Two years ago I did a week of bike support driving the lunch
van for the Bike Dreams Great divide Tour which runs from Banff Alberta south
along the Great Divide to Antelope Wells in New Mexico on the US/Mexican
border. This is the longest off road
bike trip in the world at 2808 miles (4500 kms). I meet the crew at the US/Canadian border and
drove truck to Banff and then followed the tour with the lunch van south. At the Us border I turned the wheel over to
my American counterpart. It was a pretty fun experience and so when I
was asked to join them again I jumped at the chance.
Fast forward to today as I get ready to pack up to go meet
the crew at the border. I recruited my
good friend Ken C to come with me and drive the other vehicle. We will drive down and meet at Elko on
Wednesday afternoon and the meet at the Elko campground which is behind the OK
Tire store and not much of a place but they did have a good shower two years
ago. Then on Thursday morning Ken and I will meet the crew as they cross the
border at Roosville just 38 kms south.
Yesterday I dragged my tent and camping equipment out from
the storage closet in the basement and set my tent up. I don’t think I have used my tent since I
went camping with Bike Dreams two years ago. Kind of sad as I really do enjoy
camping.
After the bike tour Ken and I are going to drive up to
Cranbrook and extend our camping trip.
From Cranbrook we will do a week of spoke rides into the mountains
surrounding Cranbrook. There are
several passes which can be ridden on out and back basis. So this means I needed to get my Giant down
from the ceiling in the garage where it has been hanging. I needed to clean the grime off it and get it
lubed and ready to go. I mounted the
rack for carrying my trunk bag which will be needed for lunches and a rain
jacket just in case as you never know when it may rain. My Giant is an all carbon bike with Dura Ace
components. A triple chain ring in the
front and FSA cranks. The Easton wheels
have proven to be bullet proof and still run as straight and true as the day I
bought them. My Giant probably has close
to 70,000 miles on it and it has carried me across the US on three of my coast
to coast adventures and all through Europe.
I am really looking forward to a week of spoke rides with Ken.
For some reason I had it in my mind it was only a three hour
drive over to Elko from my place in Kelowna.
Looks like it is more like 7 hr.
Good thing I checked.
One more thing --- Visit the Bike Dreams web page and check
out the ride: http://www.the-great-divide.com/Pages/Home.php
Terry
No comments:
Post a Comment