Great Divide singletrack detours

[Johnson4130]

Hi all, new here so apologies if I am asking something that has been covered before and please feel free to direct me to an old thread.
I'm flying out to start the Great Divide route from Banff in a few days time and I'm doing it on a full suspension trail bike that is set up to tackle fairly burly trails even fully loaded. I'm hoping someone can recommend any good reroutes that will follow single track rather than fire roads or any good places I can stop and ride along the way. I'm already planning on stopping in Fernie and unloading my bags then riding trails for a couple days but any other recommendations would be much appreciated.
I'm also fully aware that I will be riding a lot of fire roads and easy trails which is fine but if I can spice it up anywhere along the way even better. I normally ride Enduro/ freeride so I'm thinking that much (technically) easy gravel riding might get a bit dull after a while. I've downloaded the route from bike packing.com's page and was planning on following that roughly but if there are better options I'm all ears.

Many thanks
James

[Iowagriz]

I believe that Canmore (next to Banff) has some good riding.  World Cup XC was there last weekend.

Fernie is good.

Whitefish has some good stuff as well - chairlift DH trails just above town at the Ski Area - I think the free city bus can get you up there.  Whitefish can be expensive for lodging, but I'd bet the lifties would have ideas.  You can ride XC from the Whitefish Bike Retreat, good trails, but certainly not Freeride down low.

Helena has a good XC network surrounding the town.

Then I think you have to wait until Colorado - Steamboat, Breck, Salida are the known trail towns.  Enjoy the riding!

[AZTtripper]

Have you seen this? https://bikepackingroots.org/2023/11/13/kurt-refsnider-completes-cdt/

[Johnson4130]

Wow, no I hadn't seen that route before, that's unreal.
Thanks for the replies guys that'll give me plenty to go at.
Cheers
James

[AZTtripper]

James enjoy the trip, I bet you could use Kurt's route to add a bit of spice at will, and then always bail and ride the GDMB route whenever your looking to make better time, and actually come up with a come up with a pretty fun route.

Tim

[SkyHighExplorer]

Since you're stopping in Fernie, you'll find some great trails there. Whitefish, Montana, is another spot with awesome single track, and the Continental Divide Trail near Butte offers some fun sections. In Colorado, check out the Colorado Trail segments and the La Garita Wilderness bypass for more technical riding.