Riding with Gordon (and his mate Parkinson's)

In mid 2022, my husband Gordon was diagnosed with Parkinsons Disease. We had long had the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route on our bucket list and quickly realised that sooner was going to be better than later. I approached my boss and asked for a year off to go adventuring. On receiving a yes, Gordon and I quickly went into planning mode. How were we going to get there, what gear did we need to update, what tires should we use, do we rent the house out furnished or unfurnished, if unfurnished, can we get a storage unit for our stuff, what maps, apps and navigation devices do we need, and most importantly, how will we source Gordon's medication while on the road? It was a seemingly endless list of things to do in a very short time. 

Fast forward 3 months and we were on a plane heading from Auckland to Vancouver with our bikes, 3 months supply of medication for Gordon and a 6 month visa for the USA. Although the GDMBR was our goal, we decided riding there would be a good warm up. Using Bikepacking.com, I downloaded the BC Epic Route as a starting point and we headed east. Our plan was to take a month to ride across British Columbia and join the GDMBR in Banff. 

The BC Epic takes a southerly tack, officially starting at Cultus Lake and finishing in Fernie. Along the way, it takes in parts of the Trans Canada Trail, Kettle Valley Rail Trail and Columbia and Western Rail Trail along with connecting back roads and single track. It's an epic route (pun intended) and it was a great warm up for the GDMBR. We made a few modifications to the route due to flood damage from the previous winter and a decision to head north from Kimberley to Banff rather than following the route all the way to Fernie. 

We rode between 35 and 75km per day (mostly around 50km per day) with the goal of increasing our pace the fitter we got. Disclaimer at this point, although we got fitter, we never got faster! As we worked through managing Gordon's Parkinsons, we soon realised that there seemed to be a limit to what he could manage each day. This was around 5 hours of riding but it took us quite a while to figure this out. Once we did and accepted that our original goals for our journey might need to be modified, we settled into a more or less comfortable groove. 

Highlights of the route across BC (in no particular order) included the trestle bridges in Myra Canyon on the Kettle Valley Rail Trail (KVR), two nights spent in Anaconda helping out at the Night Sky RV park, being brought wood fired pizza and fresh water at our first state campground on the KVR, climbing Grey Creek Pass at 0430 in the morning to avoid the 38 degree temperatures, and two nights spent on a forest service road following the Kootenay River toward Banff (night two involving skinny dipping in the river at 8pm at night only to have three Canadian canoes, two four person rafts and one one person raft float past us in quick succession at the same time! No idea where they were going at that time of night, but I imagine they got as much of a surprise as we did given we were literally in the middle of nowhere!).

By the time we reached Banff, we were ready for a couple of days off. We were usually taking a day off the bikes every five to eight days to rest and recover but felt two days off was a good idea. We had got into the habit of stopping to talk to everyone we met along the way, stopping to take lots of photos and often stopping mid afternoon to camp, both to avoid the heat of the day and to stay within Gordon's comfort limits. This worked well for us but we'd still been pretty consistently on the bike most days. So we treated ourselves to a different kind of seat and joined a bus tour up the Icefields Parkway. Such a luxury to sit on a soft seat and travel faster than 10km per hour! Such stunning scenery and so much easier on a wee bus! 

Still, the $89 each per night in a 9 bedded dorm room with shared bathroom in Banff soon saw us back on the bikes and heading off on the GDMBR. It was August 10th when we left Banff with advice that this was the perfect time to ride the Divide. And indeed it was, and if you can ride at 80 to 100km per day, you will likely also finish it before the snow arrives in Colorado! Our ambitions were now a little modified given that our pace was never going to reach the 100km per day goal, but we set off with no concerns and the plan to go as far south as the weather would let us.

Our first day on the Divide out of Banff was lovely. Warm, good trail and not another soul out there aside from a plague of moths that seem to rise up out of the ground as we rode over them; very odd. That first night we camped at Spray Lake where we met three other riders who were on the same journey and would feature strongly in our journey in the following weeks. Zach from the USA was heading to Argentina and started in Canmore (not far from Banff). This was day 1 for him and he was busy trying to find his riding legs. We traveled in proximity with Zach for the next two weeks and have kept in touch ever since. The other two we met that day were Tommy and Michele from Quebec and Toronto respectively. They had started an hour or so behind us from Banff and we travelled closely beside them for the next two months. While never really riding together nor even really planning together until much further along, invariably we would end up at the same campsites each night, even when these were the most obscure or unlikely places to arrive at! 

I mention these three in particular, because I think it is important to note that big cycle journeys are often punctuated by periods where you travel with others. You meet people and establish relationships that often extend years, with these relationships often becoming some of the more memorable and concrete reminders of the journey that is taken. While we met many people along the way and follow many of their adventures online, Zach, Tommy and Michele were there that first day out of Banff and traveled at our pace which was very rare! Zach soon disappeared as he found his riding legs but it was fun being with him at the start of his adventures. Tommy and Michele parted ways with us in Lima after many miles of journeying. They exited the route to fly home shortly after that. An adventure still to be finished for them both.

I don't know where to start with our GDMBR adventures because there were so many. There was the close encounter with a grizzly bear on single track near Fernie, being chewed up and spat out by the Great Divide Basin (read thunderstorm, rain, mud, wheels that would not turn and escaping in the back of a pickup before we ran out of food and water), and the hilarity of trying to find appropriate trees to hang our food from to avoid bears when freedom camping. There was also the stunning, warm, clear days of riding with the wind behind us and plenty of food in our bags, the locals we met along the way who we held the most fascinating conversations with, the vistas around every corner, and as we headed further south, the slowly changing colours as the trees started to embrace the changing season. 

There were also the townships we visited along the way that we resupplied at and managed to stock up on Gordon's medication. Through a good friend in New Zealand we had managed to connect with a Family Physician in the USA who was able to prescribe Gordon's medication remotely, allowing us to pick up his prescription from a local pharmacy. We are so grateful to Doug for being able to do this for us! We hadn't counted on a shortage of his medication nationally though, so could often only pick up a month at a time instead of three months so there was a bit of waiting in Walmarts. Fortunately Walmart also sell a delicious trail mix which became a staple part of our diet!

While much of our food came from small mercantiles attached to petrol stations, we ate pretty well with cereal or oatmeal for breakfast, peanut butter wraps or bagels for lunch and delicacies such as Idaho instant potato mixed with fish and a bell pepper for dinner. 

As we headed south, the nights became colder, often dropping below freezing, particularly as we were also gaining in altitude. While we were warm enough in our tent, the mornings became increasingly difficult as our hands were frequently too cold to effectively do much beyond the bare minimum of packing up. Breakfast became a Muesli bar rather than a prepared meal. By 10am though, the sun had come up and the world was warm again so we persisted south.

We did a couple of extra curricular activities along the way including a trolley bus tour in Butte, Montana and a bus tour of Yellowstone National Park. Both were good opportunities for a rest from the bikes but our approach of trying for a day off every week continued and after 4 continuous months on the bikes, the time for an extended rest was approaching. By the end of October we had reached Southern Colorado and it finally snowed sufficiently that the high passes south of us were closed. We decided to change tack slightly. We grabbed a U Haul truck, loaded our bikes and headed back north to Denver where we picked up a wee Escape campervan for two weeks in an attempt to find warmer weather. We spent those two weeks hitting as many National Parks as possible between Denver and Los Angeles where we dropped the van off. Gordon had long wanted to visit the Grand Canyon and we spent two beautiful days checking it out. We also squeezed in Arches, Zion, Bryce Canyon, and Capitol Reef National Parks along the way.

In LA, we got back on the bikes and headed south down the Pacific Coastal route to San Diego. From here we jumped onto the So Cal Desert Ramble route that took us back toward LA through the Southern California deserts. This was the most technical riding of the entire journey and we loved it. Plenty of hike a bike and the most interesting riding in terms of terrain we had encountered. Although there were desert-like sections on the GDMBR, the sand, arroyos, tarantulas, cacti and cliffs of the Anzo-Borrego desert became a very special part of our journey, probably because it was so different to any other riding we have ever done. To be fair, in New Zealand there is nothing in the wild that will kill you, in North America just about everything in the wild will. While it had been a relief to exit bear country, the desert had its own list of dangerous critters!

Our original plan had been to head down onto the Baja Divide before heading home from LA in January. We never did get onto the Divide. After circling up through Joshua Tree National Park on the So Cal route, we headed back toward San Diego. On the way, we stopped for a night at a place called the Fountain of Youth RV Park and Spa. It was a lovely spot and our one night quickly turned into a week. Bad weather in the mountains between us and San Diego delayed us another week and all of a sudden we realised that our ride was over. We had cruised into a gentle ending and the time was right to be ok with that. After some sightseeing in San Diego, we made our way to LA and on the plane home, just over 6 months, 5,500km and 60,000m of climbing after we left. 

Our year was not over yet though and we moved into our van on return to New Zealand trying to get to as many mountain bike parks as we could before I went back to work in July. In April, we jumped on a plane again and headed off to Samoa. We spent 6 weeks volunteering at Outdoor Samoa, a cycle and kayak tour company. Here we got to do some amazing kayaking and bike adventures. Our favourites were the Turtle Kayak tour and the Giant Clams snorkeling. We also explored the villages around Mulifanua where we were living by mountainbike before we headed off for a further two weeks on bikes for ourselves. 

We rode 500km in 13 days, circumnavigating both of the big islands of Upolu and Savaii. We slept in open sided fales on beautiful sandy beaches, snorkelled amongst tropical fish and coral and rode gentle back roads stopping to chat with people wherever we could. Calls of 'palangi, palangi' followed us through the villages as the kids came out to greet us. It was hot, humid, tropical and gorgeous. Best of all were the Samoan staff at Outdoor Samoa who invited us into their lives and families and with whom we will stay connected to forever. Our time at Outdoor Samoa was busy and at times frantic, but it was a unique and special experience that we will not forget.

We returned to New Zealand again in June and back into winter and our van. I started a short contract working from the van and we found this worked really well for us and is something we'd like to do more of moving forward for as long as we can. 

Our year is now over and next week I return to full time work. We are left with memories that will no doubt help us manage the years to come with Gordon's 'mate' Parkinson's. What we have learned though is that sometimes you just have to pack it all up and do it while you still can. We are so glad we did.

If you're keen to read the day by day journey, check out the blog page. For those of you who have followed along from day one, thanks for joining us on our adventure! We hope you've enjoyed reading about it as much as we enjoyed doing it!

Jill and Gordon