Roanoker Erin Garvin at the start of her Continental Divide ride.

Table of contents

• Intro: She's a frontier pioneer
• Part 1 The trip begins
• Part 2 Is it work, or is it fun?
• Part 3 Helena to a friendly ranch
• Part 4 Finding warmth amid a cold rain
• Part 5 The simple pleasures of sunshine
• Part 6 In the desert
• Part 7 Past the point of no return
• Part 8 Crazy Colorado
• Part 9 Heat and affairs of the heart take their toll
• Part 10 Pangs of homesickness
• Part 11 Eating through the home stretch
• Part 12 Finishing it off

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Map

• Map of the Great Divide

Erin Garvin is a frontier pioneer. Not in the sense of wagon trains and ox teams, scurvy and hostile Indians. But in the world of mountain biking, she's attempting an equally ambitious trek.

Garvin, 26, of Roanoke, will set out next week with another woman and three men on a nearly 2,500 mile bike trip from the Canadian border in Montana to the Mexican border in New Mexico along the newly mapped Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, which crosses the Continental Divide 26 times.

When they finish -- Garvin scoffs at questions of "if" -- she and Sara Thompson of Boston will be the first women to complete the challenging route.

So far only one person, Drew Walker, is known to have completed the entire route. That trip started in June 1997 with a team of two Washington, D.C., bike messengers. Walker ended up completing the route solo after his partner dropped out. His finish time: 10 weeks, according to the Adventure Cycling Association of Missoula, Mont., which mapped the route.

Information provided by Adventure Cycling lists the trail's length at 2,468 miles. The lowest elevation is found in Eureka, Mont., at 2,500 feet; the highest in Crested Butte, Colo., at 12,500 feet. The trail covers five states: Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico. Eighty percent is made up of dirt roads, 10 percent single-track (trails usually less than a foot wide) and 10 percent paved roads.

Tom Robertson of Adventure Cycling said the terrain through Montana is probably populated by more grizzly bears than any area in the country.

The trail changes with each section, from remote areas to touristy locales and covers everything from craggy peaks (one-third of the state of New Mexico is above 9,000 feet) to flat land over the last 100 miles.

Garvin's group -- which includes Thompson, 30, Paul Arsenault, 31, of Michigan, Scott Stara, 26, of Utah and Paul Kerr, age unavailable, of Minnesota, will depart from Montana on Sunday. Garvin became acquainted with Arsenault and Thompson through a classified ad.

They hope to average 50 miles a day, resting one day every week or so, and reach Mexico by the first week of August; Arsenault plans to get married Aug. 15.

The group's expected trip duration of two months is "somewhat on the ambitious side," Robertson said. "Some days might be tough but it's doable, I think."

The toughest part of the trip isn't likely to be the riding, Robertson said. "The group dynamic is sometimes the most difficult and on off-road trips that is magnified more than road tours," he said.

"You're a little more on edge and tempers can flare. A lot of times riding is the easiest part of the day."

Garvin said she was confident her group will stick together. "We come from varied backgrounds. We're bringing different things to the table," she said. "How people handle stress will be an eye-opener. So far everyone seems diplomatic, like we're going to complement each other."

The most disconcerting element of the trip, Garvin said, is the higher passes where altitude sickness could be an issue. The group plans to allow extra time to acclimate to the higher ground. High altitude can cause dizziness, fatigue and nausea. It can alter people's judgment about danger and behavior.

"We have a lot of respect for higher altitudes," she said. "We don't want to compromise safety. We're going to listen to our bodies intensely at the higher altitudes."

Robertson said the only confirmed finisher is Walker, who has posted field dispatches on the organization's Web site. He has heard talk that two men from the Northeast have also completed the route, but those are rumors, he said.

Just completing the trip will be sweet, but Garvin is determined to be one of the first two women to reach Mexico by this trail.

"As soon as I heard about the trail, I wanted to do it," Garvin said. "And I've always wanted to be the first woman to do some huge physical challenge. I'm a strong advocate of women in sports."

Garvin has shifted her pretrip training to slower, longer-duration rides with full panniers and other equipment, averaging about 30 miles a day.

Each rider will carry about 40 pounds of equipment on the trip. Garvin said that with some limited sponsorship she has received from retailers and friends, the trip will cost her less than $2,000.

Her gear includes waterproof and warm clothing, headlights, spare parts and a sleeping bag. She was given three saddles, a set of tires, tools and a waterproof camera. During a recent shopping trip to Wal-Mart, a manager gave her a $75 gift certificate that she used to buy boxes of energy bars and batteries, she said.

Garvin said most of her friends and colleagues have been supportive. But comments have ranged from "What's wrong with you?" to one who said she wouldn't get as far as the Roanoke airport.

One friend jokingly predicted Garvin will finish by herself; that the ultra-competitive rider will push Thompson over or jam a stick in her spokes in order to be the first woman finisher. As Garvin recalled this prediction, a broad, toothy grin spread across her face and she fell over laughing on the couch of her mother's Medmont Circle home.

Garvin said her parents, Pat and John Garvin, have been encouraging, although her mom would prefer that she conquer a trail closer to home.

"She didn't understand the epic nature," Garvin said of the ride. "This is the longest mountain bike trail in the world."

Pat Garvin's feelings about the trip are mixed. "I'm really proud," she said. "If anyone can do something like this, Erin can. She never compromises and people respect her for that."

Garvin hopes her background in exercise science -- she has a bachelor's degree from James Madison University and a master's from Virginia Tech -- will help her find a job after she completes the trip. She is looking into a career as a bike tour guide in the western United States or the exotic locales of Ireland or Switzerland.

In any event, "the trip's going to open my mind to what's going on and what I want to do with my life," Garvin said. "This is finding joy in simple things, which I've always done, but this is redefining who I am and where I'm going."