(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - [Tammy] You know, when you climb these mountains out here and you reach the top, it is like the most breathtaking thing ever.

- [Alex] Just seeing the views, you're in a whole different world when you're out there riding.

It's really cool.

- [Tara] This is new, this is exciting, this is awesome.

I'm pushing myself past the limit.

- [Jada] Not only is it getting your body physically fit, but it's getting your mind mentally fit.

- [Tammy] If everybody could bike again, it just makes you feel like a little kid.

I do love biking.

- [Alex] I wish I would've known about mountain biking like years ago, because it's really awesome.

(upbeat music continues) Thanks to the generosity of donors and and matching support from the state of Wyoming, the Wyoming Public Television Endowment helps make programs like this possible.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) - This is the product of a deep love of long distance travel on bike, a love of opening doors for students and people into something that they might not normally find, and a real passion for developing projects that integrate outdoor travel with science.

I teach at an open access college.

Our mission is to serve the community.

How do I create programs, be them academic or extracurricular, that are endearing and welcoming to everybody?

It can be any group that you're trying to welcome and support and work however hard we need to to create a space that's positive and inclusive and welcoming.

I've raced on the Tour Divide from Southern Alberta into Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, down to Antelope Wells, New Mexico.

It's a route that I'm deeply attached to and that I would ride again and hope to race again.

It's the great divide between access to the wonders of travel by bike.

It's a metaphor for things that are really challenging and things you can accomplish.

It symbolizes a transformation or a transition.

You know, the great divide can be a barrier or it can be something you go up and over, and sometimes it's the thing that keeps you from getting where you wanna go.

A lot of the people who ride the Great Divide or who participate in long distance tours tend to be 40 and over, where they have a secure income and have access to funds that they can spend on this.

My hope was to start a younger generation on this with some support and to bridge it to their academic work, and just create opportunities.

To find six cyclists who wanna bike 1,000 miles is not actually that easy, and I think what excites me about this project is the diversity of this team.

(Aidan speaking in Eastern Shoshone) - Good afternoon, my name is Aidan Hereford, and my Indian name is Red Rose, and I am from the Eastern Shoshone tribe as well as the Northern Arapaho tribe.

My grandma, Rory, she works as a Native American student coordinator, and she actually told me about this biking tour.

- [Jada] And I met Jacki Klancher to sign up for classes and to talk about what my career at CWC may look like.

And within 10 minutes of meeting her, she had asked me to go to East Africa with her.

It was a partner CWC expedition.

CWC was able to take students because it was science-based.

The students came with a project that they had already, like, planned and thought about, some sort of science experiment that they wanted to test on Mount Kilimanjaro, the tallest mountain in Africa.

She gave me like a month and a half to get ready for East Africa, and at this point, I didn't even have a passport, which was... It was just a big jump and a big, I don't know, just a big expedition that changed my life, and I didn't even know it yet.

It really changed my perception on what hard is.

It just really prepared me for this bike trip.

And now I'm glad I have a bike and not just my hiking boots in the backpack.

It was just by saying yes to going to East Africa.

I don't know what came over me.

I guess just the opportunist in me.

(laughs) So risk taking isn't really in my interest, but being adventurous is.

- I'm, like, wrapped up here.

I was approached by Jada Antelope.

She told me about this bike trip, and I wanted to give it a try because it could be a one time experience, it could be a life-changing experience.

When I was younger, my family went camping.

We would go horn hunting and we would go hunting for elk, and we would even go out just to go collect some cedar sage, stuff that can help us and heal us.

But once I got older, gave me the encouragement to get my own money so I can get my own truck so that I can go do it.

I would go to my mother's house, because that's where everybody meets up.

(laughs) I would go there and be like, "I'm going up to the mountains."

I would tell them either, "Get ready in the next half hour to an hour or I'm leaving without you."

(laughs) My mom would always be the supportive one.

"Good luck, have fun, come back."

(laughs) "Don't get lost."

I'm so glad that I have my mom around, because she's like the most motivated person out there.

She'll push you to anything.

(laughs) - So I was born in Belize, Central America, and still know a lot about my culture.

I don't think a lot of people from Belize, let alone Central America, have ridden the Great Divide Mountain Bike Trail.

I got out of the military, my contract was up.

Five years, three deployments, countless under ways, one world tour.

Aviation boatswain's mate working on the flight deck, so.

- Not much bicycling, huh?

- No, not at all.

(laughs) And so I was trying to get into the groove of things, looking at programs at Central Wyoming College, and I looked into the GIS program, and Jacki was the one that introduced me to the bikes program, and she's like, "Oh, you'd be a perfect fit for the team."

- I don't know why I said yes, because I haven't been on a bike for years.

So I remember riding bike when I was younger.

They would find me like two miles away from my house with my friends just riding around the powwow grounds, and they would... Of course I got in trouble, but it was like, "Well, how can you expect me to just ride back and forth on like the half mile stretch by the house?

I wanna go and ride bike with someone who wants to ride bike with me."

- For some individuals, it's an easy handoff.

They're already working in wilderness education and outdoor rec, and it seems quite accessible and it's a culture with which they're familiar.

And for other students, it's a big stretch.

We really wanted to take the students for whom this was not in their day-to-day paradigm.

Doesn't that look yummy?

- No, steak and eggs.

(upbeat music) - When I turned 50 years old, friends said, "Do you wanna go ride the Little Red?"

It's the bicycle ride in Utah that is for cancer, and women just pour in.

So, everybody pitched in and bought me a bike for the Little Red.

And so I rode the Little Red and never got back on it.

And now I'm 58, so it sat in my garage for eight years.

I didn't find biking.

I didn't really love it.

- I started riding when I was six years old.

(laughs) My brother, my older brother, actually, taught me the way to ride a bike.

I actually kinda quit when I was like, I'd say middle school, yeah, 'cause I'd have, like, other interests in, like, volleyball or other sports.

- We really strove to create an opportunity that could fund students and set them up for the next fall in school.

Good, there you go.

And also provide an experience that they would normally have to pay a considerable amount for that's out of the range of most people.

Did you send a text or anything?

- Yeah.

- We are getting ready to ride for the Alpine Science Class and measure air quality.

It's been pretty incredible to be part of this, go to school, go on a bike ride, and conquer earth and show everybody, anybody can do anything.

Short bike ride every day, every day till we get to Atlantic City.

Rock it!

- [Jacki] We created this project that could be completed along the trail to sample air quality between here and Lander.

- There you go.

- [Jacki] Each of these students within the field of science, technology, engineering, and math, there's the riding, there's the experience, and in fact, through our funding, created fellowships for the research work.

- [Ryan] And that should pop it right up.

Yeah, well done.

- [Jada] What has made this possible was our connection to the National Science Foundation, and they supported us with air quality meters by Plume.

They collect different sorts of, like, particulate matter, little things in the air that we can't see but are definitely breathing in.

The Plume is a Bluetooth device that connects to our phone, and it takes in all of this particulate matter and gives us a location of where it was detected and calculated whether it was good or bad air quality.

We've been riding along, like, two track roads.

Our main question that we would like to use our data for is to see if the air quality is worse in the mountains or better in the mountains, and how does it differ, getting close to, like, urban cities or towns?

A little bit of science that we can do as we're riding.

We took a class that we call Fat Bike Fridays, where we took our bikes out and rode short little biking trails around our school in Lander.

We did one that was from Riverton to Shoshone here in Wyoming, and that was 26 miles, and that to us was long but doable.

Now that we were in Kokopelli, which is Southern Utah, it was the first time we had long distance riding along the trail and getting to a different destination rather than going out and back.

(upbeat music) - That is the Kokopelli trail.

So we would've needed to bike, you know, back around there and then down, I think.

- We went to Kokopelli to get our team together to get used to each other, camp on the ground, get used to their systems, make sure their systems worked, and to get away from snow in Lander.

(laughs) - [Tara] Kokopelli is like a whole different trip, because it's blazing hot.

To me, it was like Death Valley.

(laughs) It was sandy, it was dirt, and a little bit of pavement.

If you ran outta water, you ran outta water.

You would have to wait until we find source of water or got to camp.

- [Stacy] I think we averaged about 20 miles a day, maybe 80 miles, 90 miles for the whole Kokopelli trip.

- [Aidan] The sun was just beaming and glaring on us.

That's actually my first biking expedition.

It was pretty nice, actually.

Great views, great views.

- [Jada] It was difficult, but it was good to experience so that we were able to actually feel like we were accomplishing miles.

When we were out there, it wasn't like we were in a place where the truck could come and get us.

We were out there until we rode to camp.

It was a really good experience.

Riding long days on a bike and then sleeping on the ground, and having to get up and do it again, that is a lot of willpower.

Not only is it getting your body physically fit, but it's getting your mind mentally fit.

- They had already been preparing for a couple months, so I kind of got introduced a little bit late, so I had no mountain biking experience, nothing, no training for mountain bikes or anything like that, knowing the parts.

I haven't even been riding for a year, and, like, I've already fell in love with the sport.

So, that's kind of my inspiration, and like I said, it's a new found love for me.

- Kokopelli happened one month after an injury of mine.

I was riding on the reservation one day, and I was going downhill stupid fast and hit a rut, took me over my handlebars, and I just remember hearing a crack and sitting up and knowing that my collarbone was broken.

I think that was really hard for me to get back on the bike.

And they said, "Just go to Kokopelli, you don't need to ride, but just go for the experience."

I rode anyways.

(laughs) And I think that helped build kind of like anticipation for the Great Divide.

It was a learning experience in having to get over my mental fears.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - The best part of the Continental Divide trip was just the beauty, honestly.

It was gorgeous.

Seeing it from a back roads perspective and witnessing everyone else seeing it and how gorgeous it was, and sometimes we were just in awe of how beautiful it was.

I had no idea.

I predominantly rode with Jada, Tara, and Aidan, and Tammy.

Jada and Tara are a riot when they get together and they get on a good roll.

And maybe some things that we've learned today and transfer them to tomorrow.

- Eat food when you're hungry.

Stay hydrated.

I'll know when someone's hangry.

- You'll know.

It's in my face.

I felt like I snapped at you, Aidan, earlier, but I'm pretty sure I was frustrated with myself, but it wasn't your fault that I went, almost went over my handlebars.

(laughs) It was my fault.

(laughs) Because I wasn't watching what I was doing.

I wasn't watching who was in front of me and all that.

And I appreciate the clouds, 'cause, like, literally, if it was a hot day, we would be still on the road.

(group laughing) - You guys, I really appreciate the light and laughter that we all have when we ride together.

At the end of the day, I'm always just... You guys are always having me in stitches though.

I really appreciate you guys, that I get to ride with you.

- It would've been harder for me to try to do that steeper, that steeper part, the last part.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, so.

- You got up it.

- Yeah, maybe appreciated for that part.

(upbeat music) - [Jacki] There's a lot going on emotionally in the group, and they're all trying to find their niche within a group, so 22 miles is a perfect amount for a new crew, but it's also more than meets the eye.

The first day was 13, yesterday was 22 miles, today is 35, and tomorrow's 52.

And then we take a day for this team to rest.

Over time, they'll get stronger and they'll cover longer distances more quickly and increase their distances, but I don't think we go beyond around 50 to 60 miles maximum anywhere on this route.

That's a good hearty day with a fully loaded or partially loaded mountain bike on gravel roads, two track, and a teeny bit of pavement here and there.

- We're just gonna go through, you know, and talk about how the day went.

Tammy, you wanna start it off?

- The high was the high mountain to start off with.

I also think that even though I'm in good shape, that I will slow you guys down.

Like, I think I could do it, but I'll push my body to the limit.

So I think I would have to go with the other group.

Today I was like, "Nobody needs to be slowed down for me."

So, I know I'll be slower with them, but it's better to be slower than injure my body.

- We're gonna figure out a good solution that's gonna work for everybody, so, yeah.

- It was great.

Like, I did it, it didn't kill me or anything, but I'm just thinking long term that I probably should not- - For sure.

- Push my body.

- You're a natural out here.

- It's felt so good.

Even today I was like, "This feels like I'm free of everything."

And then riding with you guys, I'm like, "This feels so good.

I don't know these people, but it feels so good."

(group laughing) (upbeat music) - [Jacki] I believe that anything that challenges people emotionally, physically, interpersonally gives them the confidence to make that transition and do those traverses of other great divides in their lives.

- If I didn't have asthma, it would be pretty good.

(laughs) But other than that, the cold hurts my lungs, and it's a challenge.

I'm doing this for the reservation, my culture, and I'm gonna have fun.

If I fail, well, I can learn from my mistakes or just walk away from it, but that's the easy route, is walking away.

I don't choose the easy route.

I prefer the hard route.

I love to learn from my mistakes even though I get crabby when people tell me about it.

But it's life.

Live and learn.

(laughs) There's some stuff going on on the reservation that we need help with, and I would be willing to, like, go outta my way to help others, especially the teenagers and the younger kids, to get 'em outside, because they're stuck on their electronics.

I love to be outside.

I love it here, and if I can get some others out here, it would be awesome, and have them take their stories back and inspire some more people to get out into nature.

I like motivating people.

I like to cheer them up when they're down and I like to keep smiles on everybody, because that's what I like to see, is smiles.

When I was walking with Aidan, this quote came up outta my mind off of a... I think it was "Creed", the first one, where he's like standing in the mirror and he's like, "One step at a time, one punch at a time, one round at a time," it's just like... (upbeat music) (group laughing) - I like it!

That's awesome.

- "One step at a time."

(group laughing) - Michael B. Jordan.

- [Jacki] I need to really point out that while the idea may have found its roots in my brain, the only way you can bring something like this together is with a really solid team, and we have the rest of our leadership team with Stacey Wells, Darran Wells.

- That would sometimes happen.

- It should be relatively smooth sailing.

- [Jacki] Ryan Towne is a student of ours, but also has the skills to apply to this team, and ultimately, our full leadership team at any given time is two people on the trail and two people in our support vehicle.

We have a student team doing logistics and helping on the route.

- Trailer's mostly food, kitchen stuff, stove, table.

I am the assistant logistics manager and the driver.

I do what Gigi wants me to do some of the time.

(upbeat music) - I am officially logistics coordinator, I think.

(laughs) And chef.

Dinner chef only.

(laughs) It's a lot of cooking.

It's fun.

They really love curry, if you wanna know that.

Their favorite meals are curry, curry, and curry.

(laughs) They like carbs.

Then I have to get those other bite boxes.

The tricky thing is, is after cleanup and everything, it's like playing Tetris to try to fit everything in the trailer just right.

- The box trailer is rather difficult to maneuver.

- Keppy does all the driving.

I do all the, "Turn your wheel left, I mean right!"

Couple inches!

"I mean left!"

(laughs) "No, you're gonna have to straighten it out!"

- This is Remy.

He's Gigi's dog.

We actually had someone... We went to get ice cream, and I was sitting outside with Remy and Gigi, and this guy walked by and he's like, "Give you $100 for that dog."

(laughs) And I was just like, "Um..." And Gigi's like, "No, that's my dog."

(laughs) He's been voted the president, President Remy.

He's a constant source of amusement.

Anything smelly has to go in the truck or the trailer every night.

Yeah, we've been doing that from day one.

We learned that there was a bear attack in the middle of Ovando.

- This is Ovando right here, and this is probably where we're gonna camp, a little bit past Ovando.

We might- - [Keppy] Yeah, we've been pretty vigilant with bear stuff.

Everybody carries bear spray, and we had a class on it before we got out into the woods.

Everybody's equipped and they know how to use it.

- This is how our camp is in the morning.

Everybody is in a hurry to get on the road.

Maybe we're not in a hurry.

The coach over there rubbing his beard going, "I get to go fast today."

Alex thinking, like, "Why the hell aren't we getting going?"

Remember, this is about enjoying the ride and not exerting ourself too much.

We're gonna be going at a nice steady pace most of the day.

We'll still take breaks.

A lot of downhill and then a lot of uphill.

Awesome.

Is everybody ready to go?

Great.

(powwow music) - Mainly on that trip, I was actually listening to powwow music.

I just wanna do a round dance, you know?

Do a little round dance.

- [Tara] Do that in your peach step when you start riding.

- I know.

(laughs) (group laughing) - And really, the biggest thing that I took away was learning some of the Native American culture that Jada and Tara and Aidan really brought into the group.

- The beat of the drum is actually the heartbeat of you, so that keeps me motivated to keep going.

- And it was good.

The team as a whole held up great, you know?

Which was really cool to see.

It was going very well.

I am excited to be on this, you know, expedition.

We've been prepping for a really long time, and it's nice to finally be riding, you know, the hills and seeing the views.

I guess what really keeps me inspired when I'm riding is my grandma, because she's got cancer right now.

When I'm riding and, like, I'm going up those hills, I'm like, "I want to get off my bike."

I can't get off my bike.

I can go for another couple miles.

So she was a real inspiration.

- [Tara] I'm pushing myself past the limits.

I'm experiencing things that I have not experienced, and I'm using the muscles that I haven't been using or I didn't know that was there.

It was tough, but in a good kind of way.

- [Aidan] Getting up in the morning and taking that first step on the bike pedal and just breathing the fresh air and starting your day off, that's the best.

- [Tammy] The uphill climb is like you can't get left behind because there's nobody gonna pick you up.

So, it's way harder than I ever expected.

But when you release and you fly down the mountains, there's a passion that happens.

It's like you're just free, like a bird flying.

- This team is one that we really were hoping to bring into this, people for whom long distance cycling and even college might be something they do not see as attainable for them, either financially or because they're first generation students- - That's none of your business.

- [Jacki] And haven't had the role models.

- My dad always wanted me to be educated, since I never went to high school.

I only went to ninth grade 'cause I got married young, 'cause I got pregnant.

My husband went to college and I went to beauty school.

37 years I've been cutting hair.

I own my own shop for 27 years.

I talked to my dad, oh my goodness, like every two weeks.

And then during COVID was daily, like, 'cause I wasn't working, and he wasn't.

So he was the person that, like, if I needed a rock, I'd call and say, "Dad, like, I need you today."

So it was May 3rd, right during COVID, he had a heart attack and died.

(gentle music) I had lost two other cousins two days before that to COVID.

The only way that I could get through death was therapy on a bike, and that's when I started spending hours out riding and riding and riding, and I found passion in it.

So at first, I could only do three miles, and then I started doing 10 miles, and then before, it was 65.

I started on my journey at 225 pounds, and within a short period, my weight just started falling off.

And so Jacki was watching the whole thing.

Pretty soon, she brought me a book, "How To Train For Long Distance Riding", and I was like, "Ah, I don't know where you're going with this, Jacki, but I am not a long distance bike rider."

She's like, "Oh, yeah, you are."

Oh, she came to my shop around Christmas time and she said, "I have a proposal.

You have to go to college and you have to ride a bike, and here's your bike."

I was like, "There's no way I'm going to college."

And she's like, "Well, there's this little thing, you've gotta get science credits and you have to bike."

She let me have till January 3rd or something for the deadline.

So then January 3rd came up, and I had called all our children, and they said, "If you don't do it, you're gonna regret it, and if you do do it, you're gonna regret it.

So why not just take it and run with it?"

So with the bike ride came training, working my butt off every day.

- How many miles we're at?

We're at six miles.

- [Jacki] I think when people look at this route, they can be fooled by, "Well, that team did 22 miles yesterday.

That doesn't sound like a lot."

But when you're pushing your bike or riding very slowly at four and a half miles an hour, 22 starts to be a significant distance for a new team.

Especially in a deluge that came through on and off.

Especially in bear country, where students are slightly on edge and there's active sign of grizzly.

- Yeah, we are in really thick bear country.

We had two very close encounters with bears.

One of them, we were riding bikes on the road, on a gravel road, and saw this grizzly stand up on its hind legs and just stare at us for a while.

- [Jada] I didn't really expect to be as scared of a grizzly as I was when I've seen my first one.

- That tote needs to go- - Nope, this is your bear spray!

Everybody needs bear spray!

- Okay, well, we'll pull this outta the mix.

- And then the other one was really scary.

It was raining and sleeting, and we were on a dirt road, and none of us saw it except for Aidan.

- I was walking my bike uphill.

All of a sudden, I actually heard the bear, like, do a low growl, like a low, low growl.

It was like (imitates bear growling).

Like a (imitates bear growling).

- Oh.

- And then I looked right at it, and then I, like- - Did it see you?

- I don't think so.

He was a really big bear.

All I seen was like a hump that looked like... And that's when I realized it was a grizzly.

The bear looked pretty busy, like, it was doing its own thing, you know?

It was just walking along the trail.

I started like... I was like, "Okay."

- I saw your eyes.

You guys stopped, and I was waiting.

And you were just pushing your bike.

And all of a sudden, she did this, and then she started... - That was pretty scary, I was like... I had like a little mini heart attack.

Like I had to pee myself.

(group laughing) I, like, tinkled.

(laughs) - That bear scared you.

- Yeah, it scared me.

(group laughing) - It's all right.

It's okay.

- When I had the grizzly encounter, a year prior to that exact same day is when I actually got my grizzly bear tattoo.

But I had bear spray on me, so.

And I followed the protocols on encountering a bear.

So, yeah.

- I don't like grizzly bears.

(chuckles) (gentle music) (gentle music continues) - [Jada] We had a week that it felt like it never stopped raining on us.

A couple of nights, we had a fire which we used to dry off our clothes, but a lot of it was mental willpower.

(chuckles) We had to get up and put on wet clothes and wet socks.

It wasn't a question, it's what we were there to do.

- It was tough because it was cold, it was raining.

it was like downpour sprinkling.

We even got a little bit of hail in that.

It was, whew!

(laughs) I felt like I was hypothermic, and I needed to get to camp right away and warm up.

But once Jacki came up over that hill and she brought hot chocolate and chocolate, and it was like so amazing, like, I could push for this next 10 miles, even if it was raining or snowing.

I just needed that little push to get back to camp.

- [Alex] It's, you know, mind over matter.

I really think that the body can take a lot more than you think it can.

So it's like, once you start hurting, you just kind of gotta push past it, and that's how you're gonna get up the hills.

- [Aidan] Oh, yeah, it was actually tough, 'cause you don't wanna sit so much after, like, riding all day, or if you do, you just wanna lay down and go sleep.

(laughs) - [Tammy] Aidan is getting stronger every day, pushing her body.

You can see it in her leg muscles, working hard.

- Tammy Green, I love her.

She is like sparkly disco light in your life, like, on the trail, because, like, she's just a really great, wonderful woman.

She has helped me through a lot.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - So during my journey, I got a phone call that my husband had prostate cancer, and they thought he had bone cancer, so I left knowing that my better or worse vows were like stuck in my chest, and I was like, there's no way I could sit and be here and be there at the same time, so I knew I needed to check out.

So I went home for that week and then we had doctor's appointments, and then we found out that there was no bone cancer, but there's still prostate that we're gonna deal with.

Even though he's dealing with a lot, he was like, "You gotta finish for those three girls."

He is like, "You can't let 'em down.

Like, if you let 'em down, they're gonna know they can drop out and think it's okay just to stop."

And then I was like, I need to finish for myself and a lot of people that can't do it, like, everybody that can't ride a bike, or, "Our friend has cancer, and now my husband has cancer," so it's riding for that.

My biggest thing in life is charity.

Like, if I could give everybody a happy little world every day, that would be my thing.

So if I could give that heart to all the people that don't get what they deserve, that's my number one passion on earth.

- Tammy is such a beautiful soul, and riding with her was so much fun and amazing.

She appreciates everything.

She doesn't ever have anything bad to say about anything.

So, we have got in super close along the ride.

That family issue came up, so she left for a couple of weeks, and I remember speaking to her that day, and I was just like, "There's a way that us natives pray, and sometimes it takes just a little bit of suffering.

So, me and the girls, Tara and Aidan, we are going to push while you're gone.

We're going to push ourselves.

We're going to take that time to pray for your family."

And hearing Tammy hear me was like a complete, like, family moment, and that's when I realized that this group is super close.

- [Tammy] Being with these girls and everybody here has been the most beautiful thing.

Everybody gets along.

We've all fallen in love as a family and it's been, like, unreal to never know 'em before and then get thrown together and make it work.

(gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) - I did wanna talk about something, but I don't know if I should.

We had a death while we were on the trail.

- I actually remember that day very clearly.

We had, like, a little short break to go into town that day.

We were in Idaho.

And we went to a laundromat to do laundry, and that's when I decided to call my mom.

- We got the sad news that one of our friends was lost in a house fire.

And so she was back home, and we were probably still 300 miles away.

And so hearing about it and being so far away was super difficult, and it hit us all kind of hard.

- I decided, you know, let's see how I process and, you know, push through this hard moment.

And so the next morning, I got back on my bike, and I was really dedicated that morning.

I don't know why I was, like, very, very dedicated.

But after that, that's when I felt all the pressure and everything.

- Aidan and Tara were just completely torn up about it.

And how do you get someone who can't stop crying to ride their bike like 40 miles that day?

And I just remember looking at them and telling them, it's like, "You know, this is super hard, and we're so far away from home.

Like, what can we do?"

We can pray.

We can spend the day talking to Creator, to God, and pray for the person that we just lost and pray for their family.

We were between West Yellowstone and Grand Teton.

Tara and Aidan are Eastern Shoshone, and that portion of land has been their ancestors' land for thousands of years.

And I just remember saying, "You are now with your ancestors.

This is their land, this is your land.

And if there's a place to pray, it's here, and you can do it alone on your bike and just push and stay strong."

- [Aidan] We did an offering with, you know, the spirit, to say that we appreciate your land, and we wanna leave this here with you in exchange for bringing us home.

After my auntie passing away, I've always wore red for her, 'cause red is very sacred in our ways.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) - I feel like being able to ride like 50 miles a day or hike like 15 miles a day with 70 pounds on my back, it starts with confidence.

To me, if I'm not confident in what I'm doing, then I'm, like, not pushing myself hard enough.

Because I like to tell people that I was the first Northern Arapaho to summit Kilimanjaro.

I mean, I have pictures of me, and I'm the biggest one there, and it's like, but I still did it.

(laughs) I still got myself there.

And so doing this ride, I like to feel good about myself, because it's something that is kind of unheard of on the reservation, especially my reservation.

I don't know anyone else who would willingly go 70 miles, 50 miles on their bike (laughs) in a day, and do it again the next day.

- I really don't know.

It's just once you're going and once I'm in the zone, I feel like just seeing the views, you're in a whole different world when you're out there riding, and it's really cool.

That's why I fell in love.

Like, I wish I would've known about mountain biking, like, years ago, because it's really awesome.

The whole Great Divide is from Banff, Alberta, Canada, down to the Mexico border.

I talked a little bit earlier about, you know, possibly getting a coach, you know, and training for next year.

So that's what I would be aiming for.

You know, it'd be my first time racing.

So it's kind of cool if I was to, you know, race it, because then I'd probably be one of the few Belizean-Americans to ride the Great Divide, so.

I've been told I should keep riding, I can't stop, 'cause then your body's gonna get used to not riding again.

And so I don't plan on stopping.

- If bikes is the hub of the wheel, we hope they move away from that core and go out towards that edge of the circle to someplace farther than they thought maybe was possible, whether that's academically or professionally, or even personally, spiritually.

If you can do it here when you're exhausted and wet and tired and cold and living in close quarters with people, you can do it from your home and go farther than you ever imagined.

- I did sports ever since the fifth grade.

I wasn't necessarily always the fastest or the strongest, but I had always pushed myself to finish a season, to try better the next time.

(gentle music) I was always the tallest female, and most of the time, I was the biggest one out of the class.

But I've always had that kind of, like, insecurity.

I guess getting through my insecurities was the hardest part.

It was like, it wasn't anybody against me, it was me against me.

And when I lost that insecurity, I kind of grew more confident and like to take, like, I wanna say ownership about it.

Yeah, I'm big, but I can do some cool things.

I can do things probably faster, better than someone that is fit that I went to high school with.

I've done a lot of calculations (laughs), 'cause I wanted to be specific, and I did just above 800 miles.

It was like 806 or something.

It was long, but it was worth it.

(gentle music) (gentle music continues) (gentle music continues) I talked a little bit about the wildfire smoke.

Our air quality meters were able to track and count how much of that matter was in the air that we were breathing.

And so we hit Dubois.

Tara had a very bad day due to some wildfire smoke that was up in the mountains.

And it was a pretty decent climb that day, and the smoke just completely destroyed her lungs, and it caused her to not be able to finish that day.

So she hopped on the vehicle.

It was becoming that point of the fire season where the smoke was just going to get worse.

A big question was whether it was safe or not for her to finish.

(gentle music continues) On the other hand, I was having troubles with my seat, and my seat was starting to cause me pain.

It was just unbearable.

And so we decided, "This is far enough."

We're going back out to another expedition three weeks after that trip.

I'm not going to ruin my body before I can even start getting ready for the next expedition.

For me, it was just safer to let my body heal and rest so that I can go back to the mountains.

- That's when I decided to stop my route and end at Pinedale.

(gentle music continues) (upbeat music) - [Jada] Tammy was able to get through her family emergency and finish out the ride.

Tammy did finish, which I'm glad that she did.

- [Aidan] She actually finished in Atlantic City with Ryan Towne and Jacki Klancher.

- This is day 36, and here we are, crossing the High Desert, headed to Atlantic City and the Lander cutoff road.

We are not quite the same group size we were.

- Tara and Jada and Aidan all had to leave.

They went home three days ago to be with family.

- [Tammy] Alex's speed was so amazing.

He was above and beyond our talents.

(chuckles) He decided to finish by himself and did a pretty quick ride into town.

- Would we like to be finishing with the whole group right now, and have that triumphant energy of, "We did this and we did this all together"?

I have to admit, yes.

Having had that with other group rides that I've completed, it is 100% the kind of thing that leads you to weep with delight and relief and pride and satisfaction, to finish as a group.

- 25 and then I'm done.

So excited.

This has been such an experience, to climb mountains to the top and know that you can do anything.

- [Jacki] We put people together that changed each other.

- Last woman standing, and the oldest.

- So the last woman standing might be Tammy Green, but by her side is Ryan, who's been our proctor and has been with us for the whole month, as a student lead who became full trip leader for a segment of this.

(both humming) Or something like that.

- Yeah.

(chuckles) No, that was great.

(gentle music) - For each of these students as they exited, my personal goal and my professional goal was to have them feel so proud of what they've accomplished and so pleased with all of the hard days, their experiences, the work they did as a group to make this happen.

The bears they experienced, the rain, the heat, the hills, and to look at this as something that is a fantastic accomplishment, regardless of whether they rode the last couple of days.

We miss them, we do, but I'm very proud of this whole team, and that includes our support team as well.

Everybody had a long, intense, physically and emotionally demanding month.

(gentle music continues) Smelling the barn, Tammy Green?

You got this.

You can fall fully apart in about another hour and a half.

For now, you just keep focusing on- - On the ride.

- On the ride, yep.

And along this section, actually, for real, given you gotta be on your toes with the traffic.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (group cheering) - [Supporters] Yay, Tammy!

- Woo-hoo!

(Tammy chuckles) - You did it.

You did it.

- We're so proud of you!

- This is just lovely.

- You did it.

- She made it look so easy, now everyone's gonna wanna do it.

- Your legs feel like this.

- Celebrate.

You got it.

Woo!

(both laughing) - [Tammy] Oh!

(both laughing) - [Supporter] Oh, I like your socks, Tam.

(upbeat music) - Aidan Durissa Hereford, Technical Studies, Expedition Science and Outdoor Education, Associate of Applied Science.

(audience applauding) Jada Ariana Antelope, Technical Studies, Expedition Science and Outdoor Creation, Associate of Applied Science.

(audience applauding) Tammy Green is being presented with the Associate of Humane Letters in recognition for her inspiring and tireless contributions and lifelong service to the local community.

According to CWC faculty member Jacki Klancher, "Tammy's dedication to her family, her community, her work, and her friends fills my heart with joy every time I hear of her accomplishments or see her in person or in action."

She has been one of the biggest advocates for CWC students and their efforts to finish their degrees.

On the CWC bikes expedition, Tammy did not sign up or join.

Jacki recruited her with full intention because she wanted her.

Please join me in welcoming Tammy and giving her this honorary degree.

(audience applauding) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) ♪ I'm in no hurry to get back to my front door ♪ ♪ 'Cause there's nothing there behind the back for me ♪ ♪ I think the only place I really call my home now ♪ ♪ Is here on the open road ♪ I'm riding solo ♪ I'll take my bike into the highest place for miles ♪ (upbeat music continues) ♪ And then I'll look to see you one last time ♪ ♪ I'm riding solo ♪ Again