Honolulu bicyclist to trek from Canada to Mexican border

Keala Fung conquers long distances, marching thousands of miles. Two years ago she hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, a 2,660-mile trek from the Cascade Range in Washington through Oregon, to the Sierra Nevada in California down to the border with Mexico.

Now the Honolulu woman is preparing to bike the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route, a 2,700-mile ride along the Continental Divide of the mainland. It will take her from Banff, a town in Alberta, through five states — Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado and New Mexico — before winding up in Antelope Wells, N.M., a border crossing with Mexico.

"I really like long-distance adventure travel that goes for many, many miles across the span of many, many days," said Fung, 32.

Hiking the Pacific Crest Trail "was a life-changing experience," and now Fung wants to make another north-south journey. "I just wanted to do it on something else, other than my feet, and now I have wheels," she said.

She flew out Thursday and expected to start within a few days.

She’ll be riding her Trek Marlin mountain bike, which was outfitted with equipment upgrades by her trip sponsor, The Bike Shop. The bike now sports a 20-speed gearbox, state-of-the-art brakes and carbon fiber handlebars with ergonomic grips, "which are nice for long-distance riding because it’s less tension on your hands," Fung said.

She’ll need such comforts for a route that the Adventure Cycling Route Network, a nonprofit organization that encourages biking, calls "remote."

"The entire route is basically dirt-road and mountain-pass riding every day," says the network’s website, adventurecycling.org.

"It’s 80 percent trail (forest service trails and fire roads), 10 percent road, like highway riding, and 10 percent single-track," Fung said. "You go over the actual Continental Divide I think 28 times throughout this entire trip. So this is definitely going to be a lot of elevation, a lot of up and a lot of down."

She’ll bring a simple tent to sleep in at night, but, she said, "I don’t need a lot of sleep to function." There will be small towns along the way where she can catch a meal, and she’ll have lightweight, dehydrated foods that can be reconstituted with water.

"It’s pretty much like the college diet: ramen. And peanut butter is a big one because it’s a good source of calories for its weight. It’s heavy, but it’s a good source of calories and protein," she said.

Fung hasn’t really had much time to train for the trip, but fortunately she’s involved in another activity that has kept her somewhat fit: the Cherry Blossom Cabaret burlesque troupe. She’s a dancer, performing as Madame X, and does promotional work. Lately the group has performed at several community events as well as its own shows, keeping her off her bike.

"That’s literally consumed my entire soul, and now I have nine — no, seven — days to figure out what I’m going to," she said.

The Great Divide route has been covered in as little as 17 days. A race known as the Tour Divide is held sporadically on the trail, typically attracting about 50 riders. Fung will not hold herself to such lofty standards.

"I’ll just start, and I need to finish by early October because I got shows," she said.

Overall she’ll be taking a spontaneous, day-by-day approach to the trip. She loves biking because it allows for that.

"It’s really one of the best ways to travel," she said, "because it brings you to such random places that you would never just go. Like you would never take a road and go to some middle-of-nowhere town that I’m going to go to."

Fung also has a day job with Kailua Sailboards and Kayaks in Kailua, renting out ocean equipment. Friendly and gregarious, she comes off as a "people" person.

But give her a moment to reflect, and she’ll tell you that one of her favorite things is "not being around people."

"It’s not being around concrete," she said. Reflecting on her hike on the Pacific Crest Trail, she relished "waking up every single day in a new location that is absolutely gorgeous."

"And every single day is just as gorgeous if not more so than the last one. That’s one of the things that I’m most excited about."

» Follow along with Keala Fung at www.NinjaOn2Wheels.wordpress.com.

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