Denver man to attempt GDR on fixed-gear

Dave Nice, a 26-year-old Denver resident, may be your everyday classically trained French chef and whiskey distillery employee who enjoys 160-mile bike rides before work, but this June, he's going to try to do something special: Ride a fixed-gear mountain bike on the longest off-road, self-supported bike race in America.

The Great Divide Race follows a 2,490-mile route along the Continental Divide, from Roosville, Mont., to Antelope Wells, N.M. Nice will have to carry everything he needs to survive it -- camping gear, repair tools, first aid supplies, food and water -- and the lighter and smaller he keeps his load, the better, because it will have to fit on a small rack on his handlebars, a small pack under his seat, and a 1,000-cubic inch backpack. He wants the bike and the gear to weigh less than 40 pounds, not counting food and water. (Depending on the tires used, the bike weighs 27 to 29 pounds by itself.)

All this on a bike that has one gear. Nice rides a fixed-gear bike, a single-speed bike without gears or a freewheel -- when the wheels move, the pedals move. There is no coasting.

For the rest of this story, photos and a map of the route, go to http://denver.yourhub.com/Denver/Stories/Sports/General-Sports/Story~282...