Ep. 118 ~ John Stamstad, Tour Divide History, Rules, & Ethos
Bikes or Death
Patrick Farnsworth
4.8 • 563 Ratings
🗓️ 15 June 2022
⏱️ 98 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In 1997 the Adventure Cycling Association released the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. What was billed as a touring route, caught the attention of ultra distance mountain biker John Stamstad. In 1999 John set out on the first ITT (individual Time Trial) of the GDMBR and set a the first FKT (fastest known time) of 18 days and 5 hours. His record stood until the 2007 edition of the Tour Divide Race.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, sports fans, and welcome back to the Bikes for Death podcast. As always, my name is Patrick, |
| 0:05.2 | and I'm your host, and welcome to Tour Divide Race Week. Since it is Tour Divide week, we've got a |
| 0:14.0 | special guest for you today. John Stamstead is on the podcast to talk to us about all things |
| 0:20.1 | Tor Divide. We're talking about the history, we're talking about all things tour divide we're talking about the history we're |
| 0:23.1 | talking about the rules and we're talking about the ethos and this does pick up our conversation |
| 0:28.2 | that we've been having about the rules as they pertain to self-supported bike pack racing |
| 0:35.4 | and events just like the Tour Divide. |
| 0:40.3 | If you have been living under a rock for quite some time, John Stamsted is an absolute legend in our sport. |
| 0:46.3 | He first completed the Tour Divide route, which at that time was just called the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, |
| 0:53.3 | and it started at the American Canada border and went down to the American Mexico border. |
| 0:59.6 | It has changed and adapted and evolved over the years, |
| 1:02.7 | and now we have the Great Divide Mountain Bike route and the Tour Divide Race route, |
| 1:08.3 | which are very similar in many respects. But back in 1999, we just had the |
| 1:13.4 | Great Divide Mounted Bike route. And he set an FKT doing an ITT back in 1999 and set a new FKT or |
| 1:24.5 | fastest known time of 18 days and five hours, a time which I believe stood up for about |
| 1:32.7 | five years until the first run of the Tourde Divide race, at which point it was taken down. |
| 1:39.7 | In 2000, a year later, John Stamsted was inducted into the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame. |
| 1:46.0 | John has been a member of our community and a figurehead in mountain bike racing for decades. |
| 1:57.0 | He has been involved not only in the racing aspect, but in the rules and ethos aspect of this sport. |
| 2:05.0 | And he has a lot to offer whenever it comes to filling in some of those gaps in our understanding of the sport being new to it. |
| 2:13.5 | So this was an awesome opportunity to have John come on the podcast and educate us on the spirit and the ethics and the rules and the ethos of these races. |
| 2:25.7 | And it's very timely now that we have the Tour Divide race going on as we speak. |
... |
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