![]() ![]() You're certainly no stranger to long-form endurance racing and riding. And having the wrong person with you can have the opposite effect and really ruin the whole experience. But finding a good riding partner for something like this is pretty hard. Were there plenty of times where it would have been nice to have had someone else to talk to, absolutely. What you experience, the decision making, the takeaway, the motivation, it all comes from you, it’s very empowering, and scary at the same time. In the end, going solo means it’s all you. You can take photos to try and capture the moment, but they don’t do it justice. There is nobody to turn to and say, “Dang, that’s amazing”, “Did you see that?”, or “This totally sucks!”. ![]() Riding through a gorgeous sunset, passing a moose and her baby drinking by a river, getting caught by a thunderstorm, or riding long and late into the night. ![]() There is also nobody to share or validate these experiences with you as they happen. Your decisions are all you have to go on, your survival, health and safety is 100% in your hands. You make all the decisions about everything, which means you own it, the good, the bad and the ugly. There is something very pure and free about riding alone, it’s just you and the road ahead. There were plenty of times where I would talk to myself, to the wildlife, yell at a hill that would never end, or have a one-way exchange with various storm clouds that seemed to be following me around all day. However, this trip was more remote than anything else I had done before. I do a lot of my riding solo, and I completed the Trans Am bike route by myself back in 2009. First and foremost, the solo element was a huge challenge but not one that’s completely new to me. This definitely has been the hardest thing I’ve ever done.The other day I was thinking how this compared to my time in the Army, both in basic training and when I was deployed to Bosnia back in the 90’s, and this still seemed harder. Aside from the obvious physical difficulties of undertaking a route like this, how would you characterize the psychological challenge to approaching the GDMBR as a solo rider? Having recently completed a solo traversal of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, you've described this as the hardest thing you've ever done on a bike. ![]()
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