I?ve written before that the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route might never have happened were it not for the late Mike and Dan Moe of Laramie, Wyoming, brothers who completed a pioneer hike-a-bike adventure along the Continental Divide in 1984.Other individuals provided inspiration as well ? for instance, Sam Braxton.
The mountain bike as we know it didn?t exist in 1975 when Bikecentennial, the entity that would evolve into Adventure Cycling Association, ran its first group tour. Nevertheless, the prime attraction of the self-contained Lolo Ruff Stuff Ramble loop was the extraordinary Lolo Motorway, a narrow, rugged dirt road running the ridges in the Montana-Idaho border country high above the frothy whitewater of the Lochsa River.
Why did Bikecentennial, which would run some 4,500 cyclists across the country on pavement a year later, offer such a trip?
?Hemistour was responsible,? explained Bikecentennial co-founder Greg Siple.
Hemistour (pdf) was the Alaska-to-Argentina expedition that Greg and his wife June, and fellow Bikecentennial co-founders Dan and Lys Burden, embarked upon in 1972. For the rough, pavement-less, muddy conditions he knew they would encounter in Alaska and other places, Sam Braxton ? a railroad man-turned-bike builder in Missoula ? had built the couples what really were forerunners of the modern mountain bike: Hybrid steeds boasting beefy frames, brazed-on racks, and hardy, extra-spoked 26-inch wheels outfitted with 26-by-1 3/8-inch tires.
The Siples and the Burdens ? and probably Braxton, too ? were also aware of and motivated by the Rough Stuff Fellowship, a British organization whose members since the 1950s have been bicycling on dirt tracks and footpaths, off the paved roads and away from motor traffic.
Going back another half century, to 1897, we see the Buffalo Soldiers of the 25th Infantry Bicycle Corps clawing their way aboard one-speed Spalding safety bicycles from Fort Missoula to St. Louis in a two-wheeled military experiment; and, a decade before that, Thomas Stevens jouncing across America and the world on his high-wheeled pennyfarthing (the original fixie), literally riding cross-country on many occasions.
True, the dedicated mountain bike wasn?t created until the late 1970s. But the concept and application of ?mountain biking? goes back much farther. It was, in fact, the original style of bicycle travel.
The Great Divide, a culmination of these factors and many more, was simply something destined to happen; a natural step in the evolution of bicycle touring. Call it atavistic progress, or progressive atavism.
This piece is adapted from the author?s chapter in Volume 2 of The Cordillera.
Photo of Salsa Fargo 29er, BOB Trailer, and the Teton Range by Michael McCoy.
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BIKING WITHOUT BORDERS is posted every Monday by Michael McCoy, Adventure Cycling?s media specialist, and highlights a little bit of this or a little bit of that ? just about anything, as long as it?s related to traveling by bicycle. Mac also compiles the organization's twice-monthly e-newsletter Bike Bits, which goes free-of-charge to more than 41,000 readers worldwide.
Source: http://blog.adventurecycling.org/2011/09/origins-of-great-divide.html
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