We rode the Great Divide Mountainbike Route (GDMBR) in 2023.
The GDMBR is a 4339 km/2696 mile long mountainbike route from Banff in Canada to Antelope Wells on the American/Mexican border of New Mexico. Of all these kms, 90% is unpaved. It goes through the Canadian provinces of Alberta and British Columbia and the US states Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. It follows the Continental Divide, a mountain range in all of Americas that separates the watersheds that drain into the Pacific Ocean from those that drain into the Atlantic Ocean. A large part of the route is through the Rocky Mountains.
The route has existed for quite some time and has been on our to-ride-list since about 2012. Because Ronnie could take a sabbatical this year, we were finally able to ride the route.
When we knew we were going to do this, it was important to determine the right time to go. You can’t go too early in the season, because there still can be a lot of snow in the mountains then and there’s a bigger chance of bad weather. But too late in the season is also not smart, because there’ll be new snow falling in the mountains. Also, it’s monsoon season in July and August in Colorado and New Mexico, so you don’t want to be there too early. The unpaved roads there are impassable after it rained. And it also depends on how fast you want to travel of course. We wanted to take our time, also because we were going to be fully loaded. Not bikepacking (light setup) as is very popular nowadays. We decided to leave in the beginning of July so we would be in Canada, Montana and Wyoming in the summer months. We figured we’d be in Colorado in the end of the summer/beginning of falll and hopefully monsoon season would be (almost) over by then.
We booked a flight to Calgary on July 5th and a return flight from Las Vegas around mid October. We thought we’d have enough extra time to be able to ride to Las Vegas and there was a direct flight home from over there. So no long lay-overs and lost luggage. And if we didn’t make it, we could always change our flight or rent a car.
We took the train to the airport on July 4th. We got some bike boxes, packed the bikes and left all our luggage in the luggage storage. We then took the shuttle to the hotel we booked for that night. We really liked this, it gave us time to travel to the airport by train and pack everything without hurrying or stressing. And the next day we didn’t have to leave early or hurry, so we could have breakfast and take our time in the morning. There was only 1 problem; there was a huge storm coming in the next day and it wasn’t clear what was going to happen with flights. Many had been cancelled the previous day already. We just hoped our flight would depart.
When we woke up the next day, it was storming indeed. The few cyclists who had dared to go out on their bikes were struggeling and being blown off the path. Some were walking with the bike. Many flights were cancelled already, but ours seemed to still be departing. So we had breakfast and then took the shuttle back to the airport. Check-in was open en the flight was still scheduled to leave. We couldn’t believe we were that lucky to be on one of the very few flights that left that day. But we did leave, with a 2 hour delay but we were very happy we were on our way. After an 8 hour flight we arrived in Calgary where the weather was great. We were picked up by Bernice. We would be staying with her and her husband Patrick for a few days.
