Bikepacking - Not Speed Golf

Slow down, you move too fast

You got to make the morning last

Just kicking down the cobblestones

Looking for fun and feeling groovy

Ba da-da da-da da-da, feeling groovy

The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy), Paul Simon (1968)

Stopping for lunch along a creek in the shade of a bridge in Montana on the Great Divide.
Feeling groovy with a nice break that cooled us off for a late day cruise into Ovando.

A visionary within the Adventure Cycling Association created the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, a 2,500 mile off-pavement cross-country ride from Canada to Mexico along the Continental Divide. Almost 30 years later, untold numbers of cyclists have dreamt of riding that route and thousands ride at least a portion of it each year.

Unfortunately, an inordinate amount of attention falls onto the "Tour Divide" race that piggy-backs that pioneering route. Many don't seem to know that the Tour Divide simply started as an individual time trial by a few individuals pushing the limits of self-supported, self-navigated bikepacking on the then nascent Great Divide route. However, for all but a very select few, racing the Great Divide was never the aspirational standard. Touring was the designer's intent and riders' dream, not racing through the backcountry. Touring still is the dream for many, although you'd never know it by the fawning attention given the Tour Divide.

Paul Brasby forages for huckleberries along Boulder River Road outside of Basin, Montana.
A special treat for attentive riders on the Great Divide.

I believe that a focus on racing a well-designed bikepacking route misses the mark for most, especially on a 2,500 mile backcountry route designed for touring. It's somewhat like the game of "speed golf," where the time to run the golf course means more than the number of strokes. The heart of the original sport is lost while chasing the clock. And the new activity is then something entirely different.

Maybe speed bikepacking is your jam. If so, go for it.

A rancher preparing for a two day ride to re-supply the shepherd of his herd,
on USFS Road 330 along the ridgeline to Indiana Pass on the Great Divide route.
What a lifestyle, both the rancher and the shepherd.

Speed bikepacking is not for me. Not with the focus on the running clock. Not with the idolization of timed results. Not with the attendant rules and outside oversight.

Bikepacking for me is backpacking on my bike. See the country, the wildlife, the people. Stop as often and as long as catches your fancy. Allow the day to unfold, opening more opportunities for random serendipity. Perhaps ride at night, but only if conditions are magical. Engage with others, non-riders included. Be an ambassador. Give others a chance to be a Trail Angel. Ride through the backcountry at the pace of life.

Admittedly, as part of the bikepacking adventure, I experience the call to go harder, go faster, go longer, go higher. Sometimes, I answer that call. Sometimes, not. I did the same when backpacking. The freedom to decide is liberating.

Bikepacking ambassador Paul Brasby patiently answers questions from curious hikers.
USFS Road 455 in Caribou Targhee National Forest in Idaho on the Great Divide.

On the other hand, certain types of bikepacking "events" certainly appeal to me. For example, I'd love one that offers a group ride and group camp, even if just for one night. The best case would be to ride an unknown route on unknown roads through unknown country with a group of old and new friends, on a unique route designed by a passionate local, to camp as a group at a special spot. That sounds like great fun.

Now, repeat that day a few times. Or more than a few times.

Invite a few friends and you're now riding the Mammoth 450, a gravel/dirt road tour of the Loess Canyons in Nebraska crafted by local bikepacking guru Paul Brasby. Or any of the Black Hills BackBone or Black Hills Bounty bikepacking routes that I created. Or any number of similar bikepacking routes created by like-minded passionate locals around the country.

Of course, the ultimate bikepacking route is the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.

Ride it your way. 

Just know that bikepacking offers so much more without the clock running.

Addendum. This is not a new take on bikepacking for me. Here's a link to my July 2019 post entitled Bikepacking The GDMBR.

Addendum 2. Many of my posts on my Great Divide ride share stories of people I met as a bikepacker. Here's an example of one encounter, along with a photo gallery of some others. Riders, Hikers & Others on the Great Divide.

The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feeling Groovy), Simon & Garfunkel, live at Carnegie Hall (1970).

Planted Seeds

Somewhere over the rainbow

Way up high

In the land that I heard of

Once in a lullaby

Somewhere over the rainbow

Skies are blue

And the dreams that you dare to dream

Really do come true

Somewhere Over The Rainbow, Harold Arlen & Yip Harbury (1939)

This print hung on a wall at my grandparents' farm house for as long as I remember,
until a tornado destroyed the house in 1986.

My paternal grandparents, Joe and Mabel Groseth, lived their lives on a family farm in SouthEastern South Dakota near the small town of Centerville. Both of their grandparents immigrated from Norway to  homestead there in the late 1870's and much of that land remains in the family to this day. 

Grandpa Joe and Grandma Mabel successfully farmed the family farm for decades, starting with horses and adapting to machinery. Beef cattle and dairy cows, hogs, chickens, and horses filled the barnyard and surrounding pastures. Pheasants, jackrabbits, deer, coyotes and all sorts of other wild critters roamed the dense shelter belt and nearby river bottoms. Corn and soybeans filled the fields and the harvest filled the barns and bins.

Grandpa Joe actively engaged in community affairs at Scandia Lutheran Church, with various service organizations, and through township politics. He even served 10 years as a representative in the South Dakota State Legislature. He was a force.

Grandma Mabel also actively volunteered at their church, service organizations. and charities. She had grown up on her family's farm just a few miles away, and played basketball for the Centerville High School girls basketball team in 1919. That's over 100 years ago! She then became a country school teacher, before starting her own family. She was a rock.

They raised three sons on that farm, the youngest my dad Clifford. That hardy, faith-driven upbringing developed Dad's strong character traits of integrity, honesty, accountability, independence, and self-reliance, as well as his entrepreneurial spirit, business acumen, and legendary stubbornness. Farming occasionally allowed time to think and dream, which Dad eagerly embraced.

Grandpa Joe's "business card" when running for re-election to the South Dakota legislature.

As a "town" kid growing up in the 1960's and 1970's, I loved our frequent visits to that family farm. The main attraction, of course, was Grandpa Joe and Grandma Mabel. But getting outside, out into the barn and outbuildings and deep into the shelter belt, was always a great adventure.

One enduring memory of the family farm was that of a small art print in a simple frame, hung on the west wall next to a window in their living room. I would see the image of a little cabin perched high in the mountains, gaze out the window to the west, and wonder.

Do places like that exist? Where? Could you live there? How? What would that be like? It looked so quiet, so peaceful. Boy, I'd love to go there someday.

I also wondered why Grandpa and Grandma placed that print in such a prominent place in their home.

I do know that in 1928 they drove a Ford Model A over a thousand miles one way from Centerville over the Rocky Mountains to Salt Lake City for their honeymoon. That certainly took some gumption and some grit, especially back then on mostly dirt roads. Maybe the print had something to do with that. I don't know. I never asked them while they were alive.

Grandpa Joe passed in 1977. For several years, Dad maintained the buildings and continued to farm the land. But in 1986, a tornado blasted through the area, destroying the homestead. It actually lifted the roof off the house, spun it a bit, and set it back down off kilter. Debris scattered everywhere.

The family and community pulled together a massive cleanup effort and eventually Dad auctioned off most of what had been salvaged. I wasn't there for any of that, though I should have been. Afterward, only the uninhabitable house and the old barn remained standing.

Aerial photograph of the homestead of Joe and Mabel Groseth (circa 1978).
This was after Grandpa Joe passed and before a tornado destroyed the house.

Much later, when I finally made my way back, Dad and I walked around the hauntingly vacuous homestead. Ever the stoic Norwegian, Dad spoke softly of the tornado and its destruction. It felt like the heart of family history had been ripped away.

We entered the house. Doors had been blown off hinges and siding pried off walls. Shattered glass, broken furniture, chunks of woodwork, tree branches of all sizes, and random debris littered the floor. Every step landed on top of something that wasn't supposed to be there. A heavy sadness clouded all thoughts.

Climbing a narrow, creaking staircase to the second floor, I stepped into a small bedroom. My heart stopped.

Atop piles of debris on the floor lay that mountain cabin print!

How it found its way up there is anyone's guess. Dad suggested that it flew out a first floor window and, in the swirling chaos of a tornado, flew back into the house through a second floor window.

I don't know. It didn't matter.

In the midst of such destruction and loss, here was a cherished piece of family history. Somehow, despite the tornado's unimaginable power, the print had survived and appeared right in front of me, long afterward. 

It felt like a miracle.

With Dad's permission, I dug it out of the debris to take home. The rest of our homestead tour passed a little lighter.

The high mountain cabin print, as restored and re-framed.
(Thanks, Kent Cherne at Denver Art Supply)

That restored and re-framed print has hung in our home ever since.

And it always makes me wonder. 

What combination of nature and nurture creates a yearning to explore the unknown, to see what lies around the next turn, across the next river, or over the next mountain. More broadly, what fuels the willingness to take a chance, venture beyond your comfort zone, or forge your own path, however unconventional.

Certainly some of that is hereditary. But it's hard to discount seeds planted by environment. They are likely inextricably intertwined.

I'm just grateful for both.

Thank you, Grandpa Joe and Grandma Mabel.

Over The Rainbow, Eva Cassidy (2014).

That One Left A Mark

The bells were ringing

Our souls were singing

Do you remember, never a cloudy day

There was a 

Ba de ya, say do you remember?
Ba de ya, dancing in September
Ba de ya, golden dreams were shiny days

September, Maurice White & Allee Willis (1978)

(image by Cyler Groseth)

Five years ago today, I stood alone in the blazing sun, stunned, at the closed U.S. Border Station at Antelope Wells, New Mexico not quite believing that I had just finished riding across the country on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. Unreal.

That day is seared into my pysche.

Rather than trying to somehow express that day yet again, I simply reproduced the journal entry handwritten while waiting on my brother for a ride toward home. Nothing profound, yet it still releases a flash flood of thoughts and emotions.

That one left a mark.

Addendum. I listed, described, and linked over 50 posts about this ride on a Blog Page entitled Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (2021).

Addendum 2. I finished my Great Divide ride on September 8, 2021. While waiting for my brother Cyler to pick me up at Antelope Wells, the song "September" by Earth, Wind & Fire and the cover by Kirk Franklin played through my head many times. Pure joy. Some singing and dancing may also have been involved.

The bells were ringing

Our souls were singing

Do you remember, never a cloudy day

There was a 

Ba de ya, say do you remember?
Ba de ya, dancing in September
Ba de ya, golden dreams were shiny days

September, Maurice White & Allee Willis (1978)

September, Earth, Wind & Fire (1978)

Everybody has a September in their life

You know that first time you heard God's voice

So you felt His love

So no matter what season you're in right now

After winter comes spring

So, if you love my Jesus, help me sing

Ba de ya, tell me you remember
Ba de ya, when your heart felt like September
You still had the joy and God was just a prayer away

September, Kirk Franklin (2007)

September, Kirk Franklin (2007)