Over a century ago Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and their fellow outlaws, The Wild Bunch, rode the Outlaw Trail from Robber’s Roost in Utah to Hole in the Wall, Wyoming. Along the way they robbed a few banks and trains. Now, The Wild Bunch rides again – on bikes.
From deep canyons, red rock deserts and mountain passes, to traversing miles of sagebrush, this is the ultimate Western bike packing adventure and Durangatangs thought it up.
Have you ever wanted to quit your job and do something extraordinary? In true Durango fashion, Brett and Diana Davis are doing just that. After 16 years as Assistant Director of Recreational Services and Director of Outdoor Pursuits at Fort Lewis College, BD, as students called him, chose to “retire,” though we all know better. His wife Diana, an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist, took a leave of absence. Together the two formed a new Wild Bunch riding off into sunrises and sunsets.
For years Brett dreamed of replicating Butch Cassidy’s Outlaw Trail. He read numerous books and meticulously planned a mountain and gravel bike route across the heart of the Colorado Plateau. BD named it The Outlaw Tour and his motto? Ride it like you stole it! “It’s not about speed, but it is about consistent movement. We’ll move by human-powered means and ride where the outlaws rode,” Brett tells me with a smile. After spending years away on weekends with FLC students, he adds, “As a couple, this is the first time in our lives we’re together. This is really different.”
But they’ve gotten in plenty of cycling practice. BD pedaled from California to South Carolina on a road bike. They’ve both ridden the Colorado Trail and the Continental Divide Trail from Canada to Mexico on bikes – once using pack rafts to cross rivers. The difference with The Outlaw Tour, including stunning Southwestern terrain, is what to wear and how to pack.
As a Western historian, I lent Brett books and articles on Butch and the boys. We discussed the finer points of being a Western outlaw – the style, the etiquette, what to eat and what to drink, how to tip your hat, how to say “Thank you, ma'am!,” and how to rob banks and trains. Diana helped by buying the pair red bandannas, black bowler hats, black vests, and black dusters or overcoats that go almost to their knees. Bedrock Bags crafted unique bike saddle bags with leather fringe. Relentless Components invented a metal slingshot named the Spur Shot, which straps onto a bike’s front fork just as The Wild Bunch had rifles in leather scabbards on their saddles.
The Wild Bunch was known for drinking whiskey and shooting up saloons and liquor bottles with their Colt .45s. The new Wild Bunch drinks their whiskey from plastic bottles, a tiny shared sip each night, and then uses slingshots to hit the bottles out of trees with small clay pellets. Sponsors for this 1,260-mile ride include Back County Experience and Hyper Lite Mountain Gear. The cyclists started in Circleville, Utah at Butch Cassidy’s childhood home and near his parents’ graves. Then they moved on to Antimony, Utah, and over Table Mountain. On the first day Diana broke her rear derailleur forcing her to pedal in only one speed. “She’s burly,” said Brett with pride. “Rough terrain and only one gear.” On the second day another rider, Steve “Doom” Fassbinder, broke his front brake.
A century ago, Butch and the Boys didn’t have to worry about finding bike parts in the middle of nowhere, but the new Wild Bunch planned important resupplies. They arrived in Boulder, Utah after biking Hell’s Backbone Road. Diana received a sticker from Torrey, Utah’s Etta Place Cidery. Etta was Sundance’s girlfriend. On Feb. 4, 1901, in New York City at Tiffany’s Jewelers, Butch bought her a $40.10 gold lapel watch (worth about $1,500 today) to be worn on Etta’s blouse. I’ve suggested Brett do the same for Diana.
Then it was back in the saddles – bike saddles that is – on the Burr Trail, through Bull Pass in the Henry Mountains, across the Dirty Devil River and on to the canyon system of Robbers Roost where BD said, “It was hike-a-bike” to Robbers Roost Spring. In other words, sometimes they rode their bikes, sometimes the new Wild Bunch carried them. With pack rafts they crossed the Colorado River at Spanish Bottoms where the historic Wild Bunch routinely took stolen horses through what is now canyonlands to sell them in Telluride or on to Lake City via the Horsethief Trail. That was before canyonlands National Park was established.
Now, park rules ban bicycles so the modern Wild Bunch had to hoof it for 26 miles through the Maze. In the heat of late summer with temperatures in the mid-90s and no shade for 4 to 5 hours, a lack of drinking water became a serious problem. They were resupplied with five gallons but needed twice that much. In that intense heat, Wild Bunch rider and FLC alumni Greg Cairns said, “When I had suffered enough … that’s when I earned my spurs,” or rather his Spur Shot slingshot. Greg told me, “Maybe they were adrenaline junkies and that’s why they robbed banks. Just like the real Wild Bunch, once you’re in that rugged outdoor bike lifestyle you can’t go back.”
The new Wild Bunch hiked out of the Maze, got back on their bikes, and in Monticello, Utah visited Blue Mountain Foods where, fully dressed in outlaw gear, Brett and others wowed local patrons. Previously clean shaved, Brett continues to grow his outlaw-style black mustache. He waxes the ends before arriving in towns along the way, but Diana admits it still resembles a caterpillar. She tells me, “It’s a costume that doesn’t come off.”
Then they pedaled to the Dove Creek Superette, where they bought that essential cowboy delicacy – canned stewed tomatoes. I had told Brett that on those long cattle drives bringing Texas steers up to railheads, the first thing cowboys did when they hit town was not get a bath and visit saloons, instead they ate canned stewed tomatoes to replenish their electrolytes before beginning a three-day drunk. The new Wild Bunch had warm stewed tomatoes that night in camp and loved every drop of that sweet juice.
From Dove Creek The Outlaw Tour blasted into Telluride via the Galloping Goose Trail where the riders immediately pedaled into the Telluride Brewery for two rounds of beer and bacon/potato skins and their first day of rest after cycling 12 straight days. I met them in Telluride. They hadn’t robbed the San Miguel Bank as Butch did on June 24, 1889, but at least they posed with their bikes in front of it. I spent the night with the Wild Bunch. They drink tequila with a twist of lime.
In rough country, they’ve ridden The Outlaw Tour 40 miles a day on mountain bikes. At Westwater, Utah they had gravel bikes stashed just like Butch always hid spare horses. With those gravel bikes, the new Wild Bunch expected to make 80 miles a day on oil and gas roads to Brown’s Park, the Gates of Lodore, and Irish Canyon. They studied Butch Cassidy’s hideout at the John Jarvie Ranch before the long 326-mile ride through sweet-scented sage to Hole in the Wall. Fifty years ago, Robert Redford rode portions of The Outlaw Trail on horseback east to west. Brett and Diana started at Butch’s home place and rode east. For a few decades in the late 19th century real outlaws rode the trail both ways, always avoiding the law.
With other Wild Bunch riders including Jon Bailey and Sean Mailen, Brett told me, “We’ve had lots of conversations about robbing this or that, but really, we’re just out here chasing ghosts. They felt they were safest in the wild places. The Wild Bunch wanted to be alone and so do we.” Diana added, “It’s hard to disappear these days.”
What’s next after The Outlaw Tour: Ride it Like You Stole It? To be true to Western history, the new Wild Bunch should travel to Bolivia and Patagonia where Butch, Sundance, and Etta fled from the law and the Pinkerton Detective Agency to rob a few more banks in South America. Why not? Put those bikes on a boat. We love our Western outlaws whether they ride horses or bikes.
Andrew Gulliford, an award-winning author and editor, is a professor of history at Fort Lewis College. Reach him at andy@agulliford.com.
