The rubber meets the road

On the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, you are only as good as your rubber.

At least that’s a key lesson my friend Jim and I both learned recently while riding a section of the mostly dirt and gravel trail linking Canada and Mexico, after we each had a Maxxis tire fail.

My Maxxis Ikon tire developed a series of disturbing bubbles in the tread in a remote corner of Idaho. The tread was somehow delaminating. I had spare emergency tubes for my tires, which were set up tubeless, but no spare tire. So I had to backtrack about 20 miles through a mostly unsigned network of rough wilderness snowmobile and forest service trails to purchase a suitable replacement in West Yellowstone MT.

Adding spice to the quest, my only navigation device for the ride to West Yellowstone from the Big Springs campground near Island Park Idaho was my Google Maps app, and it stopped working in the middle of nowhere with nobody around half way to town.

Saw a large bear print, possibly of a grizzly, in this very soft rail trail heading to West Yellowstone

Fortunately, just as I was considering that panic might be my best and only realistic option, I discovered a crudely marked wooden sign pointing toward West Yellowstone. I then guessed the right direction to the tourist town at a couple of subsequent unmarked trail intersections. Finally the Google Maps app started working again.

After I bought the new tire, it took me three days to catch up with Dave and Mike, the crew I was riding with at the time. I caught up with the duo in Grand Tetons National Park, after a white-knuckled shortcut through the almost bumper-to-bumper Yellowstone National Park traffic.

I finally caught up with Dave and Mike

One of Jim’s Maxxis Minion tires developed a similar bubble issue a week later near the historic Wyoming town of South Pass.

With the assistance of the proprietor of Wild Bill’s B&B in nearby Atlantic City, Jim was able to hire a shuttle ride to a Lander WY bike shop, where his tire was replaced.

Jim's shuttle to Lander

The unanticipated delay forced us to do a longer-than-anticipated 82-mile ride through the desert the next day so we could remain on schedule to pick up resupply packages at the Rawlins post office before it closed for Sunday.

The best way to protect yourself from the inconvenience that results from a wilderness tire failure would be to carry a spare. But that’s not likely to be a realistic option for many GDMBR riders,  because they’re striving to keep the load of their weights down, and tire failures, unlike simple flats, are not all that common.

You can’t bring a whole bike shop along with you on a ride. Some problems you just have to deal with as they arise, and then look at those as part of the adventure.