Great Divide Mountain Bike Route Page - 2024 Bump

Spent the last year Rocky Mountain way,

Couldn't get much higher,

Out to pasture, think it's safe to say,

Time to open fire.

Rocky Mountain Way, Joey Vitale, Joe Walsh, Ken Passarelli & Rocke Grave (1973).

Out there, on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.
(image by Paul Brasby)

In late summer 2021, I rode the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route self-supported from the Canadian border at Roosville, Montana to the Mexican border at Antelope Wells, New Mexico. It was an amazing, unforgettable experience. I'll always cherish that overwhelming feeling of pure joy and utter disbelief at the finish. That is why to dream audaciously, set goals boldly, and work relentlessly to achieve.

After riding 7 weeks on the Great Divide, I spent the next 7 months writing about it. Over the Fall and Winter of 2021, and well into the Spring of 2022, I published 50 blog posts about my experience. Stories of individual happenings or days flowed easily, but expressing the overall experience proved difficult. I know that I still have not adequately covered it. 

Nonetheless, to this day, I still see traffic on many of these posts. Now, with the New Year, I know that folks are preparing for their own ride of the Great Divide this summer and are looking for information and encouragement. So, I'm bumping a post from last year when I made those Great Divide posts easier to find by creating a separate Page just for them.

On the right side of the main Black Hills BackBone blog, look for the section called "Pages." There is one called "Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (2021)." On that Page, you will find links to my Great Divide blog posts on a variety of subjects, including preparations, gear lists, packing, bike set-up, logistics, navigation, food, encounters with others, adaptations, and the all important mental aspect. Photographs adorn each post. There's even a slide show with one representative image for each day and an entire Gallery of amazing Paul Brasby images. 

If you plan to ride the Great Divide, or you just want to read along with my ride, it's a place to start.

Rocky Mountain Way, Joe Walsh (1973).

Rocky Mountain Way, Joe Walsh (live at Santa Monica Civic Auditorium 1976).