GoGeezGo : Endo ends Great Divide run

Hand-drawn card from Estela Serena

Endo ends Great Divide run

My effort to ride my bicycle from Canada to Mexico over the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route came to an abrupt halt on day seven of the adventure this summer—after I flipped over the handlebars while speeding down a gravel road in a remote wilderness area northeast of Missoula, Montana.

I suffered five fractured ribs and a separated shoulder in the crash, which occurred after two bolts supporting my bike’s front rack apparently rattled loose.

When the bolts let go altogether, the loaded rack dropped, jamming the bike’s front wheel, and I shot over the handlebars like a human cannonball, landing in the dusty road on my upper back and left shoulder.

In the impact’s wake, the left side of my body was sore, and my left arm less than fully operational. But the bike, a Surly Troll, was fine.

Dave, a riding companion, and I reattached the rack with spare bolts from my tiny toolkit, and we rode eight miles into Seely Lake, population 1,322, the closest town.

It was 5 pm by the time we arrived in Seely Lake, and the town’s medical clinic had closed for the evening.

So Dave and I checked into the Double Arrow, a very nice lodge with a great restaurant, outside town.

My hope was that no serious damage had been done to my body, that the pain would subside, and that after a couple of days of rest, I would be able to complete the 2,200 miles remaining of my planned ride to the Mexico border.

But the following day, the pain had become so excruciating and disabling that I hitched a 60-mile 911 ambulance ride to Missoula, the location of the nearest hospital, where I was soon apprised of the adventure-ending nature of my injuries.

A mechanic for the Whitefish MT Glacier Cyclery bike shop, which agreed to ship my gear and bike home to Virginia for me, told me that the GDMBR’s rough gravel and dirt surface is notorious for shaking loose critical bicycle connectors, even ones that have been torqued carefully using Loctite, a thread locking adhesive, as my rack’s bolts had been. “You have to check them constantly,” the mechanic said.

Had I been following the mechanic’s best-practices procedures and checked and tightened the bike’s bolts that morning, the accident would not have happened.

Having to throw in the towel on this year’s GDMBR adventure one week and 286 miles into the adventure was a disappointment.

But on the other hand, I know I was lucky that the accident hadn’t been worse.

In the future, I won’t be using the same rack while riding on gravel, and I will be checking my bike’s bolts and other critical connectors regularly, with religious fervor.

One “endo,” as mountain bikers refer to these over-the-handlebar flying somersaults, is more than enough for me.