I’mve been in email contact with Matt Burney, one of two mad people who rode the epic Great Divide mountain bike trail in America, from Canada to Mexico. On offroad unicycles!
Here’s a flavour of the trip, through a list of the highs and low. For more information, pics, vids and so on visit their site.
Things we won’t miss!
1. mosquitoes
2. flies
3. bees
4. perpetual dehydration
5. wearing filthy clothes
6. wet-wipe baths
7. crotch-crunching washboarded roads
8. popping saddle sores
9. smelly feet
10. shivering in the mornings
11. lack of fresh food consumption
12. being too tired to eat dinner
13. being uncomfortable
14. getting stared at
15. wearing a dirty “diaper” (chamois shorts)
16. running out of toilet paper
17. waking up still exhausted
18. being in pain 12 hours/day
19. loathing, but needing, the sun
20. struggling to maintain adequate hygiene
21. chasing daylight
22. wondering what is floating in my water
23. high-altitude boogers
24. strangers telling me I’mm sunburnt when I’mm not
25. running out of food
Things I will miss:
1. killing mosquitoes
2. killing flies
3. killing bees
4. watching the sky change over the course of a day
5. uncluttered horizons
6. freshwater springs
7. speaking obnoxious baby-talk to cows, to either confuse or startle them
8. early morning wildlife sightings
9. having everything I could need in my pack
10. sleeping outside
11. rarity of mirrors
12. sporadic reliance on technology
13. taking breaks wherever; whenever I want, even sitting in the middle of the road
14. eating junk food and getting into amazing shape
15. deep appreciation for the simplest of conveniences
16. receiving uninhibited friendliness from strangers
17. seeing new things all day every day
18. night skies so starry, seen only when at least a day’s ride from anywhere and anything
19. eating fingerfood all the time
20. groves of aspen trees
21. creating an evident positive impact on others simply by pedaling
22. a special camaraderie with other cyclists
And here is a nice video from their journey. The first 25 seconds set the tone nicely…
That is a brilliant video, just shows two great friends having such a good trip! Unicycling is far beyond my skills! They must have had abs of steel when finishing.
Awesome journey – those saddles look horrendous though! I like the idea of being able to eat anything and not regret it.
When I rode the Divide last year, I met a dozen people who had also met those two. Nearly all of them commented on how big Gracie’s quads were. Great video – it brought back memories.
Magic! Cheers for posting this, lovely video, makes me want to learn how to unicycle and eat badly without anything else mattering…