Tour Divide: Day 21

by Felix Wong | 03 Jul 2008

Ride time: 8:45 a.m.-7:00 p.m. (10.3 hours)
Miles ridden: 54 on-course + 2 off-course = 56
Total on-course miles covered: 2002

MTBCast Call-in

Felix Wong has a Rough Time coming into Platoro

Submitted by sherry on July 3, 2008 – 5:43 p.m.
Racer update about: Felix Wong

Hi, this is Felix Wong calling at 12:39 on Thursday, July 3rd from Platoro, CO. I’ve had some great days in the race and I’ve had some bad days. You can definitely classify yesterday as one of the latter.

First there was Indiana Pass. My legs weren’t there. It was a very long climb, very steep, but worse once I got near the top of the climb a storm rolled on through. It was pouring with freezing rain. Within an hour even though I put on all my clothing, I became very hypothermic. My teeth were chattering. My hands were completely numb. I couldn’t operate the shifters or brakes and it was still four hours to Platoro.

By 6pm, I was doing so poorly, shivering so badly, that I decided that all I could do was pull over, set up my tent right away and crawl into my sleeping bag. So yesterday was a really short day and even though I went to bed early it was restless night for me. All of my clothing was wet. Because I have a down sleeping bag, I had to strip off all of my clothes, sleep in the sleeping bag naked and it was cold in the sleeping bag. the sleeping bag was slightly wet. Any time some of the freezing cold air would get into the sleeping bag, I would freeze.

Consequently, I also had a late start this morning. I was just not willing to endure another cold morning in wet clothing. So I started late. I got to Platoro. It started raining about 20-30 minutes ago. Fortunately, its not raining hard now. I hope it passes through. I looks pretty gray up there.

I’m pretty demoralized I have say but I’m almost to New Mexico There is just one more week hopefully to go. I hear Matt Lee finished last night. Congratulations to him. I hope to be done within the week myself, but I realize that there is a lot that can happen in the 744 miles I have to go. I’ll talk to you later. Take care.
(recorder time: 2008-07-03 13:43:46 EST)

Felix Wong Inspired by Messages from Friends

Submitted by sherry on July 3, 2008 – 5:48 p.m.
Racer update about: Felix Wong

Hi, this is Felix Wong calling at 12:58 from Platoro. I just wanted to thank everybody for their messages. I just listened to them. They are very helpful. About 20 minutes ago when I called in I was feeling very demoralized. Now I’m feeling inspired again. I’m going to press on. Listening to the messages really helped especially since it is still raining and there is thunder and lightening in the distance but I’m going to see what I can do today and I’m going to continue on. Talk to you later.
(recorder time: 2008-07-03 14:00:46 EST)

From the Notebook

• Rain before Platoro.
• In store in Platoro, woman named Genavieve told me the status of racers.
• Had a grilled cheese sandwich and fries while waited out rain.
• Bought small, but warm gloves for $4.
• Cyclometer died five miles from New Mexico border.
• Asked people in RVs if anyone had a cyclometer. No luck.
• Went to log cabin vacation homes and talked with a Jean, Judy, Eric. They invited me to have dinner with them inside and also let me set up tent outside their cabin. Advised me to go up to top of highway where they would always see a lot of cyclists riding up, and maybe see if I could buy a cyclometer off of them.