I unearthed a cache of 2011 Tour Divide photos I had taken with a Micro 4/3rds camera I had brought along. 2011 was a strange year, as the snowpack was so great, the route was detoured around most all the mountain passes from near the beginning in Banff, Alberta, CA to after Steamboat Springs. Me Continue reading…
2011 (scratch near Silver City), 2012 finish in ~23 days The Tour Divide was a seminal trip for me. Officially, it was my first (then second) mountain bike race. I thought nothing of buying my first mountain bike a few months before the race, and lining up in Banff, Alberta, Canada, pointing the bike South Continue reading…
Adventure Cycling‘s Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR for short) is one of my favorite off-pavement bike routes in the country. I’ve done two tours of it myself while racing it, and have used segments the route itself quite a bit while doing shorter bikepacking tours. It’s well-designed, lots of beta about accommodations exist, and Continue reading…
View/Download this route on Strava View this route on Google Maps With another run of the Tour Divide this year, I’m reminded again of this awesome cross-country route and the many great memories I have on it. The last time I was riding on the GDMBR was on my Tour of the Highest Hundred, where Continue reading…
The GDMBR in yellow; alternative in red View/Download this Route on Strava View this Route on Google Maps The Great Divide Mountain Bike Route is without a doubt one of the preeminent off road touring routes in the US/Canada. Now that I’ve ridden the route essentially twice and have done some extensive touring within Colorado, Continue reading…
Thanks everyone who made the time to come over to Neptune Mountaineering and participate in my talk! I really appreciate everyone’s interest and support! Thank you Neptune Mountaineering for hosting the event! GPS tracks of the routes I presented are available on my Strava Routes page: Some of the routes/races I mentioned:
Part 1 of an 8,000 word essay by Bryan Schatz (with illustrations by Matthew Burton) on my riding/art/tom-foolery leading up to and through the Tour Divide can be found in the latest issue of Switchback Magazine #10: Pitch black and frozen in the snow- choked Rockies north of the border, and all Justin Simoni could Continue reading…
In the world’s toughest bike race, Justin Simoni rode from disaster to triumph
I sit here, late at night, with sore knees, having hoped to do this little write up a lot earlier, but so it goes. This small trip I’m about to describe, I estimated hazily as, “around, uh, 2 days”, with only mentally plodding out the mileage hastily in my head. The idea though, was Continue reading…
One of the magical things about the Tour Divide is the MTBCast call-in service. If you can find a pay phone on the route – which are actually still, “plentiful” in the areas the GDMBR wanders through, you can call a 800 number and leave a message, that will then be posted up by MTBCast Continue reading…
Four days, 420 miles, 4 continental divide crossings, 9 hours of snowshoeing, two days of minstrel headwinds,snow showers and over-caffeine-ation. “Well,” said the shaggy man, “let’s start on, or we won’t get anywhere before night comes.” “Where do you expect to get to?” asked Dorothy. “I’m like Button-Bright. I don’t know,” answered the shaggy man, Continue reading…