How We Rode the Great Divide

Tis the season for Great Divide Mountain Bike Riders (GDMBR). It’s been almost a year since we rode down our driveway to the train station in Indianapolis and travelled just under 40 hours by train to Whitefish, MT to embark on our most remote bike tour (so far). Sheesh what an adventure!

Given the GDMBR season is upon us (and the Tour Divide started last Friday – you can watch riders’ progress here), Adventure Cycling sought riders from most all walks of bike life, varied cycling experience, abilities and goals who’ve ridden the GDMBR. Tom and I were asked to be be contributors to the article. What a blast it was to reminisce about the ride.

Click here to view the article.

For cyclists preparing for the ride (not the race), if we had just one piece of advice to offer, it would be this. It’s not the bike, bike bags or water filter you choose. It’s not whether you ride toward Mexico or Canada, and it’s not whether you bring the kitchen or not. It’s this:

Understand that it’s YOUR ride and don’t compare your ride to that of others. Comparison is the thief of joy. For many of us, we’ll ride the Great Divide only once and then move on to other adventures. So ride your own ride and allow the Great Divide to teach you what it intends for you to learn. It will be different for every rider.

It’s been a minute since we’ve checked in and we have some updates:

Tom retired in April!

We celebrate being a one car family on June 22nd. Given gas prices are well over $5 per gallon in Indy now, we don’t see taking up the second side of our garage anytime soon with anything other than bikes, golf clubs or wood working tools.

We’ve got a few bike trips in the hopper: The Michelson, The Cowboy Trail, Southern Tier and our longest ride to date, The Eastern Divide Trail.

In the meantime, keep calm and pedal on, paddle up, keep running, keep your head down and keep smiling.