The Places We'll Go
We'll be ridin' from El Paso, Texas to somewhere North of there, hopefully Montana, and maybe even Canada. Our route will closely parallel the North American Continental Divide. The Continental Divide Hiking trail is well known, but there is also a Bike Route called the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR).
Completed in 1998, the GDMBR was the project of the Missoula, Montana-based 'Adventure Cycling Association'. Utilizing low-use roads that web United States Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands, 85% of the GDMBR consists of dirt and gravel roads. Ten percent of the route is paved and the remaining five percent is composed of single-track paths. The route crosses the Continental Divide twenty-seven times with the lowest elevation being 2,577 feet above sea level near the Canadian border, and it reaches a maximum height of almost 12,000 feet at Indiana Pass, a few miles south of and nearly a mile above the town of Del Norte, Colorado. Through-riders can plan on climbing a total of approximately 140,000 feet (about 28 miles) and can expect to encounter several stretches from 2 to 5 days in duration that offer no food stores or other services. Water sources are arguably the greatest problem in the southern third of the route where Colorado and New Mexico have been experiencing severe drought conditions for the past several years. Summer temperatures along the route vary from 20 degrees to 110 degrees and the terrain reflects this variation. (Thank you Michael Morse for these words).
Click here for more info on the Route.
Completed in 1998, the GDMBR was the project of the Missoula, Montana-based 'Adventure Cycling Association'. Utilizing low-use roads that web United States Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands, 85% of the GDMBR consists of dirt and gravel roads. Ten percent of the route is paved and the remaining five percent is composed of single-track paths. The route crosses the Continental Divide twenty-seven times with the lowest elevation being 2,577 feet above sea level near the Canadian border, and it reaches a maximum height of almost 12,000 feet at Indiana Pass, a few miles south of and nearly a mile above the town of Del Norte, Colorado. Through-riders can plan on climbing a total of approximately 140,000 feet (about 28 miles) and can expect to encounter several stretches from 2 to 5 days in duration that offer no food stores or other services. Water sources are arguably the greatest problem in the southern third of the route where Colorado and New Mexico have been experiencing severe drought conditions for the past several years. Summer temperatures along the route vary from 20 degrees to 110 degrees and the terrain reflects this variation. (Thank you Michael Morse for these words).
Click here for more info on the Route.
North to South? No Thanks!
Most people who ride or race the GDMBR travel from North to South. This direction of travel is preferable because the grades are more gradual and long, rather than short and steep. There is also a more favorable time frame for completing the route when riding North to South. Because we love to challenge the norm, we will be riding the route from South to North! Yay! We have some skepticism about how this will work out, but others have done it before us and hey! this is an adventure, right? One factor for our decision has to do with timing. We planned to start out on June 1st from Canada, but it turns out that some of the passes are still covered with snow at that point in the summer. By leaving from the South, we can avoid the closed passes. Yes, it will be hot in New Mexico!
