The Journey (sort of) Begins

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton

But the longer the journey the harder it is to be good company.  — Shaun Gogarty

I’ve been dreaming about doing the Great Divide mountain bike ride from Banff Alberta Canada to the border of Mexico for several years. In fact, when I told one of my friends this was the year, they just went “hmmm”. They had heard “this was the year” for so many years it wasn’t even interesting. But, this really is the year. If anyone fires me from one of my three jobs for taking a 10-week hiatus, who cares. I can start taking out retirement money in December.

This year, being the year for our Great Divide Adventure (GDA), I even purchased the maps for the entire journey. An eight-map series that covered some crazy distances totaling something like 2700 miles. Sitting in bed at night, dreaming about the ride, the distances, rain, sleeping in the dirt, riding in mud didn’t really bother me. Trying to figure out equipment and logistics was also fun. Who doesn’t like looking at shiny new camping and biking gear? Unfortunately, all the fun part of the GDA ended today. We took our first, real bicycle ride loaded with gear. Dreams are far more fun as a future activity. Living a dream is sometimes not so dreamy.

As the rubber met the road, literally and figuratively, Gloria and I each got on our bikes and headed down the trail near our house for 25 miles (12.5 out and back) foray into the unknown. Well, it wasn’t unknown, except for under the overpasses in Pueblo – they can be scary. We knew we were just going out to the Pueblo Reservoir and back. The unknown, was could we make it with loaded bikes.

Gloria riding her e-bike, despite pulling about 35 lbs. on the trailer, was mostly a blur as she passed me or sped off into the distance. For me, it was more of a slog as I pedaled with about 15 lbs. in my front panniers. I’m not sure that I truly noticed the weight of the panniers, but my top speed was no more than about 14 miles per hour on the flat. That was not sustained but rather a gallant effort to keep up with my wife.

One of the less than dreamy parts of the ride had to do with the weather. The temperature was at best 30 degrees. As we rode from our house along the bike trail the breeze was a bit more than just chilly. Gloria’s hands were quickly frozen and after a few more miles all other appendages were frigid and eventually our core temperatures probably dropped. On one level, the cold might have done us some good since we couldn’t feel much until we got home and off the bikes. As we began to thaw we began to feel some soreness mostly in our necks and backs and a little in my legs. Gloria said her legs felt great😊.

Overall, I felt pretty good about the first (test) ride. We had done 25 miles in about 2.5 hours. Gloria never complained, of course whenever there was a difficult spot she just hit the throttle. I complained, but she was so far ahead no one could hear me or care. We are still not sure if the e-bike will have enough juice to get us across some of the barren stretches of the trail. If it doesn’t, we might just have each other to hear our complaints.