It was George Hollerbach’s idea of a dream vacation: Canada to Mexico and no use for planes, trains or automobiles.
That’s right. Just 2,700 miles of bicycle pedaling in less than a calendar month. Only 28 days, to be exact.
We should mention a substantial portion of it was along or near the Continental Divide, off-road in the Rocky Mountains, with hardly a paved surface in sight.
Full disclosure – this wasn’t the Newtown resident’s first foray into long-distance two-wheeling. In past years he’s completed the crazy challenging Iditarod race in Alaska and a 200-mile gravel-road/24-hour deadline trek across Kansas.
But the recent ride into madness surely will go down as the biggest challenge in the 69-year-old’s biking career.
It featured a dangerous crash, some wild weather (and some even wilder wildlife) plus numerous incidents of help from the kindness of strangers.
When he reached the Mexico-United States border in mid-July, it was mission accomplished.
This transcontinental journey began in the most innocent of ways.
“I knew a couple people who had done it before,” he explained in a telephone interview. “This spring I said I have to find something to do. Went to a website called ‘bikepacker.com.’This seemed like a good thing to do. It’s called the ‘Great Departure.’ And ‘Tour Divide.’
“I was a little worried about the logistics, getting from Calgary (where his plane landed) to Banff (National Park). And when you finish you’re in the middle of nowhere (New Wells, New Mexico) at the border of Mexico. The border crossing is all lit up at night, and with a lot of fencing it looks like a prison or something.”
But Hollerbach, a former nurse at St. Mary Hospital, is not the type to be deterred. He once scaled Africa’s 19,000-foot Mount Kilimanjaro along with good friend Harry Betz (who owns Newtown Bicycle Shop) basically on a whim.
So off Hollerbach went from Canada on his mountain bike, passing through some of the most scenic, rustic territory you’re going to find in this world.
About 200 people started this year’s rendition but of course there were dropouts along the way. There were no predetermined stops, food or hotels. Basically it was every man for himself. And that included riding through snow, some of it falling from the sky.
“There were places where you have to get off your bike and drag it,’’ he said with a chuckle. “There’s a section called ‘The Wall,’ where you can barely drag it.”
In this expedition, they save some of the best for last, meaning the real nasty stuff.
“There are places when you get to southern New Mexico when you’re on the Continental Divide,” Hollerbach said. “There are places that are real rocky and drop off to the side. Most of us walked those sections.
“About 35 miles from the Mexican border, there are signs for a designated trail but it’s just sagebrush and so forth and no defined trail. You’re dodging cactus and then you hit this real deep sand. Yeah, it was a difficult ride.”
The route included Alberta, British Columbia, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico.
Hollerbach’s bike and accompanying equipment weighed 55 pounds. The winner’s bike weighed about 31. That gentlemen finished the distance in 14 days, which is right around 200 miles per day.
The overnights were stuff to tell the grandkids about, too.
A number of evenings the cyclists slept under the stars. Or the snowflakes, depending on the elevation.
Some of the “lodging” included a snowmobile hut (which three cyclists squeezed into), a picnic table bench and a canvas tarp minus a sleeping bag.
One family even offered its summer cabin for an overnight stay. That hot shower sure felt good.
There were a few scary moments as well.
In Idaho, Hollerbach was cruising down a fairly steep downhill at about 20 MPH when his front wheel caught a substantial pothole. The crash left his helment mangled but fortunately he escaped with just a few bumps and bruises.
“I flatted, went over the handlebars, cracked my helmet and got some severe road rash,” he said. “My head was bleeding. This car stopped and insisted they take me to the hospital.”
Another vacationing couple from Georgia took him in for the night.
“They let me sleep in their truck,” he recalled. “Got a new helmet and was back on the road.”
And for all you elevation geek trackers out there, the whole trip amounted to 149,000+ plus feet. That’s a lot of climbing and plenty of downhill glide rides.
“You want to finish so bad,” he said. “You feel like you want to go back and do it again. There were days I saw hardly anybody. It’s just the wildness of the land, it’s America at it’s finest. The pureness of the land. In Colorado, you go up to 11,900 feet. Just a fantastic journey.”
Race calendar
Saturday
Ivyland 5K, 8:30 a.m., Ivyland. Contact www.runningintheusa.com (Mary Severn, 215-429-9543).
