2,735.
That’s how many miles local cyclist Jason Snell completed on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route last year. It runs from Alberta to New Mexico.
Jason got hungry while riding in The Tour Divide bike race.
“I had a couple of Tic Tacs left, I ate those," he says, recalling a hungry ride through the deserts of New Mexico. "The only thing I had left were some Tums. So I ate some Tums to tide me over.”
Now, the Michigan native is back to work at Latitude 45 in Petoskey.
Last summer, he rode from Banff, Alberta to Antelope Wells, New Mexico following the Continental Divide. He needed seven maps to chart the route.
“So that was always a good thing when you got through one side, and you got to turn it over," says Jason. "And then when you got to change maps, you were like, ‘Alright, I’m actually covering some ground.’”
When finished, Jason had climbed nearly 200,000 vertical feet on his bike. That’s roughly the equivalent of summiting Mount Everest from sea-level 7 times. Even though it’s called a race, it’s more of a competition against yourself and nature.
"We had to deal with some hardcore, cold temperatures and rain for probably the first week or so, which is pretty trying at times,” Jason recalls.
During really tough stretches, he would listen to Van Halen music to get himself pumped up.
"It kind of motivated you to keep on going and pedaling strong,” he says.
Jason says he went on this trip, like most people, to see the sights and experience the challenges. But in the end, it became more about the people that he met along the way. He ended up meeting up with another rider from California, named Brett.
“We didn’t intend to hook up or anything, it sort of just happened the first day," says Jason. "We were just happening to be in the same place a couple times and all of a sudden we were just riding together. We rode together the whole time."
Bikers along the Tour Divide need to be ready to come face to face with a grizzly bear.
Jason carried bear spray and he started out blowing a safety whistle when descending hills to prevent coming up on a bear quickly and startling it.
“We kept on encountering people and they’re like ‘Oh did you see those bears?" "And we’re like,
‘No, no we didn’t...we were just through there and we didn’t see the dang bears.’"
He got to the point where he stopped blowing his safety whistle, because he wanted to see a grizzly bear so badly.
"But I never saw one,” he says.
Jason Snell will be speaking about his trip at the Charlevoix Public Library tonight at 6:30.
He’ll have his bike and will be showing off pictures from his adventure.
