Having recently completed riding the Great Divide on a bicycle he crafted himself, from wood, we have an awesome conversation with Adelaide born, US based, Toby Lukins. 

Toby is an incredibly experienced everyday adventurer and no doubt, with an extensive range of adventures and experiences behind him, we barely scraped the surface in this fantastic hour chatting to him. Toby shares with us how he balances life as a husband and father of three, while working “fly in fly out”, adventuring and creating some amazing items through his self-taught love for woodworking. 

The particular focus of this conversation was around how Toby recently rode a bucketlist off-road route for bikepackers worldwide -  the Adventure Cycling Association’s 4000+km “Great Divide Mountain Bike Route” - a route following the Continental Divide from Banff, Alberta, Canada to the US/Mexico border in Antelope Wells, New Mexico. Incredibly he rode this on a bike he designed and made entirely himself, out of wood. We cover a great range of topics from how he made his bike; to the challenges of a solo ride on this world renowned route; wildlife encounters and being bear aware; the community of trail angels along the route and the “why” for taking on a challenge like this. We also touch on how these adventures are balanced with life as a parent and how parents can be amazing role models for their children by taking on challenges like this. 

We make reference to the absolutely incredible Lael Wilcox and the 2019 coverage of her riding the Divide in the short film  - “I just want to ride”

Bikepacking.com is also a great resource for anyone curious to find out more about the route and about all things bikepacking. 

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