We are starting Saturday June 17th. I will try to write a blog entry for each day if cell phone signal is available.
When I was riding across America last summer, I was already thinking of my next ride. I was inspired by my friend/co-worker Dan at the bike shop, and asked him what the most scenic and fun portion of the GDMBR (Great Divide Mountain Bike Route) is. He easily said, “Colorado”. It didn’t take much to convince my touring partners Bob and Brent to join, and even my friend Stephen wanted to go. He has lots of biking experience, but this is his first bikecamping. Welcome to the ReadyRiders, Stephen! Steve Botts won’t be joining us this time. Next time hopefully.
We are flying with our boxed bikes to Denver, and taking a shuttle to Steamboat Springs, since it’s difficult to find an inexpensive shuttle to the more remote northern edge of Colorado. Bob and Brent convinced me to end the route at Santa Fe, New Mexico. It’s a small ~60 mile ending off the GDMBR, but an interesting sight to see. It’s a total of ~700 miles and we have 3 weeks. It’s about 35 miles per day and 2,500 ft of climbing. I’ll be riding the same bike I rode across America, but with knobby tires since most of it’s on dirt roads. I’ll also be carrying less weight than ever before in my panniers (bike bags) (26 pounds, instead of 35).
Stephen and I did lots of training to prep for this adventure, including a fully-loaded overnight trip to nearby Figueroa Mountain. The biggest mystery for me is how I’ll do in the higher altitude with less oxygen. I rode at 10,000 feet on our 2014 trip over Beartooth pass, but that was only one day.
You can see where we are by looking at this map:
https://share.garmin.com/readyriders
Wish us luck, and stay tuned for daily stories!
One of my trips in the opposite direction starting from Albuquerque to Northern Colorado, we did a river raft day trip out of Santa Fe in early June, when the river was very close to peak. It was fun; we left our bikes in Santa Fe and they provided transportation to the launch point up-river. We went over a small waterfall roughly 8 feet high, one of the guides in another raft fell out of his raft.
Enjoy your trip. Would love to hear about it.