Spacing out bounce boxes on the GDMBR 

Bounce box spacing on this route depends a lot on pacing, timing (will you hit the location on a Sunday?) and what is in the bounce boxes.  All I can really do is explain what I did and how I spaced mine out.  The first drop location was in Whitefish, Montana…the timing was good and I needed to dump some stuff I carried (like a shock pump) through Canada during the gear and bike settling period.  But Whitefish can be an expensive place to land, it’s a higher end resort town the likes of Breckenridge.   Whitefish does have a great bike shop, Glacier Cyclery.  The second drop was in Butte, but I could have done without it and the post office was a significant distance from where I stayed. 

The third drop was in Pinedale, Wyoming, by far one of the best places to take a rest day and do what you needed to do with the bounce boxes.  One drawback, the map shows a bike shop here, but it is a limited supply hardware store…no wrenching going on that I could tell.  The fourth, Salida, was a good location as well.  Salida has about everything a GDR rider could ever need.  It is also the last place on the route before Silver City that has bike shop and bike shop supplies.  The terrain between Salida and Silver City is among the roughest and most challenging on the route…so anything that needs to be done with the bike needs to be done in Salida.

I sent my next drop to Cuba, NM which was cool.  The post office has a Divide Registry and it was interesting to see the comments from other riders and hikers.  The final drop was in Silver City, and that box went home with me.  I go into a little more detail in the route narratives.

How did I determine what the spacing was?  I looked at the map, gambled, and guessed.  Could the bike have shredded and needed that one Intense only part that was in my bounce box 200 miles away?  Absolutely.  But it all worked out just fine.

To ship a bounce box, determine the location and zip code first (on the ACA maps:)

USPS General Delivery
ATTN: Your Name
City, State, Zip Code

 I found the best boxes are the top open, $8.95 Priority flat rate shipping boxes you can pick up for free at the post office.  As far as packing tape goes, I was able to tighten them up as best as possible and asked the clerk at the post office if they would help me tape the boxes up with the big dispensers of tape behind the counter.  This works better when the post office isn’t busy.  Mailing labels can be picked up for free usually in the same vicinity (in the Post Office) as the boxes.