What Makes a route a Route?

[TrailBoss]

As mentioned in the first Bike Bits e-newsletter of the year, an Arizona man claims to have ridden the "longest, most grueling mountain bike route in the United States" last summer, a trail he has dubbed the Western States Mountain Bike Route. Nearly half of Erik Schlimmer's 2,720-mile ride took place on the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route. At Pinedale, Wyoming, he left the Great Divide and rode across the Wyoming Range into Idaho. Then, to get to the Mexico border--in addition to picking his own way at times--he followed three additional existing routes: the Shoshone Trail, the Great Western Trail, and the Arizona Trail. Do you think it's fair game to link together parts of existing routes that others have researched and mapped, and then give it a new name?

This message was edited by Webmaster on 1-4-06 @ 6:16 AM

[bikejake]

http://www.adventurecycling.org/forums/images/topicicons/
thumbsdown.gif
Not to put down what was obviously a hard and worthy ride, and not to be
negative...BUT it seems like quite a bit of hype about an accomplishment
that is not all that different than one undertaken by anyone riding the
Great Divide route or other Western mountain bike rides.

"11,000-foot-high snowfields and broiling Borderland deserts... 1,000
miles of grizzly bear country..."

Please.

[9.8m/s/s]

I can't see how the route can get any harder by leaving the divide. Who cares if it's a couple miles longer? By the time your in the middle of the divide, 230 miles is 5 days, max.

Edited because I can't seem to get the italics to work.

This message was edited by 9.8m/s/s on 1-5-06 @ 8:40 AM

[pmspirito]

Grueling ?  You want grueling ?  Then go to www.crazyguyonabike.com and search for Heidi Domieson and read her two journals.  The first from NC to Alaska and back in 2004 and from NC, down the Great Divide in to Mexico (not just New Mex) and back to NC just completed this February.  This girl knows gruelling. She is a great writer and photographer too.    Grueling....You don't know what grueling is... :mad:

best wishes from the back of the pack,  Peter & Judy Spirito