Great Divide Route and Race

During the evening my ankle got worse and worse. Over night I was thinking of improvising a brace and fix it up with duct tap. But when I woke up in the morning and moved my left foot I let go on these plans, the situation was hopeless.

A day or so of rest wouldn't be good enough to fix my Achilles, so I had no choice but to call in and quit the race. But the hardest was yet to come, when my new buddies were to take off I waved them good bye with tears in my eyes.

Getting home

The next problem was to figure out logistics for getting back home. But this turned out to be easy. The inn keeper's daughter gave me a lift to Missoula, MT, where I rented a mini van, got back to the inn, through all my stuff in the back and took off for a 3 day journey back to San Francisco. Day 1 I did a little detour practicing motor tourism through Glacier Nation taking photos from the car and such. Day 2 was occupied with the North South passage of Idaho with Lewis and Clark history and the discovery of an interesting looking bike trail: Weiser River Trail. Day 3 was just wrapping up things by speeding along Hwy 80 through Nevada and California.

What's next

I'm still puzzled of what happened: I never ever had any Achilles problems. Here's my theory: I obviously had saddle problems. My butt burned so badly that I think I moved into awkward positions which put the extra burden on the Achilles heel and pushed it over the edge.

In the aftermath, I believe my seat was all wrong. The pleather was sticking to the pants moving a good chunk of the friction to the pants-skin interface instead of keeping between seat and pants. I think I will try out a carbon seat.

The bike itself was doing fine, but for the next time I will use a different rack, better balance weight between front and back, reduce weight, no panniers, and add aerobars.

On my long drive home, I was thinking of some good training rides throughout the year. I already put together a 800 mile Northern California Loop. And I may add Southern California Route which I could do over Thanksgiving or during the Christmas break.