Tour of Idaho 2018 (a two-year journey)

Link to Tour of Idaho Webpage

Background:

In early Oct 2016, while on a dual sport ride (Adventurized KTM 690) in Moab UT I mentioned the Tour of Idaho (TI) to my brother.   During our conversation I made up my mind to put the TI on my bucket list. 

Step one was to learn how to ride a dirt bike.  By the end of October I had purchased a Beta XTrainer and the journey towards the Tour was on.  You can go to my YouTube channel and scroll to my 1^st ever Beta video.   Subsequent videos show my training and prep for a 2017 Tour attempt.

Come Aug 2017, nine months of practice and learning to ride, route study and bike prep I was headed to Idaho for the 2017 Tour.  You can go to my Tour of Idaho 2017 playlist, and watch a day by day account up to my fail on D5. 

Needless to say my bike skills were not quite up to the task at hand.  I climbed more hills and rode more single track on Day 1 alone than my entire 9 months of practice.  In short I had developed the needed baseline skill set but did not have enough practice “using” said dirt bike skillset in backcountry single-track terrain.

To successfully complete the TI I feel you need the following six elements (in order of importance):

1.       The right mind set

2.       An in-depth understanding of the event rules

3.       GPS Navigation skill (understanding of explicit TI methods and actual practice with said method)

4.       Correct Bike and Gear choice

5.       A small bribe to the demons of good luck

6.       Requisite dirt bike skills

In retrospect I can see that going into my 2017 attempt I had 4 out of the 6 required elements.  However, I was still lacking in #6, dirt bike skills.  And even though #6 is at the bottom of the list, weakness here eventually ate away my confidence and hence I lost the required mind set, ie: the most important requirement for a finish.

Driving the long long road home from my failure in 2017, tail between legs, I almost immediately began planning for 2018.  At the time I decided there were three things I absolutely had to have for success in 2018. Better bike skills, a riding partner and a even lighter bike/gear combination.  In the end I really just needed more time on the bike in the backcountry.

Tour of Idaho, 2018, D1 up next....