Great Divide Mountain Bike Route 2020 - Gear List
The summer of covid, the summer of people avoidance. Thus we spent July riding the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) from Boulder to Helena, Montana. Here's the route we took:
It was super fun to start from home and catch a bus up to Nederland to kick off the ride. From there, a big ride up Rollins Pass and a day of dirt roads heading west from Winter Park brought us to the GMBDR near Ute Pass. A mellow pace, 1,152 miles and 82,373ft of elevation gain got us to Helena over 28 days. We spotted bears, moose, golden and bald eagles, a couple of badgers and a couple dozen fellow GDMBR riders along the way (all heading the opposite direction, north to south). And loads of wildflowers everywhere! We're so very privileged to have so much open space and beautiful landscapes to explore - and the time and health to make it happen.
Here's my gear list:
Bike
Salsa Fargo Apex 1, 2020 edition (details)
1x32 with 11-42 in rear for me and 1x30 with 11-42 for Rachel
Teravail Sparwoods 2.2 running tubeless (loved these tires: fast, light and just the right amount of tread for dirt without compromising too much speed on pavement)
Salsa Alternator Rack
I carried all of our camping and eating gear other than our 1st aid kit and water filter (Platypus GravityWorks 4 liter water filter system), which Rachel carried together with her personal gear.
Tribulus Mini Endeavor Handlebar Bag (awesome piece of kit: expandable, simple, light)
- Rain pants: Black Diamond GoreTex Paclite
- Rain jacket: Montbell GoreTex Paclite
- Stuff sack with light fleece vest, arm and leg warmers, Buff, light gloves
- Windbreaker: lightweight REI Link
- Anker PowerPort 21W Solar panel
- Kindle Paperwhite
- Ziplock with small notebook, pen, pencil, sharpie
- Sea To Summit Ultra-Sil Dry 20liter daypack (for shopping and carrying extra water, if needed)
- Helinox Chair Zero strapped to outside
Revelate Feed Bag
- iPhone 8 with lanyard and mini carabiner
- Toilet paper
- Deuce trowel
- Chapstick
- Hand sanie
- Bear spray
JPaks Toptube Bag
- Spare reading glasses
- Snacks
- Bandana
- Buff
- Swiss Army Knife
Small Saddle Repair Bag (strapped to bottom of seat post)
- Spare tube
- Patch kit
- Tire levers
- Spin Doctor bare bones mini tool
Salsa Framebag (10.7 liters, made for large Fargo)
- 2 Sea To Summit 15 liter Ultra-Sil stuff sacks with clothing:
- Red bag: night time warm clothing (light weight North Face polyester hoody, merino blend long undies, REI merino wool t-shirt, wool socks, loose polyester boxers)
- Blue bag: day time cloths (2 pairs tight fitting polyester boxers, ankle high wool socks, light weight poly/wool socks, 2 polyester t-shirts, O’Neill stretchy surf shorts, Patagonia Dirt Rider shorts and liners)
- Big Agnus Copper Spur tent poles
- Tire pump
- Spare sunglasses
- Small roll of spare TP
- Anker 10,000mAh battery pack (connected to solar panel on rear rack when charging)
- Bike repair kit ** (in small stuff sack)
**Bike repair kit
- Chain breaker
- Spare chain quick links and quick link breaker
- Small rag
- Small pieces of inner tube rubber (to protect paint/carbon when attaching water bottle cages)
- 2x 1.5” pipe clamps
- Gerber multitool
- Tenacious Tape
- Spare derailleur hanger (Salsa Alternator dropout for derailleur side)
- Spoke wrench
- Kevlar spoke emergency kit
- Spare brake mounting bolts (had one fall out once, that sucked)
- Spare brake pads
- DryLine dry lube and a small rag
- Gorilla duct tape wrapped around seat post
Arkel Dri-Lites Soft Panniers, 28 liters (perfect for rough riding: sits tight, doesn't rub, super tough material, no hardware, light and small (seems smaller than 28 liters so keeps you honest with your packing list)
Left:
- Big Agnus Copper Spur rain fly (loose in bottom or in trash compactor bag when wet)
- Nemo 2-person down sleep cover
- Patagonia Nano jacket
Right:
- Big Agnus Copper Spur tent body and footprint (in tent stuff sack)
- Exped Synmat Duo M
- Sea To Summit 2-person silk liner (modified as a slip cover for the Exped with a Sea To Summit 1-person Coolmax Regulator liner sewn across the top - comfy!! and it keeps the pad from squeeking on the tent floor)
- Patagonia R1 Fleece Pullover
- Ditty bag with misc camp goods (headlamp, reading glasses, charging cables, bandana, spare AAA batteries)
- Teva Hurricane XL2 sandals, one strapped to each side
Exped Torrent 20-liter bag pack/trunk
The Kitchen:
- Soto MicroRegulator Stove
- 220 or 440g fuel canister (depending on how far between supplies)
- 110g IsoPro canister (as a backup)
- 2qt pot
- Squeegee/serving spoon
- 2 Snow Peak titanium sporks
- 2 Lexan 1.5-cup cups and 2 small bowls
- 50ft parachute cord and minibiner for hanging food (we always hang the feedbag to avoid small animals from getting in, like marmots; in bear country, we hang it 10ft up and 4ft out between 2 trees)
- Food for 2-4 days for 2 people depending on distance between resupplies)
Water Bottle Cages to hold 3 liters
- 2 standard cages mounted on the fork
- 1 Arundel Looney Bin adjustable cage on the down tube to hold a 1.5l bottle (the adjustment mechanism gets a bit cranky when it's dirty; be sure to rinse it well before adjusting the size in order to keep the it working smoothly)
- Also carried a 5 liter water bladder to carry in a daypack if needed
GPS, Mapping, Tracking and Battery Management
- iPhone 8
- Garmin Forerunner 35 watch
- Anker 10,000mAh battery pack
- Anker PowerPort 21W solar panel
- Garmin inReach SE
For general day to day route information, we used the Adventure Cycling Association's Bicycle Route Navigator app on an iPhone 8 with the appropriate sections of the GDMBR loaded for offline use ($54 for the US sections). We also had hard copies of the ACA maps and OpenStreet maps in the Garmin Earthmate app. A day of riding, perusing the maps and taking pictures would usually use around 35-45% of the phone's charge.
For tracking, we used a Garmin Forerunner 35 smartwatch. On sale for $90, I couldn't find a better tool for the job. It can track for 12-14 hours, plenty for a day on the GDMBR, and it took less than an hour to recharge in the evening off the Anker battery pack. Two things to keep in mind: you have to be connected to the internet to synch it via Bluetooth to the Garmin Connect app on your phone and you can't synch it while you're tracking a ride. It can hold up to 7 activities (7 separate ride recordings) before it starts overwriting the oldest activity. Never an issue on the GMDBR stretches that we were on as our longest stretch between cell service was 3 days. My Garmin Connect is linked to Strava for sharing and tracking. (I also imported the tracks to RideWithGPS, where I've been experimenting with archiving multi-day routes.)
The 10,000mAh battery pack was good for 3 or 4 days of charging the phone and watch. Due to covid, we didn't hang out in any coffee shops or restaurants to charge up and we were mostly wild camping. The solar charger worked great to trickle charge the battery pack when needed. The panel conveniently strapped on top of the kitchen bag and the charging cable snaked into the frame bag to the battery pack. Over the course of the day, even on partly cloudy days, it fully charged the battery.
Rachel's set up included:
- Tribulus Mini Endeavor handlebar bag
- Revelate Ranger frame bag (medium, 7.3 liters)
- Revelate Terrapin seat bag (older version, ~14 liters)
- Small saddle repair bag
- Topeak top tube gas tank bag
- 2 standard water bottle cages mounted to fork
- 1 Arundel Looney Bin adjustable cage on the down tube
