The Great divide route changed this year with a new route to avoid a long part of Highway. We heard from the racers that it was even harder then they thought. I was really willing to do it, so we split and I went on my own to the Flathead valley in Canada, just after Sparwoods. The valley is really wild. You can see the difference and feel that there is nothing close to you. Just bears, moose, deer…
When I left Simon & Ollie, it felt a bit strange to be on my own and to bike into this wild & remote spot… After a few heavy rain showers I found a cabin (Butts cabin) where I could crash for the night, warming up with the stove and drying the wet stuff from the previous camping night. It was a good start!
Later during the evening it started to rain again, and it kept raining until 4.30am when I woke up…. grrrr… I had a hard time to get out my sleeping bag! But by 6.30am I was out, in the rain and ...

First thing this morning was to sort out what we will get rid of. I was almost gonna send my big Canon camera but it was too hard and I will carry it in my backpack instead. We also put the flags on :-)
At the post office, we sent a box of 3.9kg! The trailers felt so much more easier to tow. Definitively it makes a big change! After some pasta in Canmore it was time to head to the trail to get to Banff to get some taste of the off-road of the Great Divide. We climbed up the Spray Lakes road and Simon had a kind of disfunctional cycling problem… no more energy in the legs! So he also trained to push the bike & trailer wearing his bike shoes… But he didn’t complain. He was mad at himself to not having any energy in his body.
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After the climb comes the downhill (or almost should I say) to Banff on the Goat Creek trail. It was a nice feeling to be i nthe forest biking with the trailer ...

Tuesday morning we were before 10am at MEC to hopefully get the trailers. We were crossing our fingers, and finally they were here! We unpack everything right in front of the main door and assembled them in half an hour. Then we had to get back home to send 43kg of gears down to Phoenix before being able to leave. But yeah, there it started… Putting the trailer on the back of the bike was quite…. how to say… surprising! It’s heavy!!! It’s really heavy… How are we gonna do it. But let’s give it a try for the first day to Canmore on a paved road.

We left Crystal & Shannon who hosted us during almost one week (thank you so much for your hospitality and all the good time & parties we had!) and started cycling toward Canmore on the 1A. About an hour later we got a huge rain with thunders…

It was raining so much that someone stopped and asked if we needed a ride somewhere ;-) Thanks but we have to go through this rain and to Canmore on ...

It has been an interesting few days, trying to get used to being back on a bike. Marco has been a very patient teacher, helping me out with my biking skills. I’ve fallen off every day, but yesterday’s was the worst so far. I approached a small steep hill in the forest, but didn’t have enough speed to get up it, hit a root with the front wheel and fell backwards and to the right back down off the hill. I landed on a solid wooden wall, with my ribs taking most of the impact. I even managed to dent the new bike - what an idiot! I managed to continue riding, but with some discomfort, and this morning, I’m not doing too well.

Other than that, preparations are going pretty well. We had our first team teleconference yesterday morning, and all sounds well in Scotland, where Ollie is getting ready to fly out on Thursday.

Here in Calgary, we are hoping that the trailers have arrived in the shop so that we can pack them up and get all our ...

Last night, Marco and I attended the Tour Divide pre-race barbeque in Banff. It was a great opportunity to meet some of the riders, especially the race organiser, Matthew. He invited us to join after reading about our adventure on this site, and even gave us a SPOT tracking device. This device will allow you to track our progress throughout our ride. More details will follow - we’re still getting it all set up correctly.

This morning, we went along to see the riders set off on the trail, and it was inspirational to say the least. Possibly the most striking thing was how little equipment the racers were all taking with them. There were a few panniers in sight, but definitely no trailers as all the riders try to take as little as possible with them. This means that they rely on making it to towns to spend the night in hotels or motels, removing the need for a tent, sleeping bag, stove and fuel. You can follow the race via the Tour Divide web site.

This afternoon, Marco and I put in ...

[caption id=”attachment_135” align=”aligncenter” width=”571” caption=”Simon & Marco with their bikes”]& Marco with their bikes” src=”/images/2009/06/2009-06-10-18h44m52.JPG” title=”Simon & Marco with their bikes” />[/caption]

Simon bought his bike today! So we are almost set, just missing the trailers which are supposed to come on Monday. We also bought a lot of different things to have some spare parts for the bikes, clothes, accessories for the bikes. It was a full day for Simon VISA card who paid everything ;-)

Simon also discovered the pros & cons of using cleats as everyone does on the first ride… But the bike doesn’t have any scratch, neither Simon!

Simon will be riding a Specialized Stumpjumper Aloy Hardtail M5.
I will be riding an Orbea Alma Team Carbon.

J-9 … not many days left!

Simon arrived on the 8th from New-Zealand and picked me up at the airport on the 9th. It was great to see him again and to finally arrived in Canada to start this adventure. It wasn’t as cold as I was thinking and today is again a sunny day.

The initial status is like this: 2 men, 1 bike, 0 trailer - so it could be better but at least it’s starting somewhere. We will look today for Simon’s bike again and the trailers will come beginning of next week since MEC messed up with our order.

Yesterday evening I mounted my bike :-) A pleasure to see it! Pictures will come later after today’s ride.