Ohiopyle native tackles Canada to Mexico trail
If you’re not eating, sleeping or riding your bike, you’re wasting time.”
Colleen O’Neil laughed as she recalled that bit of wisdom and the reality of it during a 25-day bicycle tour that took her from Canada to the Mexican border.
O’Neil set out from Banff, Alberta on June 9 with nearly 100 other bikers on her bike of choice — a Waltworks 27.5+, and was the only female to race this year on a single-speed bike.
The Tour Divide website describes the race as “an ultra-endurance bikepacking challenge to pedal solo and self-supported the length of Great Divide Mountain Bike Route … as fast as possible.”
Back country roads and lanes along highways took the racers through wind, rain and snow in the higher elevations, where nearly everyone had some sort of cold, O’Neil said.
The roads wound through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and finally New Mexico. Dust, sand and brutal sunshine marked their entrance to the lower elevations.
O’Neil covered 2,745 miles through her journey that took 24 days and six hours when she finally pedaled to Antelope Wells, New Mexico.
Recalling the time on her bike, O’Neil said it was hard to pinpoint the highlights, as there were so many. One that stood out, though, was the view while riding into Colorado.
“It was just incredible,” she said. The bikers went down into a deep valley by the river and spent a day climbing up a large pass, just outside of Breckenridge, Colorado.
“When you pop out of the pass, you just see the valley below and snow-capped mountains — it was iconic Colorado,” she said.
O’Neil said she also enjoyed meeting her fellow racers.
“Those who do bike tours tend to be eccentric people,” O’Neil said with a laugh. “Especially an event like this, you get the wacky ones. But they’re so fun to be with.”
One couple in particular who were from New Zealand rode on a tandem bike. O’Neil said they were relentlessly positive about the ride and fun to be around.
The shift in elevations and weather conditions weren’t ideal for O’Neil, who suffers from issues with dry sinuses. What she described as “horrendous nose bleeds” plagued her trek while she crossed the United States border.
But a quick tip from a fellow biker, who happened to be a nurse, stopped the flow. A rolled up wet wipe did the trick, she said.
Race rules dictate that bikers have to complete the course in under 30 days. To an extent, a certain amount of pacing has to be done to complete in time.
But for O’Neil, she tried not to think too much about how many miles had to be covered in a day.
“If you do that, then you’re setting yourself up to be disappointed if you don’t get enough mileage,” she said. “Some days, you can only ride maybe 50 miles. Then you’re thinking about how many you have to make up the next day, and it can make for a really rough ride the next day. You’ll spiral out of control if you make too high of expectations.”
Though the nearly 3,000-mile trek may seem daunting to some, it was one of many bike tours that O’Neil has been on.
After her husband completed the Tour Divide in 2014, the couple spent the winter bike touring together and even went on a trip to New Zealand.
“It has similar surfaces to this race, a lot of back dirt roads. I started thinking then that I could do the tour,” she said.
During the summer months, O’Neil can be found at Wilderness Voyageurs in Ohiopyle, where she works as a rafting photographer and a bike tour guide.
“Shout out to them for giving me this opportunity,” O’Neil said with a laugh.
She also offered some advice for those who might be interesting in tackling the Tour Divide in the future.
“A good starting trip is the Great Allegheny Passage,” she said. “From what I could tell, one thing that really helped me was having a bunch of long bike touring trips.”
Being comfortable with living off a bike is a must, too, she said, though she added it can be tough.
“A lot of people go out with no touring experience. I guess I had a learning curve,” she said with a laugh.