Introduction

The website offers some images and daily journal entries for my cycle trip on the Great Divide. I've divided the journal entries into states for convenience but for me, traveling through the land, the trip traversed seven distinct lands.

1. Flathead Country:

The part of the route passes through the ancestral range of the Flathead tribe in the northern part of Montana. The route stays mostly on the weather side of the divide producing more rainfall than further south. This area just west of Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall Wilderness area team with wildlife and provides prime habitat for Grizzly and Black bear.

2. Mining Country:

Between Helena and Flagg Ranch in the Grand Tetons, this part of Montana gets less rain despite the mountains. Starting in the 1860s, the rich mineral deposits, especially gold, attracted miners and boom towns sprung up.

3. Cowboy Country:

Stretching from the Grand Tetons to Pinedale, the local economy depends on ranching. In Dubois you can see why Wyoming calls itself the Cowboy State.

4. Great Basin:

The Great Basin proper starts south of Pinedale, but from Pinedale onward the land flattens and dries as the mountains recede to the horizon. Shadeless and dusty, this may be the hardest part of the trip as hot dusty cyclists look forward to the big cool Colorado mountains.

5. Rocky Mountain High:

Rising up from the Great Basin, Colorado has the highest passes on the Great Divide. This section describes the route between Rawlins and Del Norte.

6. Three Lands:

From Del Norte to Silver City, northern New Mexico dishes up a wide variety of terrain and challenges. The Jicarilla and Mescalero Apache people lived in and defended the mountains of this area, fighting both Anglo, Mexican, and Navajo enemies. Some of the oldest settlements in north America dot the watered valleys of this area, alloted by early Spanish land grants. Later, rough Anglo ranchers and miners entered the area. Together, with the three colored land of red, white, and green, they created a unique American place with unique American heros like Geronimo and Billy the Kid.

7. Chihuahua Desert:

The last three days was an easy end to the Great Divide as the route drops down through the hot Chihuahua desert towad Mexico. This dry inhospitable land continues to function mostly as a place of passage, as it has since before history.

The daily distances measure the miles I actually cycled, not route miles. These may differ because of side trips or getting on and off route to and from the campground. The average speed may help you plan by seeing how a mid-fifties cyclist copes with the terrain. I wasn't the slowest rider in my group but even less close to being the fastest, I estimate that the younger and stronger cyclists averaged about 2 miles per hour faster. I measured the daily elevation gain using the altimeter in my cyclometer, the values seem to agree with one other cyclists with a different cyclometer.

I hope the information here helps others to plan and execute their own adventure on the Great Divide Mountain Bike route.

Preparing

The Great Divide route presents a number of unique challenges that require careful preparation. For the best information on preparing yourself and your bicycle for the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route visit Adventure Cycling Association

You can also find a long list of online journals about the Great Divide route at MTBtour.org. Several of these journals offers a great deal of sound practical advice. For one of the most extensive and detailed sets of measurements about distances, elevation gain, and time cycling see the web page by Paula and Scott.

There's also a forum for Great Divide riders at The Unofficial Great Divide Mountain Bike Route Page.

I have a few tips and warnings.

  1. The standard rig for the GD appears to be a BOB trailer and mountain bike with front panniers. The front panniers help hold the front wheel down.
  2. If you want to ride fast and aggresively down the hills, then get an IBEX instead of a YAK. All the aggressive riders in our group, and some of the not so aggressive, broke their YAK on this trip.
  3. Be prepared to carry plenty of water over some sections. Some sections can involve working hard almost all day in the hot sun with no fresh water. Eight liters is probably a minimum carrying capacity, more if you face a dry camp. Unless experienced, it's hard to believe how even only 10 miles can become nearly impossible if you're dehydrated.
  4. Pay close attention to the route finding, small errors can make for big costly "extended" tours. I took the "deluxe" version a couple times.
  5. Plan on eating unbelievable amounts of food. I ate approximately 3 times my normal amount, around 6,000 calories per day.
  6. Watch the gravel. We lost two members on our trip with accidents on plain moderate gravel roads, not the hairy technical descents, the fast downhill forest roads, or difficult single track climbs.
  7. Pay atttention to your bike. Bike shops are few and far between so practice good preventive maintenance. I cleaned my drive train every rest day (about every 5 days) and still wore out an XT cassette.