Two Mates, Two Bikes, & 2800 Miles to Mexico : Day 23 - Lava Mountain to We Can't Remember Where

Trip Overview

This blog will follow two totally inexperienced bikepackers, Geoff and Cam, and their journey from Banff to Mexico via the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. The route follows the Continental Divide, exposing riders to high altitude, diverse wildlife, and solitude. To learn more about the route, check this out. Randy will be the official bookie so get in touch with him if you'd like to place a wager on how far we will actually make it.

In the mean time, you can track our progress here thanks to our SPOT device.

This will be a site where we will try our best to post some pictures and stories along the way. Happy reading!

Monday 21 July 2014

Day 23 - Lava Mountain to We Can't Remember Where

Jacob joined us at a rough spot... First he gets asphalt which his bike isn't optimally designed for (although he killed it), then his second day may have been the toughest day of the tour yet. We looked at the maps and elevation profiles that morning and decided to pedal just shy of 70 miles to make it to another cyclists only lodging location (this is where locals allow you to stay on their property). One thing the elevation profile doesn't exhibit is the terrain (obviously...) and the smaller hills as the scale is not appropriate. So little did we know, the entire day was pretty dicey terrain, and the "flat" parts were actually all steep rolling hills.

We crested the summit around 2:00pm or so. This summit was again just shy of 10 000ft, and Jake got to see his first patches of snow. We figured we were done the tough portion of the day but were sadly mistaken. The remainder of the day may have actually been tougher... The steep descents were on terrible road and always followed by a hairpin turn - not allowing us to carry any momentum over.

One part in particular that I'm sure none of us will soon forget was this steep (~10% grade) 3/4 mile climb amidst the worst swarming mosquitoes you've ever seen. We were all pedaling on our highest gear trying to escape the madness. Although pedaling as hard as we could, I think more energy was spent slapping mosquitoes off our bodies. One slap would often kill up to 5 mosquitoes. It was brutal. At this point Geoff was in the lead and all we heard was screaming...

Anyways... After a flat tire and some sore knees and consciences, we finally made it to the Cyclists Only Lodging where we were greeted by Jon and Lucy, thousands of skeeters, and Shawn - a rider we had spent the past two nights with.