The Trek Begins. Well... the preparation for The Trek Begins.

During the summer of 2014, my son Ben and I are going to spend a month riding the Great Divide bicycle trail (scroll down if you go to the link).  It is 2700 miles of off-road bicycling which runs from Canada to Mexico along the Continental Divide in America.  It is called this because, in theory, every drop of rain that falls to the east of the Divide ends up in the Atlantic Ocean, and every drop which falls to its west is destined for the Pacific.  Ben and I won't have time to ride the whole thing; during our month we hope to ride through most of Montana and Wyoming.  It's an extension of my 'Ideas on Parenting' blogs that I haven't finished writing, but the gist is: 

• For thousands of years, children were deemed to be adults at about the age of 13 by both biology and society; for some odd reason, in the last 100 years we've decided they're not adults until they're 18 or 21.  So we treat teenagers like children, and then we wonder why they act so immaturely.  So the plan is to...
• First, foster an immense challenge for my children at the age of thirteen.  
• They select the challenge; the challenge must be their decision.  (I've been speaking to Ben about this since he was seven.  With his permission, I created a list of 8 potential challenges, all of which were worthy candidates, and he chose the Great Divide from that list).
• Provide a problem-solving, positive environment for them to learn how to overcome the challenge.  Help them, guide them and encourage them, but don't do it for them.
• Overcome the challenge.
• Treat them like the adult they've become once they've completed the challenge.  
• Hope and pray the plan doesn't backfire, and all the other parents laugh at me for trusting my teenager.

I'll get round to writing the full blog about the ideas above relatively soon, but Ben's 13th summer is in two years' time, and he's chosen the Great Divide trail.  So this month we've started doing our research for the adventure.  

The research is proving really cool, so I thought I'd blog some of the details.  The first is about the Great Divide Race which travels the route.  These guys are crazy, they do the entire route in record pace and are just nuts.  Although Ben and I will be taking it MUCH easier than these guys, there is a film about the race, and just to get us excited, it's cool watching the trailer.  Yes, I've downloaded the film, and will be watching it with Ben soon enough.

If you've just watched the trailer, surely you're thinking, "Really, Rick?  Are you really going to do that to your one and only son... Really?"  Well, the other cool thing I learned today was about the support network in place for long-distance cycling in America.  There are a couple of amazing websites, Adventure Cycling and America ByCycle, devoted to this sort of thing.  It seems there's an entire sub-culture of people doing crazy things like riding bicycles for weeks on end.  So much so, they've made a film about the maps we'll be using, and whilst I didn't think a 9 minute film about maps could be worth watching or sharing, I can now report these sound like the best maps of all time.

So watch this space.  More to follow in the months ahead.