Week 1+2 summary

Today, Sunday August 14, we’re cycling for two weeks. A good moment to summarize and recap the adventure so far.

The trip to the starting point

It all started with boxing the bike, and flying to Calgary. Because of the crowds on Schiphol, that made me nervous. Would all be OK, myself and the bike? As you may have read it did and I arrived without any issues on my reserved campsite in Banff National Park.

The people I’ve met

In the first two weeks I already met quite a few people. On the first day when arriving at the campground, I already met Taylor and Dee. Two people that were starting the route on Sunday (where I would be leaving on Monday). I would meet Taylor and Dee again in Eureka, when we entered the US. They were also camping in the City Park. After that we met them several times, untill we missed each other because of an unavailable campground and eventually our higher pace. Next, I met Anna and her significant other, John, in person on Sunday. After lots of emails, chats, and video call we finally meet together with a beer and some snacks discussing the plan for leaving the next day (on Monday, Aug 1st). Before climbing Elk Pass, we met Dave & Jane from the UK. A lovely couple. A few years older but very fit and for a couple of days we meet each other regularly. Until they decided for a rest day. In Elko we met Roger, a flight attendent for United, also older than myself, originally from Switzerland, but now living for many years in the US. Roger knows how to ride, man he is fast, and can cover some distances. We also meet him regularly in the days after, but eventually he pushed on. Truly a wonderful person. Via Roger we already heard from Tom and Becky. A couple from the US. He just retired from the Navy, and they now decided to live adventures before looking for another job. We also met Tom and Becky more than once untill we decided to push on. In Columbia Falls we meet a couple from Ireland. They are taking it slowly and enjoy everything. Well, not all, she broke her seatpost and her tooth. As a wonder they could make it back to Helena for a new seatpost, and via-via find someone to fix the tooth. We also met Stew, Jim, and Jeff doing a section in Montana/Idaho/Wyoming. Frederik is a guy from Germany we met in Eureka, unfortunately he had stomach issues and had to take several days of rest in the Eureka City Park. Then we also met a German guy who skipped a lot because it was too difficult or not convenient. Roger later met him too, and at that moment he already arranged a rental car to ride to Denver and abandon the GDMBR. Besides other bikers, we also met many people along the route, almost every person was very kind and interested.

The gear

So far, the bike has been wonderful, very happy with it, Also the bags are OK, besides a front pouch bag. It is not working as attended (then the volume would shrink from 5l to 2l, and that is way too little). I now use it differently and that is OK. My sleeping bag had an issue with lower zipper on the 4th day, it came loose. I quickly had to sew the zipper so that it would not open all they way, otherwise it could not be closed anymore. The temporary fix works fine so far. From my shoe a bit broke off (during food hanging), but also no issue so far. Otherwise, I slightly changed the bag contents, food/drinking has become the most important and should be close by. But all-in-all very satisfied with the setup.

Numbers

In the first two weeks we rode a little over 1300km, and climbed a little over 17km in elevation. We ate/snacked a lot (about 20 bars, 2 bags of gummy candy, a little box of M&Ms, 5 ice-crams, 3 bags of chips, 4 hamburger menus in bars, 2 salads, 3 wraps from Subway, 2 packages beef sausages (like BiFi in NL), 5 noodle menus to prepare myself, 5 apples, 8 bananas, 2x package of dried mango pieces, 1 box autodrop from NL (which I did not eat on the plane), 1 small bottle of Nutella, 2 Frappachinos, 10 large cups of soda at various fast food restaurants, half 14″ pizza, large burrito, 4 pancakes (as part of breakfast menu), eggs/bacon, …) & drinks (many liters of water, Gatorade, and soda).

Why again?

I can imagine that when reading this journal you have the impression all days are very similar. Get up, get ready, go biking, have some breaks and food, find somewhere to spent the night and repeat. In fact that is true. But each and every day is different, the people we meet, the scenery we go through, the challenges of all the different passes and road conditions, the weather, and of course how our bodies feel. But also when you ride into a forest, it smells amazing. So many different smells. Often quite better than a candy store. Unbelievable but true. Then we also have all the people we meet as discussed above. The different places we sleep. Often on a formal campground, sometimes on a dispersed campground, or on a primitive campground. The latter ones often next to a stream where you can clean up and cool down.