If you read that article linked in your post, there's this paragraph:
"Last April, a hiking group from Colorado "tested out" the trail, taking six days to hike from Guadalupe Peak to the Caverns. They omitted the loop that takes hikers to Lincoln National Forest."
That was me and 4 pals. Pretty cool trail we followed, though the final version varied a bit from what we scoped out. Pic below shows the 5 of us at the start of the GRT, the summit of Guadalupe peak.
Anyway, I'm excited about this new Great Plains trail, but I agree, parts of it will be best done on a bike.
I'm actually heading down to TX/NM to re-hike the GRT, or at least a loop version of it, next week. We'll see how that pans out.
The looks like an interesting trail. I am a long distance bike tourist who has done some backpacking and some bikepacking so this looks like it just might be a good fit for me. Right now all my trips are on hold due to the Covid 19 situation, but I may consider this one when I decide to venture out on a major trip again. I hope that the CV19 situation cools down before I am too old to do major trips. Has anyone attempted to string together some approximation of what the whole thing will be by bike with some hiking and high point bagging along the way?