I was able to join the Randy, Jeff and Ron on the first leg of an amazing self-supporting bike trip, which starts in central Colorado and will end at Copper Canyon in Mexico. The trip follows the Great Divide trail, which are mostly dirt roads through some of the most remote areas in the western United States.

The last three days we rode our bikes through mountain resorts, over mountains passes, along high alpine meadows and past miles of sage brushed high plains. Colorado is truly an awesome state with bright morning sun, ominous afternoon clouds, and striking sunsets.

Each person carries their own gear, food, and water on their bikes. Randy pulls a trailer called a Bob trailer, and the others use saddlebags called panniers. For the long trip each uses a mountain bike with front shocks and wide tires. For the three-day journey, I used my touring bike with road touring tires and no shocks. It was somewhat of a challenge staying up right through the 123 miles of dirt, sandy, muddy, rocky roads. But I rode cautiously when needed and rode fast when the roads were hard packed and clear. Coming down the passes my wrist ached from pounding of the washboards and my hands cramped from braking. The guys flew down the mountain past me but would stop and wait every few miles. It gave them a chance to inhale the vistas and me a chance to catch up.

Ron had a slight mishap on the first day, just a half-mile from the campground we planned on staying at. Seems the road got a bit sandy and caused him to take a spill. Not to good of a start. After an attempt to cleanup the cuts, we voted that he go to town to seek medical attentions. As good luck will have it, a 4-wheel jeeper was passing by. After one look at the situations, he offered to give Ron a ride to town to get medical advice and supplies. Quinton, the passing jeeper was so kind as to give Ron and his emergency nurse, Nancy, a ride to town, which was 20, or so miles back over Boreas Pass. He waited while he got looked at, put them up for the evening and then gave them a ride back to the campground in the morning. Quinton even gave Ron his own helmet, which sports an incredible picture of an eagle. We hope he will not try to soar anymore or he will be very sore again.

By-the-way Ron is ok; he has a few bandages covering his varying degrees of road rash. The good news is he got on his bike the day after the crash and kept riding. Nothing a few days of healing won't mend. (Ouch!)

It was a pleasure riding with these three very different individuals and seeing them off on this epic bike trip. We hope you will enjoy the journey with them.