The Great Divide Mountain bike route, a 2,768-mile tail stretching from the bottom of New Mexico all the way up to Banff, Alberta, Canada, would be a major trek for the average 17-year-old, but for Sam Stroup (’17), it was the perfect summer vacation.

“Sam is definitely the most absurd person I know by a long shot,” said Sam’s friend Arthur Martinez (’17), “but he really sets himself apart with what he chooses to do with his time. I really admire how much he values things that are genuinely challenging and wholesome experiences”

The origin of the idea for the biking trip came during another journey that Sam took the summer before junior year: a month-long hiking trip in Wyoming with a group of other students from around the country. After this trip, Sam had aspirations to go on an even greater trip. In preparation for this larger adventure, Sam rode his bike, everywhere.

He started every school day by waking up at 4 a.m. and biking from his house just north of McCallum to Barton Springs for an early morning swim, and then riding back north, arriving at McCallum just in time for school.
In April of his junior year, Sam injured his knee, which stalled his bike training. But Sam didn’t let the injury stop him from embarking on a bike trip in June, and he even brought his friend, senior Reed Rogers with him.
“Sam convinced me to go on the trip, and I can truly say that it was the most amazing, memorable, yet difficult thing that I’ve ever experienced,” Reed said. “Without Sam, I would have never gone on a trip like that, so I have to say that I’m thankful for him.”

The two set off for their trip in mid-June, departing from the border of Mexico and New Mexico. Despite Sam’s injured knee and Reed’s lack of prior training, the two rides still aspired to make it to Canada with just each other’s company to get them there.

After their first day–14 hours of riding–the two set up camp a couple hundred yards off the nearest road, cooking beans and eventually trying to sleep, but rest wasn’t too easy when ominous white vans continued to drive slowly past their camp site.

One then two vans came back in the opposite direction. Their first thought was that they were vans smuggling illegal drugs into the country, filled with criminals who wouldn’t be too friendly. The two proceeded to turn off their lights in hopes that the vans wouldn’t notice them, but they were too late for that, as the vans turned off the road and started heading straight at them. The two bikers then got low to the ground and tried to keep silent, hoping the vans weren’t coming after them.

Then, two vans pulled up beside them, no lights on, tinted windows, and each van’s door slid open and men dressed in black, carrying assault rifles flooded out and surrounded the two campers, shouting in Spanish, while aggressively aiming the rifles at them.

Luckily, the trip didn’t end here, as one of the men began to speak in English, and the two seniors realized, this was just the border patrol, and they had mistaken Sam and Reed for illegal immigrants because they were so close to the U.S.-Mexico border. You’d think day two couldn’t get any worse, but as they began riding in the glare of the next day’s noon, they learned that the blistering sun didn’t care that they hadn’t slept much the night before.

On day two, Sam suffered a heat stroke, forcing the riders to shut down for a day of rest. The following two weeks were long, and hot, and unfortunately, Reed was only able to make it three-fourths of the way through New Mexico.  For Sam, Reed’s bowing out meant that he would have to face the rest of the long and very lonely journey alone.

Lucky for Sam, he met a lot of kind people on his way to Canada, who showed him a great amount of hospitality, and he was even able to bike for a couple weeks with a Swiss biker who was on the same route but had actually started all the way down at the tip of Chile.

At first, Sam said that “the best part was the sense of accomplishment combined with a beautiful backdrop–and downhills,” but then he paused and reconsidered his answer.

“Scratch that, the best part was the people I met.”