YES, we have finished the Great Divide journey!
YES, we have a big game of media catch-up to play!
NO, I am not recovered!
Early on in the adventure, it became clear to me that riding the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route on a unicycle would not be a test of technical riding ability; it is a test of will. It tests one's ability to endure: fatigue, extreme weather, dehydration, pain, etc.
How to summarize the unsummarizeable?
First I'll post (too?) many pictures from our journey south of Grants, NM. Then the really fun stuff starts, in the form of trip statistics and the like.
Due to the continuing monsoon rains that create impassable roads, we had to take the Adventure Cycling-recommended alternate through the El Malpais National Monument, which actually ended up being way cool. The monsoons came a bewildering few weeks late this year, which unfortunately coincided with our travels through the really mucky section of New Mexico.
[Near The Narrows in the monument, winding through a corridor lined with rock cliffs on one side and a wild lava bed on the other.]
[Jiminy cricket! (who is
not amused)]
[Unrollable.]
[But surprisingly standupable! This otherwise-nearly impossible feat is made possible by the insanely sticky mud.]
[Here's a shout out to the folks at KEEN! The shoes were great and got us through the best and worst of it.]
[Unrollable means just that. Time to drag it sideways.]
["23"]
[Nita and I share a mutual friend! Pie Town, NM was a kind place, full of welcoming people and friendly faces. The pie lady at The Pie-O-Neer Cafe even lent us her car to do a grocery run several miles away! They were busy crankin' out the pies for the annual Pie Fest. I recommend the New Mexico Apple pie a la mode, with green chiles and pine nuts!]
["24"]
Sidenote: I know I've mentioned the insects and animals frequently during the journey, but seriously, sometimes they are just wild. Dung beetles are simply outrageous, expending an astounding amount of energy forming balls of poop in the cow pies, then rolling them away to do what they do best. The ant hills are tremendous, and if you camp anywhere within a expanse littered with them, they will crawl on everything - and I mean everything - and even into your sleeping bag. And oh, the mice - clever ones, they are, creating all sorts of ruckus while we try to sleep.
["25"]
[Nope, the mud hasn't stopped yet!]
["26"]
[Thunder and lightning all around, with absolutely no place to hide. The storm is so close and thick that it is blocking the view of large mountains just beyond. We ended up finding an outcropping of rocks, and I wrapped up in trashbags leeward of a boulder.]
["Roads impassable when wet." ...I'll agree with that.]
[a sloppy "27"]
["28"]
["29..." These poses and camera shots are getting lazy!]
[Muck through O-Bar-O Canyon.]
[Rapidly changing surface quality did a number on me, making my knee bleed even through the thick layer of mud.]
[New Mexico unicycle stand. Once again, this is not supposed to be physically possible for a unicycle.]
["30"]
[Santa Rita Mines.]
[Observing the Santa Rita Mines outside Silver City.]
["31"]
[Into the Chihuahua Desert, a stark contrast from the lush areas in the state that looked more like West Virginia. Good luck finding shade.]
[Just a cool sign, a cool sky, and 2 cool wheels.]
[Crossing a cattle guard just north of Separ.]
[First sign to our finish at Antelope Wells!]
[With Ron & Carol Elder, who showed us great kindness by saying hello in Silver City, picking us up on the route the next evening, filling our bellies with goodies and minds with good conversation, giving us a place to sleep, and returning us to the route. What a treat!]
[Starting our last full day of the trip!]
["Last full day" still means over 60 miles, but with more motivation.]
[I think I see Mexico....]
[The road looks empty, but it is sprinkled with massive centipedes, tarantulas, and the occasional unicyclist.]
[Giant spiders devour Hachita!! Once again, no illusions. Tarantulas were everywhere.]
["32" - last crossing at 4,520 ft.!]
[Filling up at every chance meant finding windmill-powered pumps that filled stock tanks in the middle of nowhere... and I do mean the middle of nowhere.]
[Hatchet Gap: Windmill, pipe, fresh water, YES.]
[The last sunset.]
["1 Mile" in "Travel Time 5 Min." is twice our pace, and makes me doubt cars actually drive 12 mph for this last stretch to The Promise Land, or shall I say, "La Terra Promesa."]
[MEXICO!!!!]
[The moment we've all been waiting for. La Frontera.]
["United States Border Inspection Station Antelope Wells, N.M."]
[Tim, et al., at the border station is famous for his hospitality shown to bicyclists. He greeted us with ice cream and hot biscuits to supplement the multiple sodas we bought from the coveted Coke machine!]
[An hour after arriving at the least-used border crossing in the U.S., we hopped a shuttle (one of the ~3 vehicles that crosses each day) that takes folks over the border to see family in Phoenix, AZ, then we will rent a car to drive through the night in shifts to Sacramento, CA where my parents picked us up and escorted us to Davis, my motherland.]
[Glowing grins.]
Now for the fun stuff!
total route mileage = 2,628.7*
riding days = 68
average daily mileage = 39.2
rest days = 9
time frame = july 2-september 16, 2009
# of days over 50 miles = 17
# of days over 60 miles = 5
# of days over 100 miles = 1
most # of saddle sores at one time = 11
ratio of most # of saddle sores to pairs of socks lost = 2.75:1
size of biggest saddle sore: 3/4-inch diameter
total # of continental divide crossings: 32
most # of continental divide crossings in one day: 4
# animal species I had never seen before = 9
# of Wal-Mart sightings = 4
ratio of bags of chips consumed to threatening hummingbird encounters = 3.33:1
# of flat tires = 6 (each) (Matt got 3 in one mile near the Mexico border!)
# of flat seat tubes = 1 (each)
approximate % of days that the "I'm On a Boat" song was in my head = 95%
*Note: the total route miles listed is less than the initially intended 2,705 due to re-routes around impassable roads. Miles actually ridden are ~6% more (on our 29-inch, single-speed unicycles) due to the natural squiggle during the turn of a unicycle wheel, making the total ridden mileage 2,786.4 miles.
So, with little (if any) optimism from anyone who had actually ridden the route, we beat the odds and further expanded the horizon of possibility. Back in the real world, I am savoring every bit of music I can get in my ears; such a remote trip created quite a deprivation of one of my basic needs, as evidenced by frequent singing during the journey. Songs stuck in my head represented genres including, but not limited to, rap, children's songs, Gracie & Matt originals, and orchestral soundtrack scores to movies such as Dances With Wolves and Mr. Holland's Opus.
Rebounding from an extremely taxing endeavor has facilitated the alignment of my needs and wants, a blessing I wish would come more often. I need a job, and, ironically, I need balance in life; thankfully, those are the two things I also want most right now. So... who's hiring? :-)
Remember to
donate if you feel so inspired, and as always...
...Rock 'n' roll!
Yours Truly,
Team Blazing-But-Slowly-Healing Saddle Sores
