Megamoon a journey by bike where love and adventure come together. My personal story of how I came to be pulling a heavy trailer across the worlds longest mountain bike trail. Megamoon won the Best Spirit of Adventure film at SHAFF 2015 and was part of the Kendal Mountain Film Festival 2015 World Tour which included an invite to China! You can watch Hello China a travelogue film from our 3 weeks on tour.
Megamoon: A journey by bike
The Plan
Patrick and I had been going on adventures for years we decided to make a plan and that plan involved getting married and going on a honeymoon. After celebrating their ‘Big Day in May’ with wonderful friends and family we bundled all our clothes, camping gear, mountain bikes and two little trailers onto a plane to the US.
Patrick had been granted a 3 month sabbatical from work, so that set our timeframe. I’d also entered a lottery to win a permit to paddle the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon…and won…which placed us in the Arizona desert in July. We wanted to roughly follow the established Great Divide route (albeit backwards from south to north) through the Rocky Mountains. That’s some 2,500 miles from new Mexico to Alberta in Canada and taking on in . We were completely on our own and camping the whole way with occasional motel stops. Oh and we decided to paddle 260 miles self-supported down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon first.
Find my write up on paddling the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon on Sidetracked Mag – Read here
The Adventure
Once on our bikes New Mexico proved to be the most difficult section of the trip. Not least because our bodies were in shock. We’d only just begun the adventure, it was August, it was hot, and it was the desert. On day two Patrick also dropped the GPS in the one and only desert puddle which left it completely fried. On day three we suffered ten punctures and were left with no spare patches.
As we cycled along on day four – each pulling a heavy trailer – the sandy desert floor beneath us was unfamiliar and considering we were from a small island where it rains a lot we were definitely out of our comfort zone. We had been desperately searching for a spring, or even a cattle tank, to refill our water bottles since we got up that morning. With lows come extreme highs and finding the spring, a thirsty six hours later, was one such high. We danced, we sang, we smiled and we ate beef jerky. It’s moments like these…when you’ve really earned it, that life feels good.
There were some literal big ups too. If you’re familiar with the GDMBR you may know that the highest point on the route is just shy of 12,000ft. And for us, travelling south to north, the longest grin inducing down was 23 miles – nonstop – all completely down into the beautiful town of Salida, Colorado.
We’d given ourselves a relatively leisurely pace and weren’t too hung up with going off route when we fancied it. The Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks were two such highlights we didn’t want to miss. This trip was a chance to explore, enjoy each others company, soak up the mountains and toast marshmallows at every given opportunity.
Another stand out memory was celebrating thanksgiving with a group of Canadian Hunters. We dined on supermarket Turkey (which I found quite funny) and they gave us beer whilst regaling us with hunting stories as we sat in their tent. A tent which had been there every hunting season for forty years. It was amazing! They told us about a hiker just the week before who had spent six days without food after being bluff charged by a bear four times. The hunters fed him too. They told us that there are too many grizzly bears in the valley now. That night, near the hunters camp, Patrick awoke to hear heavy breathing snuffles just outside the tent. In good husbandly behavior he remained wide awake until morning but let me continue sleeping soundly.
By the time we were in the colder months and surrounded by big snow capped mountains, I think I can honestly say it was completely my kind of heaven. I felt comfortable and energized. We toasted marshmallows on campfires almost every night.
It’s true that sometimes I think I had the better side of the bargain. Patrick did nice things like letting me warm my frozen toes under his armpits on the side of the road and in return I’m not always sure what I offered but he says he enjoyed seeing my smiling face even after grinding up some hideously long hill.
As always I was never far from my camera and tried to capture some of the fun and adventure. On return to the UK I began to create a short film of our 3 months together. I can wholeheartedly say it was a Megamoon to remember. Whilst the film is certainly our personal story, I hope it’s enough to make your toes tingle and provides an extra nudge to get planning your own adventure.