As my friend, Jim, told me less than a week ago:
"Frankly, at our tender ages, I think you're nuts for taking a trip like this. But it would be EPIC if you survived it!"
As many of you know, I am intending to embark on that epic bike tour from my cul-de-sac to the border of Canada, using only my legs, wit and credit cards to get me there. Jim unwittingly was the inspiration for the trip. Recently he had back surgery which I hope will improve his life tremendously, but it got me to thinking about getting old and doors of possibility closing because of the inevitable, mobility limiting physical infirmities that come with getting older.
If I'm going to do something EPIC, I have to do it soon ...
How about tomorrow?
At first I was going to try riding coast to coast, but I stumbled across the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route which just seemed to perfectly suit my temperament: more mountain biking than road biking, more back roads than asphalt. The "final factor" that kicked me into preparing for the trip was the realization that I can start the trip from home, splitting the route in half.
Tomorrow I'll head west for a couple days then connect with the GDMBR north of Silverthorne then turn right ...
The trip will be about 1200 miles. If I can average 50 miles/day, it will take about 24 days. At the end of the trip, I'll bike back to Kalispell and ship my bike and myself back to Thornton.
In conjunction with the folks noted below, I have done a ton of preparation work, trying to find the right balance between knowing exactly how this thing is going to go down and flat out winging it. I will be relying on my Garmin eTrex 20 to guide me but I will have backup maps from the ACA and text information that I've created.
Matt has lent me his Spot satellite tracker. This device will allow you to track my progress. In addition to the tracking, I will try to send a message every morning and every evening from the Spot. Since I can't actually create a new message everyday, the message will say:
I am starting/ending my day which means that I survived the night/day. Canada or bust!
SPECIAL NOTE: While I intend on sending a message at the start/end of each day, I may forget or the batteries may be dead or the SPOT died, etc. Please don't panic if you don't hear from me for a couple days.
Spot provides a share page which will show the messages and where I am / have been for the past week. Here's the link. I'm not sure that I've set up this link correctly so if you have trouble with this, please let me know.
For those carrying the Keller Worry Gene, Spot has a button that I can press to summon help. Hopefully I will never use that button, but you can sleep easier, knowing that I can summon help if needed.
Besides Spot, I will try to blip off an email once a day, but that will, of course, be contingent on being able to get to the Internet. As a lot of this route is in remote sections of the country, I will probably not be able to send out a lot of updates.
To the relief of many, I am sure ...
And when I keep saying tomorrow, there's always a possibility that I won't be ready to go tomorrow. I will leave when I'm ready and I will let you know.
Thanks to everyone who has helped me plan the trip and has provided gear as needed. Particularly, I want to thank Matt for loaning me vital gear and to Matt, T, Therese and Garry for their consultation on what to bring. Finally, thanks to Vance for backstopping the entire trip!
If all goes well, the next email you will get is from me tomorrow morning, letting you know that I'm leaving then I will send my first Spot message ...
As always, I hope that all goes well for you and your loved ones.
Canada or bust!
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