On Tuesday, Steve McGuire planned to sleep indoors for the first time in days.

A competitor in the Tour Divide mountain bike race, McGuire was caught up in Monday's downpour while crossing the Whitefish Divide.

That night, he slept in an outhouse and said it was "warm." He wasn't complaining -- a little shuteye is good wherever he can find it.

"Going to try to average 100 miles a day to get through Montana," McGuire wrote on his blog. "All in all, the bike's holding up well. Physically, my legs feel great and I just need to get some sleep."

Tour Divide is a solo mountain bike race that covers 2,745 miles on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Trail.

The race begins in Banff, Alberta, and ends in Antelope Wells, N.M. It's the longest off-pavement route in the world and a race that Outside magazine has declared the toughest ride anywhere.

Most of the route covers dirt roads and trails. Only occasionally do riders venture onto pavement, hitting up small towns along the way for needed supplies.

Enjoying a little pavement after a grueling ride through northern Montana, several riders passed through downtown Helena Tuesday, including Matthew Lee.

Lee was spotted heading up Grizzly Gulch -- back onto the dirt trail -- at 6:30 a.m. He left Banff on Friday and, as one race follower noted, is making good progress.

"It really does make the Tour de France look a little silly," Bruce Newell wrote in an e-mail, foretelling of the riders' passage through Helena. "Tour Divide racers average 150 miles a day. The entire route is almost 3,000 miles and it requires over 200,000 feet of climbing."

The winner is expected to reach Antelope Wells in 19 to 20 days. Riders are traveling unsupported. Sleep comes where they can find it and the weather is unpredictable, as Kurt Refsnider noted in his own blog entry at 5:23 p.m. on Monday while holed up in Ovando.

"Yo, Tour Dividers -- this is Kurt, and Joe, and Chris, pounding some food in, uh, where are we? In [sic] 'Hovando,'" he wrote. "Anyway, we're hiding out from this storm for a few minutes, and there's a grizzly bear ahead on the counter. Our first grizzly sighting. It's pretty awesome. And then we're heading into Lincoln from here, and we'll see what happens."

Refsnider, along with Chris Plesko and Joe Meiser, passed down Park Avenue shortly after 2 p.m. Tuesday heading for Grizzly Gulch and the Continental Divide. The trio had recovered from Monday's nasty weather and, while in Helena, grabbed a quick meal.

Earlier this week, race reporter Kevin Montgomery noted the progress and challenges faced by several riders during the Montana leg of their tour.

"Yesterday's progress was certainly slower for many of the racers than anticipated," Montgomery wrote. "A popular resupply point at Swan River (mile 354) was discovered to be burned down, likely causing a number of racers to go off-route to Bigfork.

"Additionally, bad storms ripped through the Mission range, dumping hail on Matthew Lee and forcing him to wait out the storms off his bike... Chris, Joe and Kurt likely encountered the same storms and forced them to get off their bikes as well."

Martin Kidston: 447-4086 or mkidston@helenair.com