An overview map for the planned 2013 Trip

Section 1: West to Mexico

Simple enough; travel west from Birmingham to Tupelo MS to connect with the Natchez Trace which runs from Tennessee to southern Mississippi. The Trace is a tree-lined, city-less, 2-lane road with a 50mph speed limit and a complete lack of commercial vehicles.

There are several free campsites along the route and I have ridden this route from Natchez to Tupelo so this section is a non-journey.

Eventually the Trace will cross Hwy 82; on which I will head west again. The section of 82 in MS is 4-lane but not so much in Arkansas.

There are a couple of routes to cross through Oklahoma and I will take the more-better based on road/traffic/towns and weather (Oklahoma is known for twisters so if the weather comes, I will dip into Texas sooner. I’m thinking that if I'm going to die, I prefer to die in my home State. k

Through Texas and onward, eventually getting south of Silver City, New Mexico.


Section 2: The Great Divide Mountain Bike Route

The GDMBR connects old Mexico and Canada; it is over 2500 miles of gravel road, back roads, park roads and backcountry trails with less than 300 miles of paved sections.

The bottom most section is paved, so baring flat tires and old age, I can make the trip down to tag the Starting Line and return to the safety of a motel room in Hachita, NM in a single day.

From there, I'll travel to Silver City and purchase a Trek Marlin-class bicycle and a single wheel trailer which should be more-better for the back country ride. I'll ship the two-wheel trailer home and probably ship BigRed to Whitefish Mt which is located on the GDMBR. After tagging the Canada border I can drop back to Whitefish and swap bikes and head east to the Great Lakes.

There happens to be race called the Tour Divide that usually starts in early June in Canada and ends in Mexico. That race is usually traveled southward and lasts about 20 days (16 is the record) - I plan to take between 50 and 70 days and, of course, will be heading north. South bounders will run into strong headwinds. I can attest to the stories of have to peddle DOWNHILL; in ’10, there were days in AZ that I just got off of the bike and walked along the highway. That played a big part of my South to North decision. If you have never rode hundreds of miles into strong headwinds on dirty, sandy back roads then you just won't understand the misery of wind-driven sand.


Section: 3 East on the Northern Tier across Montana and ND

Been there, done that; but afterwards, I’ll bike those pesky upper states – Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. Then, there are options as to how to get over to Ohio, which is the last of the 48, before turning south. I'll check the weather and the 62-year-old legs before looping over the Lakes, but that is the plan.


Section: 4 Homeward Bound

The weather will determine my success on the Northern Tier. Too cold, too soon, and I'll bail out and take any of the quicker routes home that are shown the overview map. There's the Trans-America and Lewis & Clark Routes that I have ridden; and, there are two proven routes from the Great Lakes area with which I can connect and head south.