2 Weeks on the Great TransAm Divide

"A journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it." -- John Steinbeck

And so it went with my recent planned adventure on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. Due to a combination of 1) certain sections of the route in Wyoming still being closed for snow and 2) the tiny matter of some small kidney stones (think hospital emergency room in Lander, Wyo.), I ended up riding a hybrid route comprising sections of both the Great Divide and the TransAmerica Bicycle Trail.

My ride took me from from Bannack, Montana, to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, over a mix of dirt and pavement. It's a trip I would recommend to anyone. Luckily, the sections of the Great Divide I missed are some I've ridden in the past. And by detouring onto the TransAm I had the opportunity to meet some road cyclists whom I would have missed otherwise. (It also compelled me to make three Continental Divide crossings in Yellowstone that I would have missed on the Great Divide.)

We hear so much about how great the locals are who live along our routes, which is true. What we hear less about is how great some of cyclists sharing our routes are, which is also true. Riders like semi-retired minister and national Lutheran Church fundraiser John Cross, who pedaled the Southern Tier earlier this year and is now riding the TransAm. And a federal police officer (whose name and website I will find and report on later), who is riding the TransAm to raise money for cancer research. I ran into both of these fellows between Jackson Hole and Togwotee Pass, along a stretch of pavement that happens to serve as both the Great Divide and the TransAm. 

Back along the dirt roads of the Great Divide, on three occasions in and around southwest Montana's Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge I encountered Tour Divide racers heading north. Amazingly, I also ran in Dr. Greg and Susie Rice (below) of Libby, Montana, folks I knew while living up in northwest Montana 30 years ago, but hadn't seen since. This was their ninth outing aboard their Santana tandem on the Great Divide in Montana. They planned to reach the town of Lima the next day, which would complete their quest to bike all of the Big Sky State's contribution to the Great Divide.


Later, after joining up with my friends Ramsey and Teri at South Pass, Wyoming, the three of us began encountering a string of foreign riders heading north. First it was a Scottish couple, Phil and Isla (pronounced "EYE-la," like the peatiest of Scotch whiskies), who had ridden 9,000 miles over the course of the previous ten months, beginning in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The friendly and energetic couple are capping their adventure by following the Great Divide to Banff, Alberta (and looking forward greatly to beers there). Next up was Poul, from Denmark, with whom we shared a camping site at the high and dry A&M Reservoir in the Great Divide Basin.


Finally, we ran into Roel (above), a rough and ruddy rider from the Netherlands who was not only pulling a BOB trailer, but was loaded down with front and rear panniers and a huge stack of stuff piled atop his rear rack.

What a privilege and joy it was (and is), getting out on the Adventure Cycling routes and meeting up with a few of the people whose lives we influence by doing what we do.

Photos by Michael McCoy.


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BIKING WITHOUT BORDERS is posted every Monday by Michael McCoy, Adventure Cycling?s field editor, and highlights a little bit of this or a little bit of that ? just about anything, as long as it?s related to traveling by bicycle. Mac also compiles the organization's twice-monthly e-newsletter Bike Bits, which goes free-of-charge to more than 41,000 readers worldwide.

Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2011/07/2-weeks-on-great-transam-divide.html

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