HOW GIVING UP EVERYTHING TO CYCLE 45,000km GAVE US THE WORLD
It was from Deadhorse, Prudhoe Bay on the north coast of Alaska that my partner Hana Black and I embarked on our 45,000km cycling journey through the American continents. Our bags were tightly packed with a week’s supply of food and equipment to survive arctic conditions. Our minds were full of anticipation for what lay ahead.
Deadhorse, the northern origin of both the 1200km Trans-Alaska oil pipeline and the dirt ribbon of the Dalton Highway, is situated on the edge of the Beaufort Sea. At 71 degrees north, it’s well inside the Arctic Circle. Northern Alaska is divided latitudinally by the Brooks Range; to its south lies land cloaked with spruce forest stretching as far as the eye can see, while to the north is the exposed tundra of the North Slope, an almost permanently frozen, treeless landscape with an average temperature of -4℃.
That morning in June 2016 dawned clear, calm and -2℃ as we made the first pedal strokes of what would become a nearly four-year bikepacking journey. The objective was to mountain bike the length of the American Cordillera, which is the collective name for
