After buying my first mountain bike in 2012, I saw the movie Ride the Divide. This movie follows the participants of the 2008 edition of the Tour Divide, a time-trail event on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. A little seed was planted in my head. I loved the idea, not the racing, but touring such a route. I always loved being in nature when visiting the US for our holidays. Exploring the US by bike sounded ideal (faster than by foot, slower than by car). Not much later I explored more-and-more details on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) and dreamed about the amazing experience it must be to ride this route.
Over the course of years, the topic came back to my mind more than once. However, it was not more than some dreaming and fantasizing. Eventually, I was pushed by my wife to actually find out if I could find any reason why I should NOT do it. Or I would run into something blocking, or not. At least it would be clear that it would not nothing more than a dream.
Fortunately there we no showstoppers. I completed my part-time masters in 2018. My family was all OK with the idea (besides several safety requests). No issues at work as long as I kept them updated and involved them in my planning as soon as things would become more clear (I also saved up additional holidays). This slowly put things into motion…
Meanwhile, I also purchased the Cycling the Great Divide book from Michael McCoy. Very informative and overall a nice read. Useful when making your preparations (although some details are outdated, however, that is where we have the Internet for). The book contains an overall description of the route, historic facts, and also a sample itinerary with details for each day. Unfortunately, it is way too heavy to take with me (combined with the fact that some information is outdated), but it served me well during my preparations.