What 800 Miles on the GDMBR Taught Me About Failure
I had trained, planned, obsessed over gear, and mapped out every detail. I thought I was ready to ride the Great Divide from Canada to Mexico. But 800 miles in, everything changed. This isn’t a story about finishing—it’s a story about what happened when I didn’t.
The Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR) is no joke. It stretches about 2,700 miles from Banff, Alberta, down to Antelope Wells, New Mexico, crossing the Continental Divide more times than I could count. It includes around 150,000 feet of climbing spread out across the entire route—relentless ups and downs through mountains, forests, and high desert. There’s no support crew—you carry everything yourself and figure it out as you go. You sleep wherever you land, eat when you can and deal with whatever comes.
At the end of 2021, I shared my plan in a blog post. That post still gets traffic, which tells me something—this dream, this kind of challenge, resonates with people. Maybe you’re one of them.
At the time, I had every intention of riding the entire thing. I trained. I planned. I packed, repacked, and overthought it all. I obsessed over gear choices, mapped out resupply points, and visualized what it would feel like to finish. I had never done anything like this before, and I saw it as a life-changing opportunity—a chance to take on something much bigger than myself.
You might be wondering why. The honest short answer? Because I wanted to. The long answer is that I’d been dreaming of a "grand" adventure for years. I’ve watched movies and read books of people climbing mountains or riding bikes across the world, I wanted to do something like that myself. Like a lot of people, I kept pushing it to "someday." But eventually, I got tired of waiting. I also wanted to test myself, physically and mentally. Could I really ride my bike from Canada to Mexico?
The scenery was tough but so beautiful
Spoiler alert: I didn’t make it to the border. I covered about 800 miles, nearly a third of the route, before I had to call it. A combination of a back injury and growing wildfire danger in Colorado and New Mexico made continuing impossible for me. But even though I didn’t reach the finish line, I don’t feel like I failed. Not even close.
For a while, I wasn’t sure how to process my experience and falling short of the goal. It’s taken me almost three years to write this. Growing up playing hockey, the definition of success was pretty black and white. You won or you lost. You finished or you didn’t. But the GDMBR, like any adventure of this scale, isn’t about winners and losers. With time and space, I started to realize that success doesn’t have to be about reaching the finish line. Sometimes it’s just about showing up, pedaling through uncertainty, and pushing yourself into the unknown.
My journey started off with a bang, it rained all day. But I didn’t care. I was finally doing it. The bike was loaded, legs felt strong, and I couldn’t stop smiling. The first few days were surreal. Even with soaked clothes and cold hands, I couldn’t believe I was actually out there, doing it.
I quickly settled into a new rhythm. Life revolved around the basics: find food, find water, find a campsite. Check the map. Check the weather. Repeat. The routines of regular life faded fast, replaced by a simpler, slower pace.
Plenty of snow at the higher elevations
I made a conscious choice to tour the route rather than race it. Not just because I wasn’t in race shape, but because I wanted to soak it all in. I had the time, and I wanted the experience.
Some days were tough. Other days were magic. One day we only rode 25 miles before pulling into the Llama Ranch, actually an alpaca ranch, because I just knew I needed to stay there. The couple running it were amazing, full of warmth and good energy, and at that moment, I really needed that. If I had been racing, I never would’ve stopped.
The scenery? Unreal. Every twist in the trail brought a new jaw-drop moment. The Canadian Rockies were beyond anything I expected. At times, I literally asked myself, “Is this real?” Riding a bike through that kind of beauty was overwhelming in the best way.
Of course, it wasn’t all awe and flow states. There was plenty of type 2 fun: rain, heat, snow, headwinds, and bears. And of course, the toughest challenge of all, my own thoughts. But I actually enjoy that part. I know it sounds weird, but I find type 2 fun to be, well, fun, with a few “why the F am I doing this?” moments thrown in.
Day by day, I chipped away at the route. I avoided looking too far ahead on the map because it was just too much to process. One bite at a time.
What I didn’t expect was how much the people would shape the journey. From fellow riders to locals who let me camp in their yard or invited me in for meals, it was humbling. My faith in humanity got a boost on this trip. I had meaningful conversations with strangers and plenty of meaningless ones too, anything to distract from the next 30-mile grind up a ridiculous hill.
Around the 600-mile mark, tension started building. Wildfires were breaking out across New Mexico and creeping into parts of Colorado. I never saw any smoke, but I was constantly checking fire maps and reading updates whenever I had service. Planning ahead became incredibly difficult. I didn’t have a computer, and cell service was unreliable at best. Trying to research future bailout points and figure out how I’d get home, all from a tiny screen while mentally and physically drained, was just brutal.
I started playing mental ping-pong with myself. One moment I was determined to keep going—“just push through.” The next, I was questioning everything. What if I couldn’t come back and finish later? What if I was just looking for an excuse to quit? What if continuing put me in danger?
Eventually, it became clear I had to stop. Entire sections of the route were being closed, towns were evacuating, and the growing uncertainty started to feel heavier with each passing day. After a long talk with Maeve, my wife, and a lot of back-and-forth in my own head, I made the call in Lima, Montana.
In true GDMBR fashion, even the exit had its twists. I met a woman in a local diner who offered to let me camp in her yard. She lived with her parents, and her dad just so happened to be the mayor of the town, and the oldest mayor in Montana. They were incredibly kind.
That night turned into something unexpectedly meaningful. It was the one-year anniversary of her son taking his own life. I sat on the floor in their living room and listened as she opened up about him. Her elderly mother would glance over at me occasionally and mouth “thank you.” I didn’t really understand why she was thanking me, I was just sitting there, but I guess she needed someone to talk to, someone a little outside the story. It was one of those quiet, human moments that sticks with you long after the trip ends.
They let me store my bike at their place while I caught a bus to Idaho Falls, Idaho to pick up a U-Haul, then came back to Montana to retrieve my gear and make the long drive home to San Diego.
It was a strange, bittersweet way to end the ride. I had done something hard and unforgettable, but it didn’t end with a finish line photo or a triumphant roll into Antelope Wells. Just me, a U-Haul, and 800 miles of memories in my legs.
Fresh bear track next to my glove, big fella!
Hanging food from a tree was not as easy as it sounds!
One thing I haven’t mentioned yet is that I wasn’t riding alone. Maeve wasn’t thrilled about me doing this solo, so my good friend Dave joined me for the ride. At first, I felt a little conflicted about it, like having someone with me was somehow cheating on the solo test I had set for myself. This was supposed to be my thing, my big mental and physical challenge.
But having Dave along turned out to be a gift in a lot of ways. He helped with planning, split decision-making when my brain was too tired to think, and shared in the joy and misery that came with each day. We rode, camped, laughed, and ate together every single day. Everything was together.
And that’s where the challenge crept in.
I hadn’t realized how much I needed little pockets of alone time. Even just an hour or two riding solo would have helped reset my head, but I never asked for it. I didn’t want to create tension or seem ungrateful, so I kept it to myself. Big mistake.
Over time, that bottled-up need started to wear me down. By the final stretch, I hit an emotional wall. We had a bit of a blow-up. Nothing explosive, but enough to sting. Enough to show me that honest communication, especially during something this intense, isn’t optional.
That moment didn’t end the trip, but it didn’t help either. I learned that it’s okay to ask for what you need. That solitude doesn’t mean selfishness. And that keeping quiet for the sake of peace often does the opposite.
We decided to part ways for a bit and ride on our own. I ended up riding solo for three days. I enjoyed the solitude, but I also found myself missing the shared moments, those little things you instinctively want to turn and say, “Did you see that?”
Dave went back to Butte to figure out his way home, while I toyed with the idea of getting to Jackson Hole, Wyoming and catching a flight. In the end, we reunited and drove home together, our bikes tucked in the back of a U-Haul meant for moving people’s lives. Just two dirty bicycles in the back. Another moment to laugh at the absurdity of it all.
Dave and I at the US/Canada border
Dave and I are still friends. As I write this, I’m lying in a tent on a camping trip with him and a few other friends. We made it through. But I carried that lesson home with me alongside the physical fatigue and sunburned skin: speak up, even when it feels uncomfortable. Especially then.
By the time I got home, I was physically exhausted, but mentally still trying to unpack what had just happened. It took a while to shift from feeling like I didn’t finish to realizing how much I did.
800 miles. Across mountains, rivers, valleys. Through rain, cold, and heat. With a heavy bike, a tired body, and a foggy mind. I showed up every day and gave it what I had.
It’s easy to let the last part of a story overshadow the rest. I didn’t reach the Mexican border. I didn’t complete the route. But the trip gave me more than I expected, just not in the form I expected.
I came back with a deeper respect for the land, a better understanding of my limits, and a quiet pride in doing something really hard. I also came back with a renewed sense of how good people can be. From strangers offering help to riders pushing their limits, it reminded me that even in a divided world, decency and humanity still exist.
Another lesson I took home? How much we overcomplicate life. When you live and survive off a bicycle, you realize how little you actually need. Life becomes simple. We really don’t need all the stuff we think we do. I learned that we all just want to be happy. Stuff doesn’t make me happy, doing stuff makes me happy.
Would I have liked to finish? Absolutely. But the experience I had was complete in its own way. And I plan to return to finish what I started, not because I have to, but because I want to. This was the adventure that ignited something in me. That cracked open a deeper love of wild places and long, strange journeys.
Refueling before another long afternoon on the bike
If you’ve made it this far, maybe you’re dreaming of your own big adventure. My advice? Go for it. Whatever that means for you. It doesn’t have to be 2,700 miles on a bicycle. It could be a solo night out at the local campground or signing up for a 5K run. The point is to get out, get uncomfortable, and see what’s on the other side of that discomfort.
Success isn’t always about the finish line. Sometimes it’s about getting to the next mile.
I didn’t finish. But I didn’t fail. Looking back, the hardest part wasn’t the climbs, the cold, or even deciding to stop. The hardest part was leaving home and starting.
My final evening on the trail
Tired and beat up legs after 800 miles
