10 Things That Surprised Me on the Tour Divide

I didn’t quite know what to expect on the Tour Divide. Yes, some things scared me, but typically, things I assume will be issues before I do something don’t end up being the monsters I fear they will be. That said, this article isn’t an account of the horribleness I found on the Tour Divide. There was plenty of that, which will be included in a follow-up to this (but the TL;DR of the horribleness can be summed up as sleep deprivation and saddle sores).

The Tour Divide was my first bikepacking race and the first bikepacking trip I’ve done that prioritized the speed of the trip above all else. Scenery? Don’t need to see it. Night riding? What’s the difference? Local cuisine? Let’s hit the gas station. Sleep? Who needs it?

I tried my best to focus on my training for the ride and not dwell too much on expectations. I thought that if I had my bike, my gear, and my training dialed in, I would be able to handle whatever the Tour Divide could throw at me. So, did it work out? Well, I finished alive and under my goal time, so I guess the answer’s “yes”?

But that doesn’t mean the ride was without its challenges. Here are the Tour Divide’s biggest surprises.

The Community

I didn’t think I would come away from the Tour Divide with many new friends—or even acquaintances. One reason backpacking is better than bikepacking is that it’s typically easier to hang with and meet people. And that’s before even considering the Tour Divide is a race. However, I had the opportunity not only to meet but also to ride alongside many Tour Divide riders. On a typical thru-hike, I’ll meet people, but there will only be a few I will come away from the experience and still talk to. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy meeting and talking to everyone out there on the trail or the bike, but it’s not realistic that you’ll stay in touch with every person you meet. How many people from your high school graduating class do you still talk to? All of them? Maybe none of them. The number of people I’ve talked to since the Tour Divide whom I met on the Tour Divide? About comparable to what I could have expected from a long-distance thru-hike.

The Weather

I expected the weather to be one of the most significant factors I would have to contend with on the Tour Divide, but the weather ended up being possibly the factor I had to contend with on the ride. Arguably more than the lack of sleep, the muscle fatigue, or the actual bicycle riding, the weather was the biggest obstacle to finishing the Divide. It all started with a winter storm warning that lasted for four days (the middle of June, mind you). We had sub-freezing temperatures, snow, rain, sleet, and general awfulness at the start of the ride. My hands and toes were in a constant state of near frozenness. I highly recommend bringing some warm and/or waterproof gloves. After that, the weather played nice for a bit, but then, the entire state of New Mexico (and a lot of Colorado) and I was met with thunderstorms – daily thunderstorms that scared the crap out of me. Not a good time.

The Pavement

The Tour Divide is, at its core, a gravel bikepacking race. That said, it’s difficult to piece together a route of continuous gravel riding for over 2,500 mi / 4,000 km. This is all to say that there was a surprising amount of pavement riding on the Tour Divide. Yes, as a gravel bikepacker, I’m supposed to hate the pavement – what am I, a road cyclist!? But on the down-low, much of the pavement was a welcome relief. Sometimes, it almost felt like bonus or free miles – especially on the climbs (yes, there are road climbs and descents). Much of the time, traffic was not a big issue, but there were certainly a few times the drivers were enormous pieces of garbage (I’m looking at you, Eureka, Montana, and Pinedale, Wyoming). Another noteworthy section of pavement riding was the section of the route along the Tetons. This was probably the longest and highest-traffic area of the entire ride.

The Hike-a-Bike

The two noteworthy hike-a-bike sections I heard about before beginning the Tour Divide were Koko Claims and the Wall. These are both early on in the ride, and foolishly, I thought these would be the only two hike-a-bike sections of the route. Oh boy, was I wrong. Indeed, Koko Claims is far and away the longest hike-a-bike of the Tour Divide (this includes the backside of Koko as well – it was not an easy ride down the other side), but it’s far from the only time you’ll need to get off your bike and push. Every state had at least some hike-a-bike sections. Could some of these sections have been ridden by a more proficient rider than myself? Most certainly. Could you realistically expect to ride all these sections on a loaded bike? Probably not (but don’t let me stop you from trying – I believe in you).

The Town Frequency

Resupply and the amount of food I would carry on my bike wasn’t something I thought about beforehand. Fortunately, it wasn’t too big an issue (except for the stretch between Grants, New Mexico, and Silver City, New Mexico, where I ran out of food in the middle of the longest stretch of riding of my life). Towns, gas stations, restaurants, and resupply options are plentiful on the Tour Divide. That said, I was attempting to do as many miles as possible every day, so if you’re riding at a more relaxed (i.e., enjoyable) pace, you may need to carry more food. I found myself with access to food at least once per day and never had to carry more than 36 hours’ worth of food on my bike. I kept all my food in the top section of my frame bag, which worked out brilliantly.

The Terrain

The terrain on the Tour Divide – not just the hike-a-bike sections, but the rideable sections as well – was quite varied and was far from uniform. Despite the route being billed as non-technical, there was some techy riding to be found on the Divide. Sure, overall, the amount of the riding that could be considered technical likely amounts to less than 1% of the overall route, but that less than 1% feels significant when you’re facing it down with a loaded bicycle after riding 100 mi / 160 km on just a few hours of sleep. There were plenty of chunky climbs, chunky downhills (yes, you, road down into Steamboat Springs, Colorado), and singletrack sections that I wouldn’t dare to call “non-technical” to someone going out for a casual ride on gravel roads.

The Sleep

Sleep was a significant factor for me on the Tour Divide. Part of my strategy was to sleep less to be able to ride more. I’m not the strongest rider, so I figured trading a couple of hours of sleep every day for a few more miles would improve my chances of finishing under my goal time. At the start, I was worried I would have trouble falling asleep each night and would waste 30 minutes every night tossing and turning (that’s 30 minutes I could have been riding!) Before starting, a friend told me I would be so tired every day that I would immediately fall asleep upon lying down. However, even with all the long-distance endurance activities I’ve done in the past, I’ve never experienced this before, so I was doubtful. But he was right; I’ve never fallen asleep faster than on the Tour Divide. As soon as I closed my eyes each night, I was out. I didn’t even have time to enjoy a few moments of comfort inside my sleeping bag before drifting off – the lights went off immediately.

The Navigation

Before beginning the Tour Divide, I did a bad thing: I never tested my bike computer with preloaded maps. Fortunately, upon loading the course into my Garmin, everything went incredibly smoothly, and it kept me on track (for the most part). I also had the route loaded on my phone, but since I had to stick to the course, my phone didn’t play its usual role of being a source for shortcut searching. I only saw one official sign for the GDMBR (pictured below), but a handful of homemade signs were scattered throughout the race as well. If I ever found myself off course (which happened a couple of times after missing an inconspicuous turn), I would use my phone to confirm my error (I had the course loaded into Gaia). But beyond that, I – almost blindly – followed the turn-by-turn directions from my Garmin.

The Wildlife

Biking through Alberta, British Columbia, Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico? Wow, that sounds like a recipe for seeing a ton of wildlife. Except maybe not. Seeing wildlife was not an objective of mine on the Tour Divide, but it was something that I imagined would be a more regular occurrence than it was. I saw a couple of baby moose early on, a handful of foxes, some badgers (my first), and lots of pronghorn antelope in the Basin. But that’s really it. No bears, no elk, no bison, no Gila monsters, no snakes, no adult moose, no chupacabra, not much of anything. Am I mad about it? Nah. Am I surprised by it? A bit, yes. But maybe I was just so zonked the entire time I failed to notice more of what was around me. I’m completely willing to accept this as a possibility.

The Singletrack

This fits with the hike-a-bike and terrain points above, but I thought it was worth its own section as well. The Tour Divide has (or at least, this year, had) a not insignificant amount of singletrack. Yes, the overwhelming majority of the route follows roads of both the paved, dirt, and gravel varieties, but that does not mean it’s completely free of singletrack sections. Those that stand out are the sections immediately before and after “The Wall” and the Continental Divide Trail in New Mexico following La Manga Pass and north of Silver City (the former of which was potentially my least favorite part of the entire route). There’s more scattered throughout, including a fun and flowy section in the first 100 mi / 160 km (where I had too much fun and crashed quite dramatically) and another steep section south of Boreas Pass in Colorado. And for those paying attention, no, the photo below is not from the Tour Divide; it’s from the Arizona Trail.

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