Bikepacking enthusiasts gear up for bucket-list adventure on Great Divide Mountain Bike Route
Jun. 16—When Jack Weinstein decided to tackle a bucket-list bicycle trip, he knew an adventurous riding partner would be essential.
He found one in Madison Eklund, the former Grand Forks woman who last year became the first person to complete a
solo kayak trek from the Twin Cities to York Factory, Manitoba,
on Hudson Bay.
A Chester Fritz Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at UND, Weinstein had met Eklund when she worked at Joann Fabrics in Grand Forks. She noticed he was wearing a "Red River Runners" shirt, Weinstein recalls, and they struck up a conversation, only to realize they'd met years earlier when she sold him a hydration pack at an outfitting store where she had worked in northern New York.
As coincidence would have it, Weinstein, a New York City native, had also attended the same university as her parents — and at the same time.
Author Kurt Vonnegut coined the word "karass" to describe people who are somehow linked spiritually, Weinstein says, and it's a fitting word to describe his friendship with Eklund.
"We were destined to become friends," he said. "(Karass) is the family that you're destined to cross paths with in your life. And she's definitely my karass.
"There was no choice; it was foisted upon us."
On Sunday, June 25, Weinstein and Eklund will embark on a three-week bikepacking trip on about 800 miles of the
Great Divide Mountain Bike Route
from Jasper, Alberta, to Whitefish, Montana. An amateur triathlete and avid bicyclist, Weinstein credits Eklund for his interest in bikepacking.
The Great Divide Mountain Bike Route extends about 3,000 miles from Alberta to New Mexico.
"She is the most impressive person," Weinstein said. "She is strong and smart and courageous. I really admire her, and I don't think I would do it without her encouragement. When I first started bikepacking, she was the one who really pushed me to do it and get over my neuroses, and so I think it's inevitable that we travel together because she brings out the best in me."
Eklund, who now lives in Rosemead, California, moved from Grand Forks last September when her husband, Ryan, transferred to Edwards Air Force Base. She says she and Weinstein had talked about bikepacking last year when he helped her with portions of her kayak trip to Hudson Bay.
He listed a couple of options for routes — including the Great Divide, Iceland and Norway — Eklund recalls, and asked if she'd ever want to join.
She hadn't been on a bike in years, but that was no obstacle for the adventurous Eklund.
"I told him I was absolutely interested in any of those routes, as long as he didn't mind a newbie on a bike," she said. "I told him to call me when he had dates and I'd try my best to make it happen."
Weinstein contacted her a few months ago about pedaling the Jasper-to-Whitefish portion of the Great Divide route, Eklund says, and her response was, "let's do it." She put in for time off at her job with an outfitting store and started planning. She's spent the past few months getting comfortable with riding a bike again.
"I was apparently the only one crazy enough to say yes," she joked.
The trip, which Weinstein calls a "classic bucket-list trip for bikepacking," had been on his mind for a couple of years. The route he chose is convenient, Weinstein says, because he can take the train — and his gear — from Winnipeg to Alberta and ride the Amtrak back to Grand Forks at the trip's end.
"There are people who do the entire trail, but that is above my paygrade — no, actually, the whole thing is above my paygrade," he joked. "I thought I was going to try to do it last year, but I just wasn't ready."
In addition, finding riding partners was a challenge.
"Either their schedules didn't work, or they're such better cyclists that I didn't think it would be enjoyable," Weinstein said. "And so, finding Madison and becoming friends was perfect because she is super adventure-oriented, super-experienced in backcountry (travel), she can teach me a lot and yet at the same time, since I have more cycling experience, I think that balances out — both the age and experience."
Eklund will fly with her bike and other gear from Los Angeles to Edmonton, Alberta, where she will catch a ride with a friend to Jasper.
Pedaling the prairie and pedaling the high country are two different things, but Weinstein has trained for the trip by pedaling into the wind, which North Dakota has in abundance.
In many ways, Weinstein says, his decision to become an amateur triathlete — "I emphasize the word amateur," he adds — during the pandemic opened the door for the upcoming bikepacking adventure.
"Learning to be an athlete in your late 40s is a very, very weird experience," Weinstein, 53, said. "Everyone else seems to know everything, it's all new to you, and you don't have a young person's body. But it's something that I don't think I'll ever stop doing. It's become an absolute necessity for managing my mental health and my physical health."
Gear-wise, Weinstein will ride a Salsa Cutthroat, which he describes as an all-terrain bicycle that's "sort of halfway" between a mountain bike and a road bike. Eklund will pedal a Giant-brand Sedona bicycle, which she says is in good condition despite being more than 20 years old.
Both will carry multiple gear bags that attach to the frames of their bikes for carrying equipment, such as tents, sleeping bags, cooking utensils and food. They have already shipped food boxes to two sites along the route, allowing them to only carry a week's worth of food at a time.
Loaded with anywhere from 50 pounds to 100 pounds of gear and provisions, a fully-rigged bikepacking bicycle "kind of looks like a tank," Weinstein says.
He credits the Ski and Bike Shop in Grand Forks for insights and technical support in helping him prepare for the trip.
"They are unbelievably helpful," he said. "I wouldn't be able to do any of this without them. I wouldn't know what equipment to get. They are honest, they're thoughtful, they're caring, they're smart and it's just an incredible shop."
Like any hobby, bikepacking can mean spending thousands of dollars for the very best equipment, but it doesn't have to be that way, Weinstein says.
"You can also just hop on your bike with a backpack and go, and I encourage everyone to try it," he said. "One of my favorite rides is just to bike out to Turtle River (State Park) and spend the night in Turtle River and bike back, and you don't need any special equipment for that."
Weinstein and Eklund say they're hoping to average 40 to 60 miles a day, although that could vary, depending on the weather, trail conditions and any other number of unknowns.
"It just depends on how we're feeling and what the terrain is like because some of that is going to be paved and some of the terrain is going to be single-track trails," Weinstein said. "And so, you're going to go different speeds and you never know what you're going to encounter
"You have to look out for bears, and you are going to have mechanical difficulties that hopefully I can repair."
They both will carry satellite communicators, allowing them to keep in contact with their spouses and others along the trail route, Weinstein says. The satellite communicators have an SOS button to contact rescue personnel in case of emergency, a function they hope they never have to use.
"We're taking safety very, very seriously," he said. "There'll be lots of people who know where we are at any given time as much as they can, so that if something goes wrong, (we) have a support network, including knowing where all the bike shops are along the way and what towns are nearby and things like that.
"There's a huge amount of information that we're trying to process and we're just going to look at it piece by piece."
As the trip approaches, Weinstein says he's both excited and nervous. The longest bikepacking trip he's taken to date is a four-day trip on the 180-mile
Straddle and Paddle bikepacking route
in northeast Minnesota.
The upcoming trip, by comparison, is three weeks and nearly 800 miles.
"You have to go out and find adventure in the world," Weinstein said. "This is a new one for me, and I'm a little terrified, but it's not going to stop me from doing it.
"And I'm going to have some great stories afterwards."
* On the web:
Eklund will post occasional updates from the trip on her
Expedition Alpine Facebook page
