So the yurt kept us dry but definately NOT warm. We took our time packing up but finally hit the road, this time it was a hilly gravel road that nearly choked us in dust even though it had rained. We are still getting the hang of these heavy loads so loose gravel is not yet our friend, especially on a downhill. Rode through millions of daisies and ferns later in the day and ended up at the long anticipated Boulton Creek Trading Post. I thought we would have a nice lunch there but it was a 7-11 as far as food goes, nothing like a microwaved sandwich and a little Recoverite when your legs are shaking. Our options were stop and camp at a beautiful “primitive campground” ( as in no showers and a pit toilet, maybe a bear box rather than a tree to hide your food) or plod on and get over a steep, long pass that would be so great to have behind us. The legs said stop. How hard can a hill be with fresh morning legs anyway?

Day Totals –   21 miles,   2 hrs 20 mins,   925 ft climbing,  1322 ft descent

Ride Totals – 85 miles,  13 hrs 50 mins,  6791 ft climbing,  5777 ft descent

Day three primitive camp site

First Night’s Camp

We awoke to the sound of loons echoing across the lake. I liked this campsite when we arrived last night but this morning it was absolutely magical. The sun was coming up over the mountains, the lake looked like a mirror, the clothes we washed in the lake last night were dry, and the bag of food we had hoisted up in a tree across the meadow was still there-untouched by bears or even chipmunks. We were all smiles as we made our coffee and oatmeal.
We could hear a few cars on a road across the lake but for the most part we were in the middle of nowhere. The only person in sight was another cyclist who had pulled in late last night looking for company as he is doing this ride alone.
We rode together, stopping for photos every few minutes, until about an hour into our ride Hans noticed that the Spot device he loves so much was no longer attached to the back of my bike where he had put it this morning. I was getting used to riding with the loaded panniers but at one point a single track and a few rocks that would normally be no problem made “Buck” decide to throw me off into the rocks. We suspected that the Spot had fallen off there, some 8 miles or so back. Hans unhooked the trailer and headed back while our new pal decided to go on ahead and I walked down to a beautiful lake where I filtered water, made lunch, then waited. And waited. And waited. Almost 3 hours had gone by and I knew he had no food and very little water so even if he hadn’t had a mechanical failure (or worse) it was time to backtrack. I threw the panniers into the brush, grabbed the first aid kit and some bike tools off the “BOB” and headed down the trail. Sure enough, after about a mile I see Hans pushing his bike up the steep hill for the second time in a day. The look on his face told me he had not had any luck in his search for the Spot. By now he had put on an extra 20 miles and we would be late getting to the campsite we had planned on but our map said there was a lodge only 5 miles ahead. It was a beautiful trail, expecially with the black skies and lightening in the distance.Of course now would be a good time to get a flat tire so I did.

Fixing our first flat tire

By the time the Lodge was in sight we knew we were in for rain so when Mr. Innkeeper said “Sorry, we’re full” (of people who had given them the required 24 hour notice that entitled them to a room and a great meal out on the deck) we must have looked pretty pathetic because he suddenly remembered that he did have a yurt out in the woods that we could have. He even sold us cold beer and a glass of wine that we were welcomed to enjoy on the patio as long as we agreed to disappear before his guests came down for dinner. Did we really look that bad already??

Mt. Engadine Lodge

The yurt was perfect with a glass dome on top for stargazing, instead we watched the rain come down and knew we had lucked out.

It sure was nice waking up in camp to the sound of the Loons singing on the Lake. It took us a little long than I thought to repack all our gear, taking extra time to rebalance our loads so our bike would respond better. I wanted NO MORE wobbly bikes! Bob, who had pulled into camp last night and is doing the same ride decided to ride with us.

Denise and Bob at Spray Lake

Spray lake

The beginning of the ride took us the rest of the way along the west side of Spray Lake. We were treated to some spectacular views.

We came across several rock slides that required we walk our bikes over as well the big drainage basin for the dam at the end of the lake. Then we crossed several beautiful little creeks with wooden bridges.

Then came the big hills. Some were so steep that we had to push our bikes up them. Pushing was actually almost harder than riding up as our riding shoes are not really meant for comfortable walking. In the longer section we actually took off our bike shoes and put on our tennis shoes.

After about 11 miles it was time for lunch. As we were getting our gear out I noticed that my SPOT locator was missing from the back of Denise’s bike. She had actually tipped over into the brush about a few miles back and I was sure that was where it had come off. I unhitched the trailer and told Bob and Denise I would be right back as I was going to go back and look for it. Along the way I passed several hikers and I asked if they had found it but no luck.  I came to the spot where Denise had laid her bike over and search everywhere, but no SPOT.  Losing the SPOT would have been no big deal. Sure my Dad loves seeing where I am at but another important function of the SPOT is that it is our cry for help should we get in trouble. It uses satellites to email an SOS to my family with our location. I was worried that it someone picks it up and pushed the wrong button, my family would scramble the rescue.
I decided to keep going as it must just be around the next corner.
One bad thing when I took off was, I left with very little water and no food and no bear spray. I kept going, riding faster and faster freed of the trailer and knowing Denise would be worried as I was now gone for a while.
I was now almost all the way back to our camp when it started raining. I had no rain gear but I thought now it had to be at camp as it was bright orange and I could not have passed it.
I pulled into our last night’s camp and frantically searched the whole area. My heart sank deep when I realized it was not there and now I was, thirsty, wet, cold, hungry and 12 miles away from Denise.
As I turned around and raced back to Denise I knew I was fading fast. I needed water and food and fortunately there was lots if water in the streams. I didn’t have the water filter we had been using but figured, if the water was bad here, I might as well cash in the chips.  The water tasted so good!

I did figure I needed to slow down. I knew if I didn’t I would not make it back. Also, I was still sure that somehow I had missed the SPOT and would find it on the way back. I had forgotten how hard the hills were but was now doing them again. Fortunately, I rode out of the rain and the sun brighten my spirits. However, I had now been gone about three hours and knew I had made a big mistake, in that Denise would be very worried.
Still no SPOT  but I finally came to the big last climb back and Denise came riding down to meet me. Little was said, I know she was very glad to see me but I also knew I was in bad standing.
We got back to the trailer and she had made clam chowder. I would have eaten boiled rocks, but the chowder was heaven.
Now way behind schedule, we had to change plans. Bob had taken off like I had hoped he would as I did not want to be holding him back. Looking at the map we saw there was a remote lodge five miles ahead. The rain caught up to us, but somehow I managed to slug it out going deep into my reserves.
When we got to the lodge, we learned they where full, but the nice manager offered us a yurt they had down the trail. I felt like Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem, it turned out to be a dry heaven in a stormy night.

The dry yurt!

Inside the yurt

Day’s totals Hans – 38.5 miles, 3794 ft climb, 3474 ft  decent. Average speed 4.5 mph, ride time 8.5 hours.

Trip totals, 2 days:  63.9 miles, 5866 ft climbing, 4455 decent, 11.5 hours

OH NO! WOBBLY BIKES, YIKES!!!

Without boring everyone on all the details, a lot of research and preparation went into just getting us to the start of the trail. That being said, with everything in life there are going to be some surprises. Who knew our youth hostel private room offered barely enough room for us and our gear to coexist.

It took a lot more time than we imagined in getting everything put back together. We had spent several days taking everything apart and carefully packing everything into 3 cardboard bike boxes, and a box for the trailer. Really don’t know why I expected everything to go together much faster. Sadly we only budgeted one extra day in Banff to prepare. It really was barely enough time so we did not have a lot of time to enjoy Banff before heading off. It is truly a beautiful and magical place, but as such, there were a lot of tourists.

View from downtown Banff

Bike friendly Banff

Church downtown Banff

View from Main Street Banff

Up to the final hour of needed departure we were still trying to figure out how to put everything we thought we needed onto our bikes and “Bob” our bike trailer that I would be pulling. Finally it became clear that we could just not bring it all, so off Denise went to mail the extra ahead to a post office on our route. Finally it was time to leave or we would not make our first campsite before dark. Well guess what? I am sure you have heard stories about people building boats in their garages and not being able to get them out when finished. Well, two assembled fully loaded bikes, a fully loaded trailer, and two people in an extremely small room made for a very interesting Tetris puzzle. It took us 30 minutes just to get everything out of the room!

Finally out the front door, we were slammed with the reality that Denise’s overloaded bike and my overloaded trailer did not behave anything like our test trip in the Laguna’s. The bikes where so unstable we were actually afraid to pull out of the parking lot much less head out on a 2700 mile adventure. I hid my concern from Denise as much as possible and knew this could be the end before we even started, as we must be able to control our bikes. We looked at each other and decided to just go for it. Pulling out into the street I could tell it was going to be interesting trying to keep tailer  “Bob” from being boss of my bike. It was totally like learning to ride a bike for the first time again.

The good news was we had about a mile to road before we started out on the trail behind the fancy Fairmont Springs Hotel. As we passed thru their parking lot I almost ran over several people out of control and got some very mean looks. I saw Denise wrestling her beast (now known as BUCK) also with two over weighted saddle bags trying to take her anyway but straight! We stopped for a picture and tried to regroup. Secretly I had my doubts, and if Denise had said she didn’t think she could pull it off, I would have agreed and we would have come up with a plan “B”

Surprisingly,  I came up with, “I think we just need to readjust the loads a little lower to the ground, lets just try to get to the first campsite and we will deal with it there”. Good news was, she bought it, and down the trail we went. Luckily there was no one else on the trail for us to maim. However at mile one we saw the largest male Elk I have ever seen, standing in the middle of the trail. We managed to stop before hitting him and I got to count his rack as 14 points. Seeing the Elk brought us back to reality that all the trouble it took to get to this point, was really worth it. So we pedaled on.

We went to the Laguna’s for a test ride. This was the first time with the trailer and saddle bags. First day we felt the altitude some, 5,000 ft. but by day two we were fine. Trailer pulled great and Denise did fantastic handling the weight on the back of her bike with the saddle bags. Ended up riding about 75 miles over 3 days. Was a beautiful place to ride and got us very excited about our upcoming adventure

How do you get three months of gear onto two Mt. Bikes. Well you start with a trailer, then you add saddle bags, seat bags, top tube bags, top rack bag, and a bag of tricks. Hoping as we ride some things will just bounce their way off!

We are asked a lot about why we are doing this. The polite way of saying “are you crazy”

He said:

Well if you tell enough people you are going to do something, then eventually you begin to believe you can pull it off. I have had my doubts since we first started thinking about doing this over a year ago. Not from the physical aspect per say, as most might think, but more from the, do I really want to put my 60 year old body through a possible 90 day camping trip?!?! Sure there will be some hotel days but this is basically a long nomadic camping trip on bikes. Yikes!

I admit it, I love a nice bed, 2.5 nice meals a day (not prepared by me), an occasional trip to a luxurious pool, and certainly a warm water surf session as often as possible.  I am spoiled! There I said it. But, having taken on two Ironman’s I have learned you CAN DO ANYTHING you really set your mind to. I just needed to get on board with camping for 2700 miles with only what you can carry on two Mt. Bikes. Then I watched the move, Ride the Divide. If you haven’t watched it, and you are on this blog site, then you should. Netflix has it. It is all the movie’s fault. I love adventure, and this is pure adventure.

In the movie they are racing 2700 miles which to me is crazy. Without really thinking, I thought wow, this would be a lot of fun to do, not as a race but as a really long ride. I love long bike rides and have always thought riding a bike a across America would be the perfect way to really get to see our beautiful country. I told Denise about it thinking there is no way she would be up for something as crazy as this. To my surprise, she came back with, yea thats the one I told you about, “I think it would be fun”. I forgot how much she loves camping, so I walked right into my own trap.

She said:

Hans introduced me to long bike rides.  I’ve always loved a good day on my mountain bike but he had me out on the road racking up miles in preparation for various triathlons, my one and only Half Ironman, and my longest ride to date which was 72 beautiful  miles around Lake Tahoe.  He would often talk about wanting to ride across America but he was talking road bike. Road bike, paved roads, cars-lots of cars- their exhaust, and a ridiculous amount of miles.  I knew that was a trip I would never make.

Years ago I tore out a page from a magazine and put it in my travel folder of places/things I’d like to see or do someday.  It was an article about a new trail that was being built along the Continental Divide and they were trying to raise money in order to link all the existing trails together to form one continuous mountain bike trail from Canada to Mexico. I never heard anything about it again until one day I happened to see “Ride the Divide” on the list of documentaries available from Netflix. I watched the movie and even though I moved it into a much higher position on my To Do list, going for a 2700 mile ride  was still not something I thought was in my near future. But then Hans watched the movie and all of a sudden we were saying “We should DO this!”

In summary, she says it was her idea and I agree when I am not wanting to do it. I say it was my idea when I think it was a good idea. If we make it, IT WAS MY IDEA! if we don’t, I CANT BELIEVE I LET HER TALK ME INTO IT!