92 Days, 5 States, 1 Epic Ride: My journey from Mexico to Canada on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route
When a raindrop falls in the continental United States, it’s primarily headed for one of two places – the Atlantic or the Pacific. This watershed line is known as the Continental Divide. For 100 days in the summer of 2023, it was my home as I rode my bicycle more than 2,500 miles from the Mexican border up into British Columbia, Canada.
This trip has turned out to be a bit of a watershed moment in my personal life. It gave me the time and space to reflect and make some Big Life Changes™. But it was when I returned to the real world that I realized the difficulty of conveying my travels. Hence, a year later I’m giving this story the JA treatment and using some of the data collected along the way to tell the tale.
The route I followed is formally known as the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. It was developed by the good folks over at the Adventure Cycling Association. Since the route’s inception in 1997, it has grown to be one of the most popular long-distance bicycle touring routes in North America. Considered by some to be the longest off-road bicycle route in the world, it runs from Antelope Wells, NM to Banff, AB and is home to hundreds of riders each season.
The route is best known for the Tour Divide, which is a race in which 200 people ride around the clock, unsupported, to be the quickest to complete the route. The winners finish in under 14 days. Most riders never finish.
I took the opposite approach to this trip. I took a relaxed 92 day journey. I charted my own course at times as well, taking a long detour through the San Juan Mountains in Southern Colorado to attend the 50th anniversary of the Telluride Bluegrass Festival, spending a week visiting family in Denver (and catching Dead and Company on their final tour in Boulder), and transitioning my gear to a backpack for a week spent in Grand Teton National Park with some dear friends. I think I ate pie at every diner and swam in every lake that I could. It was the best summer of my life.
By the numbers: 92 days of adventure
- 5 States (and 1 Canadian Province)
- 2,573 Miles
- 144,525 Feet of Elevation Gain
- 2 Flat Tires
- ~460,000 Calories Burned
Peaks and valleys (highs and lows)
Unsurprisingly, the physical high and low points of the trip correlated pretty closely with the emotional high and low points.
The highest point on the route clocked in at 12,949 feet above sea level at the top of Engineer Pass in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. It was completely covered in snow until just before I made the trip to the top. I was traveling alone at this point, and I had to carry my 50 pound bicycle 20 miles up one of North America’s most famous Jeep roads, as the path was either too steep or too treacherous to ride. It took two days to get to the top, but when I got there, the sense accomplishment was overwhelming. It is now an experience I think about from when I need to remind myself that I am capable of difficult things.
The lowest point on the trip was 2,537 feet above sea level. It came an hour’s ride north of the Canadian border on the last day of my journey. Sadly, I didn’t know that this was going to be the last day when I set out that morning, but wildfires raging across the whole of British Columbia effectively closed off the route up to Banff.
Having spent most of the prior day in the tent sleeping off a headache and fatigue from the smoke, I definitely experienced the emotional lowpoint of the trip. Fortunately, the weather was clear on the last day and we enjoyed an incredible network of single-track trails that brought us into Fernie, BC – Western Canada’s mountain bike haven. A big meal and a night in the first hotel room of the trip brought the adventure to an end a few hours later.
The journey in data: exploring the interactive map
There are countless stories I could tell from this trip. Watching the Milky Way appear in the sky during a moonless night in the Red Desert of Wyoming. Hollering “Hey Bear” for hours on end so as to not sneak up on a grizzly bear while riding single track high in the mountains of western Montana. Battling winds across the grasslands of Southern Colorado and thinking about the land use and water policies that lead to such a sparsely populated area immediately adjacent to some of Colorado’s largest population centers. Ultimately it’s just not possible to convey the magnitude of an experience like this, and sometimes it’s better to leave some stories untold. You’ll just have to get on a bike and experience it for yourself!
Short of that, we created an application to visualize the biometric and GPS data collected during the trip. Click through each day of the ride to see a map, photos, and charts of the elevation profile, speed, and heart rate over time. Built by JA’s all-star data visualization team, Jessi and Gerard really did a great job bringing this data to life.
Looking back after a year of reflection
A year out from this journey, this opportunity to reflect fills me with gratitude to have been able to experience the world in this way. I am grateful to my body for being capable of more than I knew possible. I feel thankful for my coworkers, for cheering me on and giving me space to take this time. And most of all I feel deep gratitude for my friends, family, and all of the countless people along the trail that supported me in this journey. The kind words, snacks, and places to stay made it all possible.
Until next time! Happy trails.