Two of the five tourers, Chris O’Brien and Jane Alexander, prepping their tandem bicycle for boxing a week before their Argentina-Chile trip. Photos submitted by John Stember
A party of five Grand “Maraisans” will bicycle about 1,700 miles over six weeks through southern Argentina and Chile starting Monday, February 3. The group includes locals Lee and Scott Bergstrom of Thomsonite Inn, couple Jane Alexander and Chris O’Brien, and lone Buck Benson. For Jane and Lee, who are entering their sixties, part of the reason they are pursuing this self-supported bike tour now is because they fear waiting. “A year and a half ago my oldest sister died of ovarian cancer,” says Lee Bergstrom. “I had introduced her to biking. She had two fabulous bikes, one of which I am riding…We had dreams to do these things. Half her life journey God cut short. It’s one of the reasons why I’m saying, ‘I need to do this now,’ because I don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
The architect of the idea to ride is humble Buck Benson, who has spent years cycling throughout remote corners of the globe. “Buck is our fearless leader on this trip,” tells Jane Alexander. “When we’re done with this trip, Buck’s coming home for a month and then going on a 10,000 mile bike packing trip through Siberia, Mongolia, India, down to Goa.”
Launching from Bariloche, Argentina, the five will cycle south towards the bottom of the world through turquoise fjords and Patagón scrub. In this part of windswept Argentina and Chile, roads regularly meander 200- plus miles through wild country with few amenities. This kind of variable terrain through dust, dirt, and gravel is best suited for burly-tired mountain bikes.
Six weeks and two crossings of the Andes later, the group plans to arrive in Puerto Natales, Chile, where they will load bikes aboard a ferry and motor four days north along the Pacific coast to Puerto Montt, then Bariloche, and finally home.
For folks that haven’t bike toured, most days break down into sore hands, constant eating, and the tireless push of a pedal. For Lee Bergstrom, “Getting up and just being able to bike and not worry about hopefully other things, that’s what I’m looking forward to—enjoying the ride. I’m going to probably laugh and cry and scream and be mad. I’ll experience all emotions. It’s not going to be easy.”
The group will set up camp alongside the edge of the road most nights, sunburned and splattered with dust. The plan is to carry everything they need, other than food, for the entire journey in bike-friendly bags called panniers. “You pack the same amount for 2 days as you do for 32 days, except for the food,” explains Lee. Mornings call for boiled water to percolate coffee and breakfast whipped up on small portable stoves. On average, the bikers will cover 40-80 miles a day.
“We’ve never done a trip like this before ourselves. There’s going to be all sorts of things that will be unpredictable and uncertain. Most of the time that’s kind of exciting and interesting and adventurous… We have to be ready for things to go wrong. By definition it’s not going to go exactly as we are planning it. Maybe it’s an injury, maybe it’s a sickness, maybe it’s a mechanical…worse comes to worse, we catch a ride back to where we started,” tells Chris O’Brien.
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