Great Divide Mountain Bike Route
The Great Divide
Riding Alone
As I opened my bike box, I could feel people staring at me - it’s not every day at the airport you get to watch someone build a bike out of a box, throw their life on the thing, and then ride away. Heart racing, feeling conspicuous with everyone watching, I began the assembly process.
I pulled out my rear wheel. As I did so, I watched tire sealant drip out of the bottom, leaking everywhere. Hadn’t thought about how an inflated tire might fare in an unpressurized airplane cargo space - it was dead flat. Ego bruised, glancing around to see if anyone had noticed the mishap, I threw one of my two spare tubes into the tire and proceeded to put together the bike that would function as my home and mode of transport over the next three weeks.
An hour or so later, I was finally ready to go. With a deep breath and a little smile, I walked my bike through the automatic doors into the passenger pickup area of the Kalispel, MT airport. Confidently, I pushed off....and felt my rear tire - the one with the new tube - squish.
Dead flat. The tube was old and had a hole. One pedal stroke into my first ever solo adventure, and I was already down to my final spare tube.
Perfect. Only 1,400 miles to Boulder!
My friend Matt and I had dreamed about riding the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route since our first bikepacking trip in the summer of 2019. After losing our travel industry jobs due to COVID, we’d spent the better part of the 2020 summer cycling, bikepacking, and exploring the American West. We’d been building toward tackling part of the Divide from Whitefish, Montana to Boulder, Colorado. And then, Matt threw out his back. His summer of adventure was over, leaving me to decide whether or not I wanted to continue on, alone.
While I’d always felt an admiration for the stories of folks heading off on solo adventures, the thought of a solo Divide bid intimidated me. Nobody with whom to brainstorm or problem solve. Nobody with whom to share a meal or experience. Nobody to lean on for moral support in challenging moments. Just me. I’d always wondered - how might I fare on my own? How could I ever know if I didn’t try?
It was time to find out. On the day Matt booked his flight home to the east coast to give his back time to heal, I’d booked my one way ticket to Kalispel, Montana to ride the Divide.
My last emergency backup tube inserted and inflated, I pedaled the thirty miles from the airport to Whitefish, where I’d booked a motel room for the night. After checking in, I rode immediately to Glacier Cyclery & Nordic, where they kindly set up my rear tire tubeless once again (with such variable terrain on the Divide route, I’d need all the puncture protection I could get!). I also resupplied on spare tubes. I didn’t mention my flat tire mishap at the airport.
I hit the road early the following morning for my first ever day of solo bikepacking. As I rode along those first few hours, I found myself running through scenarios of what might be to come. I knew from experience that high highs and low lows were a part of any adventure in the outdoors. What I didn’t yet know was how I’d navigate those ups and downs by myself.
I’d planned a mileage itinerary each day to have a sense of when I might reach Boulder, but, feeling eager on day 1, decided to see if I couldn’t knock out two riding days in one - a total of 114 miles. I’d been riding a ton all spring and summer, so I felt confident. What I hadn’t considered was that I was now carrying 40ish pounds of additional weight, and climbing a LOT. I bonked hard toward the end of that first day, and limped into camp that night, exhausted. Pacing needs tweaking. Got it. I ate my dehydrated dinner on the beach of Holland Lake as the sun went down, casting a golden glow on the pine trees across the water. I shared my first ever solo camping experience alongside three other bikepackers staying at the campground. I was easing nicely into this whole ‘solo’ thing.
I continued to ease into solo adventuring over the rest of that first riding week. On day two, I met two other solo Divide riders, Austin and Zach. For the next couple of days, we’d leapfrog each other while riding, then come together at a predesignated camp spot that we discussed the night before. While the camaraderie was great, I found myself riding at a slightly faster pace than my new friends, and I soon pushed onwards. I stayed at a cycling hostel in Helena (needed to purchase and install new tires after a series of flats...always have spare tubes, kids!), and as I rode into Butte the following day, I was lucky to be offered a backyard to camp in after I helped a man, Joe, look for his lost dog. After Joe heard that I planned to spend the following night in a little town called Wise River, he helped me out a second time - one of his friends ran an RV park in Wise River, and he offered me one of their open trailers for the night! P.S….Joe found his dog.
I thought back to Austin and Zach, both having spent far longer out on the bike alone than I had, commenting on how nice it felt to wind a day down with someone else. To have someone around to discuss tomorrow’s plan with; to consult with about bike mechanical issues or pull ideas from about better ways to pack. I was a full week into my ride, but I’d yet to really feel that sense of solitude that I’d been so apprehensive about. The feeling that I had, in part, set out on this journey to experience firsthand.
I’d had opportunities to pitch my tent in beautiful places along any of the countless remote mountain roads I found myself on in that first week, but I had always opted to push onwards to the next town or campsite, even if it were another couple hours’ ride away.
I asked myself - why was I doing this? The easy answer was that civilization is comfortable. There’s other people, there’s a water source, probably food options. The hard answer was that it was because I was scared.
I’d spent nights in the backcountry before, but always with friends. In those instances, there was always a discussion. Do we think there’s a good enough water source nearby? Did we bring enough food? Do we think our bear hang is secure enough? Do we think it’s going to rain? I was afraid of making those decisions on my own, and I now forced myself to recognize that, as a result, I was avoiding them entirely. I realized that with nobody around to push me to step outside my comfort zone, it was up to me to do so, or else nothing would change.
And so, on my eighth day of riding, along the beautiful and remote Big Sheep Scenic Byway in southwestern Montana (in 80 miles of riding, I saw two cyclists and five cars!), I told myself that today would be the day. Instead of stopping for the night in the tiny town of Lima as I’d planned, I resupplied at a local market, and continued riding onwards into the waning daylight. The comforts of town disappeared behind me and I re-entered the barren Montana landscape.
Just before the sun set, I found a little patch of grass a hundred or so yards from the dirt road along a river. I pitched my tent, hopped into warm clothes, and started on dinner. My first night alone in the wilderness - check!
With a refreshed sense of confidence in my capacity to be self-sufficient, I rode onwards toward Jackson Hole, which marked the halfway point of my journey, and was where I planned to take a day or two off the bike and stay with a friend of mine. Nine days in, I’d successfully ridden through the lush (and large!) Montana mountains, cruised through the dry rolling hills of northeastern Idaho, and was about to hit the border of Wyoming.
I distinctly remember, on my tenth day of riding, the feeling of euphoria (as I described it in my journal) as I coasted out of a forest and into the open farmland of Idaho, the striking Teton Range on the horizon. I stopped to soak it in. To quote my journal entry from that day, I felt ‘overwhelmed with emotion about where I am, what I was doing, and how I had arrived here.’ With a big smile, and maybe a happy tear or two, a surge in motivation pushed me to complete what was at the time the longest ride of my life to get into Jackson Hole by nightfall - 136 miles. My mind and body were getting better at this.
Certainly compounding those emotions, and the resulting drive to get to Jackson Hole, was that five miles into my ride that morning I’d experienced my first bike mechanical issue. My front shifter had quit on me, meaning that when I needed to shift between my small and big chainrings, I had to hop off my bike and adjust my front derailleur by hand before continuing on. Jackson Hole now not only promised a friend and some rest, but also the prospect of a repaired bike. The second half of my journey would be more remote, I wanted to be at as close to 100% as possible before getting back on the road. That second stretch included the Great Divide Basin, a 100+ mile stretch through the open high desert, notorious for high daytime temperatures, strong winds, and a lack of water. It was this stretch of the Divide that most intimidated me.
I took two full days off the bike in Jackson Hole, staying with my friend and former housemate, Abby. I napped, did laundry, and went to three bike shops...none of whom had the right part to fix my shifting problem. Out of luck, I called ahead to the next bike shop along the route, a full day’s ride away in Pinedale, and was told a repair was possible. Relieved, I figured I could survive one more day of riding on a semi-functional bike.
Motivating myself to roll out of Jackson Hole was hard. “I feel comfortable here, and the unknowingness of solo travel is uncomfortable,” I wrote in my journal. However, it didn’t take long for my mindset to shift back to one of nervous excitement again as the miles began to accumulate and the journey started back up.
I didn’t get my bike fixed in Pinedale. Upon arriving, we quickly realized that they didn’t have the right part. After a few phone calls, it became clear that I’d have to wait until Steamboat Springs, Colorado for a repair - 300 miles away, and on the other side of the Divide Basin. Oh boy.
As I rode onwards over the next couple of days, the landscape around me changed dramatically. The vegetation receded, slowly overtaken by the vastness of the empty high desert. The landscape shift came with a more pronounced sense of isolation. Part of me felt excited by that feeling. Not many have a chance to see what I’m seeing out here, let alone from the seat of a bicycle. Another part of me felt profoundly nervous. There were no resources around me for dozens of miles, and I was only riding deeper into the void.
In Atlantic City, Wyoming (population < 30), I spent the night in a little B&B. The next resupply opportunity was 100+ miles away in Rawlins, across the dry and desolate Divide Basin. I’d rolled into Atlantic City on a rear tire with a slow leak, and discovered a significant sidewall tear. I did not want to enter the Basin on a bike with both a broken shifter and a tire that I didn’t trust. I decided that the safe choice was to use the following morning to try and secure a lift 40 miles away to the town of Lander to find a new tire.
That night, exhausted, I felt entirely alone. I remember wondering if I’d made the right choice by setting off on this journey at all. I wanted to go home.
Luckily, the B&B owner’s son was happy to drive me to Lander and back - turns out I was not the only Divide rider to need a last minute stop at a bike shop before heading into the Basin. New tire secured, my confidence was starting to come back. I spent the afternoon hanging out in town with a solo thru hiker also about to cross the Basin...on foot. He was prepping for five or so days before his next resupply along the Divide Trail. I figured, if he can walk through the Basin, I can certainly make the push on my bike.
That evening, I loaded up my bike to ride the 20 miles into the Basin to the last reliable water source (a natural well) for over 100 miles. Before I settled into my tent that night, I spent hours looking off into the distance - nothing, as far as I could see, in every direction. I felt like I was on the moon. This, I told myself, was a night I’d never forget.
I was riding before 7am - I wanted so badly to conquer the Basin before the heat and wind picked up in the afternoon. And so, I rode. For hours, my only company was the music in my headphones, dozens of pronghorn antelope and free range cows, curious about my presence in their home, and, for a truly spectacular five or so minutes, three wild horses that galloped alongside me through the desert.
One hundred miles later, the dirt roads ended, and I hit the pavement. I’d done it. Raw emotions poured out. I shouted and celebrated in the way one might after a game winning score. The thing I’d been so nervous about for so long was now behind me. I cried tears of happiness. I was on top of the world.
After surviving the Basin with a bike and body at less than 100%, I felt I could take on anything this ride could throw at me. I knocked off 110+ miles both that day and the next in a push to get to Steamboat Springs. As I approached the Colorado state border, the landscape began to transition back into a familiar and comforting scene of plants, trees, and lush mountains on the horizon. After a couple hundred miles without them, I’d never been so happy to see trees in my life. My journal entry during this time reads “the high desert is beautiful, but I don’t ever need to come back here.”
In Steamboat, I pitched a tent in the backyard of the parents of a fellow Divide rider I had met riding northbound. Although there were fewer Divide riders than normal in this pandemic summer of 2020, the community on the route was as supportive as ever. My bike would take a few hours to fix, so I used that excuse to opt into taking a full day off. As I wandered around town, I noticed how aware I’d become of people interacting with one another, and how much I valued my brief interactions with others - the mechanic at the bike shop, the waitress at the diner, the ice cream scooper - a byproduct of all the time I’d spent by myself.
Two more riding days to Winter Park, where I stayed a night with my cousin. A friend from Boulder drove out to meet me in Winter Park so that we could make the final push to Boulder together. It was comforting to see Chris arrive with his bike, ready to roll. He’d ridden the Divide himself a couple summers prior, and thus had a great sense of where I’d just come from. The feeling of sharing an experience with someone who truly can understand it was something I’d missed.
After three weeks, nearly 1,400 miles of riding, and roughly 90,000 feet of elevation gained, I descended into Boulder, the car waiting just where I’d left it in my aunt and uncle’s driveway. I’d undertaken something that wildly intimidated me, and I’d done it.
What did I learn? I learned how much I value interacting with other people, particularly with those I hold close in my life. That’s an easy thing to take for granted. I learned how to be comfortable alone, how to be in my own head for days on end, and that I enjoy stepping away into my own world for a period of time. It can be a special way to experience the world. I learned that I wanted to do something like this again.
I reinforced that I love my bike. Saddling up for a multi-day adventure ride strips away all the nuances and complications of everyday life and forces you to focus only on the essentials - food, water, and shelter. It’s the simplest of concepts and is a beautiful way to shift your perspective. It’s a privilege to have the capacity to get out and ride like this every once and a while. I know it’s not something that everybody has the ability or resources to do, and for that reason, it’s not something I’ll ever take for granted.
Happy riding!
