real push for 3rd place if it hadn’t have been for the delays. Who knows how he, Rob, and Parker would have responded. We’ll never know.

    I must pay a massive tribute to Kurt and Jefe, and Ethan for pushing the boundaries of what is possible on The Divide. Their stamina and determination are an inspiration. All credit to Rob and Parker too, for a fine ride in their first multi-day race. They claimed to be no good at toughing it out – you’re not fooling anyone. Best of luck to everyone still on the course. I hope the NM fire diversions don’t take too much away from you.

  • Good bye Canada roll on Wyoming

    So everyone has started the tour divide and with diversions to the normal route due to snow and floods they are all doing well.  Aidan is storming along and doing really well.  Whilst I am writing this, it appears that Aidan has bivvied for the evening with a guy called Robert Gianni just alongside the trail at Henry’s Lake.  This means that with 6 days of riding Aidan has covered a Whopping 917 miles!  Amazing!  This is averaging 153 miles/day.  That is pretty much commuting from London-Wales everyday.

    I haven’t really heard from Aidan to know how he is feeling or finding the trail but he seems to have the strategy of eating and sleeping well and he appears to have had no mechanical issues.  Currently he is in 5th place and the front runners have been napping for only about 4 hours/night.  There is a lot of speculation on the tour divide forum as to whether or not these riders can keep going with that game plan.  Aidan gets stronger as these rides go on, I think we are going to see him start closing the gap, how exciting! Tomorrow we should see him enter Wyoming so keep your fingers crossed and keep pushing him on, I will update you in a few days time or if I hear from him before then.

  • Unwise Training

    Possibly not the best formed words ever, written on a phone in a coffee shop:

    On Saturday, I went for what could be considered an unwise training ride. 5.5 hours of Surrey Hills singletrack in warm temperatures with all my Tour Divide gear on the bike. Probably 50 odd miles, but my GPS fell off and it was a few miles to recover it so I can’t be sure. What made it different from the normal was that I deliberately pared things down to 1.5L of water and no food in that time. Quite a lot like times when I got caught out on the Divide.

    To know the effect is interesting. I was just reminding myself that I could do this, but it was still tough. The legs kept going but the mind went on a little trip. I kept forgetting where I was and I was riding without being conscious of it. Often riding OK, but my only thoughts were of Coke and burritos, not of roots and corners. Drink became a complete obsession and I could feel my body compensating: less sweat, less energy going into the riding, but still going forward.

    It’s not a great way to train the body (I was pretty trashed the next day) but getting past the imagined barriers is a good way to train the mind. People are way tougher than we think we are.

  • Getting the right attitude

    The Tour Divide is approaching (starts on June 10) and it’s slipping into just about every thought these days. Getting the kit right. Organising logistics for before and after the race. Figuring out the navigation. Training. Fretting. It’s pretty consuming, but that’s half of the fun.

    The Divide this year is quite a different prospect for me than anything that has gone before. The only reason to revisit it is to go fast. Yes, there are all kinds of great things on the trail and great people to meet. But if the primary reason was not racing, I could go on a different trip. I could see new people, new places.

    So, if the only reason to go back is to improve on last year’s performance, the whole mentality is different. Nature will play its hand and records may be put out of reach by snow, fire, or a hundred other factors so “improvement” means an improved placing. So, now I’m down to beating other people. Or as I would prefer to think of it, finishing in front of other people. I don’t want to negatively defeat them but, instead, to see the best man (or woman) win. The hope is that I’ve done enough to be that best man.

    I feel fitter than I’ve ever been. 95 miles of hills and singletrack was a mere 8.5 hours at the weekend and didn’t leave me too beaten up. Last week I ran further and faster than I ever have before (objectively not that amazing, but 8 miles in an hour is good for me!). And then last night, as on a number of occasions recently, I absolutely flew on a 2 hour ride. The numbers from the power meter on my turbo trainer are also higher than I have ever managed before.

    Now, I haven’t ridden with some of my quicker friends recently (you know the type, elite XC racers… sickeningly fast) but there’s no arguing with where I am relative to my past self.

    So it all looks good to make better progress than last year.

    My equipment is also way nicer. The Singular Pegasus is lighter, more comfortable, and even more fun to ride than the Swift was last year. I’ve managed to get some brilliant Maxxis tyres to start with, minimising the chance of another early tyre failure. I’ve got a lighter drivetrain from Velosolo, and ceramic bearings in my Hope BB. A Hope light could turn out to be a crucial factor, expanding the options for riding at night by providing real brightness from AA batteries.

    But what of the other racers? Well, I just try not to think about them too much. Judging from history, many people will leave the race in the first week. Some people are going to be mighty fast. But, I’m not going to make one mistake that I made at the Iditarod: I was 2nd to Jay Petervary in my head before we even started. He probably had the better legs anyway, but expecting nothing more than 2nd was no way to race. I don’t disrespect the other riders out there, I just intend to keep them as an unknown quantity until we are slugging it out in the second half of the race.

    So that’s the “plan”: Grab the bull by the horns and go hard in the race. No fear about burning out. No worries about riding the whole darn thing by myself if that’s what it takes. Be nice to the people on the trail, but tough on the miles that make it.

  • How running has helped my biking

    For the longest time, I believed that running was the tool of the devil. It was boring and painful and why would anyone do it when you could instead be mountain biking. After all, mountain biking is the best of all sports.

    In 2006, running did me a lot of physical harm but ended up being a force for good. One sunny bank-holiday afternoon, I was biked-out from riding on Saturday and planning to ride on Monday. So on the Sunday, I went out and ran. Unfortunately, I far exceeded what my knees were ready for: I pounded out 10km with zero training, and did it on rock-hard off-road trails. A knee-surgery later, I had done no biking in months. It was horrible to lose the ability to exercise – I even bought an X-Box during that period. In the end, though, it was a life-win as I got into swimming again, then into open water swimming, and that was how I met Emily.

    I held a grudge against running, though. Which was a little unfair. A bit like going teetotal after drinking a whole crate of beer. In more recent times, I’ve dipped my toe back into running. Building up slowly, and actually enjoying it. The simplicity of just sticking on a pair of trainers and setting off from my front door is a fantastic, accessible activity. Since I’m not very good at it, I’m still on the steep curve of improving performance, which is very satisfying. And this measured approach is actually improving the stability of my knees.

    I forced myself to move from a pounding heel-strike style, to landing more lightly on the ball of my foot. It took some sore calf muscles to get there, but now I can do a better job of absorbing the shock of landing. This has helped with hill-walking, biking and generally having a more balanced body.

  • Pegasus is here!

    Until now, I have never ridden a Pegasus because I was scared that, once I had, there was no going back. So I didn’t really know the potential of the frame that I picked up more than 10 days ago.

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    Which was a good thing. Mail-order companies’ failures meant that I ended up having to go begging around on Twitter to get the final part I needed. And the first weekend I had the Pegasus was spent on the turbo trainer.

    Mark Goldie sorted me out though (thanks!), and Saturday was my first ride. A few hours at a relaxed pace with lots of photo stops – it was a good way to ease back into riding something other than a loaded snow bike. My new bike was great to look at and light to pick up, but not yet setting my world on fire. There was a slight rattle from the front and a big rattle from the back. Frequently, I would stare at my rigid singlespeed, wondering what the heck could be loose when there’s hardly anything there in the first place. It blitzed up hills, but the slightest bump of a root would knock my confidence with horrible noises and mask any feel I had for the trail underneath me. I had to figure out what was going on.

    I was mystified about the rattling in the rear, but I had a good idea what was causing it up-front: I have often killed headset bearings by over-tightening them, so these days I tend to go too far the other way. On my second ride, I tightened the headset… And suddenly, my riding world changed.

    Not only could I dance up climbs, but I could sing through singletrack so lightly that it felt there would be no end to the speed. It isn’t just like the Swift has lost weight, it’s taken up running, boxing, and yoga too. It’s lighter, angrier, and more agile. The Pegasus has been giving me a very pure and outstandingly fast ride. It flatters me when I do well and leaves no excuses when I do not-so-well.

    I’ve done over 100 miles on it in the week that it’s been built up and it has been fantastic! Bring on the SDW single-crossing tomorrow!

  • The Yukon

    I have removed this post as a version of it will probably be appearing in The Ride Journal later this year. More thoughts on the Iditarod to come, though, including getting lost on the sea ice and competing with Jay on the run-in!

  • The first ever single speeder to Nome

    Well Aidan made it!  He was head to head with Jay and gave us a very exciting finish as it was close between them to the end.  Aidan came in 2nd  in an amazing time of  17 days 9 hours and 15 minutes.  He has become the first ever single speeder to successfully make it to Nome and he has completed the 1100 miles race 5 days quicker than the former record of 22 days.

    When I spoke to Aidan, he was happy to have finished, he was eating like a horse and felt ok.  He told me that the winner of the race the year before had gone out on his snow machine to see who was leading the last leg.  He saw that Jay was in the lead by about 1 hour.  When Aidan heard this he realised that Jay would reach Nome first so he decided to kick back a bit and enjoy the last part of an amazing journey, he met people to chat to on his way in and cruised into Nome late Wednesday evening.

    He is now back in Anchorage catching up with himself, Bill, Kathi and other people he knows.   I will be flying out on Tuesday as we are going to travel around Alaska together in a car, not a bike to see the sights and to enjoy it from a different angle!

    I am sure you will get a much more detailed and accurate account from the Champion himself soon.

    Until then…… Three cheers for Aidan, hip hip hurray, hip hip hurray, hip hip hurray!

    Well done Aidan, you did an amazing job, we are all really proud of you!

  • It is getting exciting!

    So I left it last time that I had hoped to hear from Aidan the next day at Kaltag.  I in fact got a call from him that night, he was in good spirits and making brilliant progress.  I got another phone call last night as he had reached Elim and was pushing onto Golovin for the night.  At that point Aidan was ahead of Jay Petervary and the race was certainly on.  Jay and his wife Tracy have parted company, therefore sending a clear message that he was intending to up the pace to the finish.  Aidan has accepted the challenge and is pushing on hard.  At the moment I have butterflies in my tummy as Jay reached White mountain 1 hour ahead of Aidan but with 3 hours less rest than Aidan has taken, they are now on the trail for the final 70 miles!

    This race is going to be over by the time we open our eyes in the morning (UK time),  Bill the race organiser thinks they will finish in 3-4 hours of me typing this entry.

    All three of them, Aidan, Jay and Tracy are going to smash the existing southern route record of 22 days by miles as it will be 17 days if all goes to plan!  Amazing!

    Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed and keep urging Aidan on not only to become the first single speeder to Complete this magnificent ultra endurance event but also to be the one with his name behind the new set record!

    Go on Aidan go!!!