The Tour Divide: The Stupidest, Most Awesome Thing I’ve Ever Done

I decided to race the Tour Divide somewhat on a whim. It had been on my radar as something I might do one day, but the plan to take it on came together relatively quickly. After completing the ride, race, adventure, or whatever it is you want to call it, I can say with certainty that it was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever done. It was also one of the most awesome.

Saying it aloud sounds silly: ride a bicycle 2,700 mi / 4,300 km as fast as you can across the United States (and part of Canada) with no external support.

I’ve hiked long before, I’ve biked long before, I’ve run long before, I’ve rafted long before, I’ve been outside long before, why not bike long but also bike fast to try to make it as not long as possible?

How did it go? It was harrowing.

My ass was in excruciating pain from saddle sores. My hands lost strength from gripping my handlebars all day, every day. My toes and feet lost sensation from swelling up and inside my cycling shoes for 20+ hours a day. My mental faculties were shot from sleep deprivation. My fear of lightning was regularly tested by earthshaking thunderstorms. My fingers and toes were frozen from a days-long winter storm and freezing rain (in summer). My time on the Tour Divide was…challenging…to say the least.

This is one of the most physically and mentally demanding things I’ve ever done. I’m glad to have done it, and I’m happy I now never have to do it again.

Right?

Do the Thing

I decided to race the Tour Divide because it was something I wanted to do—something I wanted to experience once.

It’s one of the longest, scariest-sounding bikepacking events in the world. Do this thing, and I can call myself a bikepacker. Or gravel rider. Or gravel bikepacker. Or something like that, I don’t know. At the very least, someone who has done something on a bicycle once.

Do this, and I’ve done a bike thing. Cool.

Finish the Tour Divide and I can kind of, sort of, sometimes know what I’m talking about when bikes of the gravel variety are involved. My quest to be an all-around amateur can continue.

Basically, it’s the same reason I decided to run a 100-mile ultramarathon. Do the thing, become the thing, know the thing, and never do the thing again. Yup, never again. Except for when I’ve now run multiple subsequent ultramarathons. But that’s an issue for another time.

Now that I think about it, I felt similarly when I (first) hiked the Pacific Crest Trail. Finish this, and I never have to thru-hike—even a regular hike—again. Except when then I thru-hiked again. And again. And again. And…you get it.

Yup, everything has always worked out precisely as planned. Do the Tour Divide and then never do the bikepacking thing – especially not the Tour Divide thing – ever again.

So what did I think of the Tour Divide?

The Tour Divide was the stupidest, most awesome thing I’ve ever done.

The Stupid Part

The Tour Divide is not an official event. It’s kind of like Jesus. It exists because people believe in it and it will continue to exist so long as there are people who choose to believe. Also, like Jesus, it’s completely free, except for the part where they both take your soul.

You don’t sign up for the Tour Divide. You pay no entry fee. You get no prize. You get no race bib. You get no overpriced race photos. You get no informational brochure. You get no useless trash from sponsors. You get no support. You aren’t even sure it’s something that’s going to happen until you show up in Banff on the second Friday in June and start pedaling. And then you’re like, “Oh, hey, you too?” and then you are all friends on the first day before everyone starts hating themselves and their decision to do this most stupid thing.

I won’t even walk across the room to look out the window to see something neat that might be outside. But I dedicated months of my life and a substantial portion of my income to this make-believe bicycle race? Yup. Cool. Checks out.

Unlike Jesus (let’s keep going with this analogy), the Tour Divide demands such a massive amount of your time, of your money, of your faculties – emotional, mental, physical – that by the time you start the Tour Divide, you’re so deep in a sunk-cost fallacy that somehow the pain of pushing forward seems the only reasonable alternative (wait, that is or isn’t what Jesus is like?)

You can’t just say you love the Tour Divide and accept its love into your heart. The Tour Divide hates you.

So, was anyone or anything forcing me to be out there? No. At any point during the race, I could have retreated to the comfort of a hotel and stopped the suffering. There was no point of no return or external force keeping me on the Divide. There was no reason I had to get it done. There was just the knowledge my future self would be immensely disappointed with anything short of completion.

That is to say, it was all voluntary.

The goal was to get out there, get it done, and put it behind me—add it to the archive and move on to the next sport, the next adventure, the next challenge. I can’t spend all my time riding bikes, can I? CAN I?! Once I got out on the Tour Divide, I realized the gravity of what I had signed myself up for. So much of the ride was an objectively painful and/or awful experience. I exhausted myself daily.

So stupid.

I was pedaling through the Canadian Rockies, a place I’ve always wanted to visit. Instead of stopping to take photos, stopping to swim in alpine lakes, stopping to sit and enjoy the view, I was pedaling furiously toward an unimaginably far away destination. Have I been to the Canadian Rockies? I guess? But I feel like I’ve been to the Canadian Rockies the same way someone who’s driven nonstop cross-country has been to a dozen-plus states. Have they really? Have I really?

So stupid.

The Tour Divide is hard, to say the least. The small reprieves in moments where I either had to stop to poop (which, surprisingly/fortunately, oftentimes happened at a toilet) or stop in town to grab more food were short-lived. The crushing and omnipresent need to continue making forward progress loomed over me whenever my wheels weren’t rolling.

So stupid.

Even the moments that would have otherwise been “good” were tainted by the race mentality. Taking a second to stop and eat that pint of ice cream and drink a quart of chocolate milk in town? Sounds nice, right? Except when my body betrayed me immediately afterward by trying to use all my waking energy to digest all the calories instead of keeping my eyelids open and my legs spinning.

So stupid.

The start was freezing cold. The end was blazing hot. The first third was filled with rain, snow, a notable lack of sun, and fears of running into a Grizzly. The second third was filled with huge climbs at altitude as my saddle betrayed me, and saddle sores made just sitting on my bike painful. The final third had some incredibly unnecessary and technical riding on the Continental Divide Trail, daily thunderstorms, and the heat of summer in New Mexico.

So stupid.

Every day, I was completely drained, and every night, I set my alarm for just a few hours of sleep. Why? Because tomorrow I have to wake up and complete the longest bicycle ride of my life. Oh, you thought that was today? Well, it was today, but tomorrow will be longer than today, just like today was longer than yesterday and yesterday was longer than yesterday’s yesterday. And just like tomorrow’s tomorrow will be longer than tomorrow.

So stupid.

And it was in the moments I found myself cold, soaking wet, and using cow-shit-filled puddles to “clean” my tires and drivetrain in the middle of a raging thunderstorm just so I could advance a few dozen pedal strokes and repeat the process that I would think to myself, “What the actual fuck am I doing out here?”

So. Stupid.

The Awesome Part

But then there’s the whole “This is the most incredible thing I’ve ever done” part of the Tour Divide.

At no other point during any of my other adventures have I ever had such a singular focus. Every day the objective was to make as much forward progress as possible. Yes, I had other incidental objectives like get food, eat food, get water, drink water, poop, sleep, etc. – but the mission always remained the same. Get to Mexico.

It was awesome.

The finish line was a sickness, and everything else was a symptom. There was no time to complain, no time to recover in town, no time to wait out the weather, no time to do much of anything that didn’t involve sitting on my bike and pedaling. I was so wholly enveloped in the Tour Divide and getting to the end. There was no time to worry or to think about anything else. All those fears you had before departing Banff? None of them matter when your brain can no longer compute beyond the next pedal stroke.

It was awesome.

I walked around grocery stores looking haggard as hell while pushing my bicycle through the aisles like some madman. I paid hundreds of dollars to shower and sleep in a bed for just a few hours. I ate almost exclusively what fare was available at local gas stations and whatever fast food restaurants were open along the route. I bought and drank electrolyte-filled beverages at a rate suggesting my survival depended upon these companies’ revenues.

It was awesome.

I met other racers, I made small talk, I made friends, I watched people quit, I watched people succeed, I saw people push themselves, I saw people push me. Meeting another racer was like meeting old friends – old friends terrorized by the same schoolyard bully as you, old friends living parallel lives who understood what it was you were doing, old friends who you may never see again, old friends who knew what you were giving to the Divide and who were giving the same.

It was awesome.

I saw one of the most enthusiastic and genuine communities I’ve yet found supporting the Tour Divide. I stayed at the Llama Farm. I stayed at Brush Mountain Lodge. I stayed at the Toaster House. I saw the best of humanity with zero signs of the worst (except motorists in Montana and Wyoming and every sign – like literal signs – in Atlantic City, Wyoming). I saw strangers watching dots (the best way to spectate the Tour Divide) move across a map of the US with a level of emotional investment that made me want to keep pushing.

It was awesome.

I watched as all my hours of training, all my hours of meticulously selecting my gear, dialing in my bicycle setup, and seemingly wasting time figuring out exactly how to set up my cockpit were proven to be an excellent investment of time. I watched my resolve harden as my body broke down, and I watched as I was somehow able to push myself—literally, push myself—further than I ever would have imagined. When else will I have the opportunity or the drive to do a 300+ mile / 480+ km push over more than twenty-four hours on the bike?

It was awesome.

I gave myself wholly to the ride. I completely embraced being absolutely disgusting on a level I’ve never known before. Covered in mud, sweat, probably pee, probably poop, and whatever else from the environment glommed onto my hair and skin as I pedaled without the energy to worry about my hygiene, I knew that it was all temporary and all in service of the Divide. I accepted, without reservation, that I would sleep in uncomfortable and undesirable campsites (if you could even call them that) and that my gear would be completely thrashed to the point of being considered single-use. Everything I did every day was with the express intention of getting to Mexico.

It was awesome.

It was—taken in its entirety—the most difficult thing I’ve ever done. And it was awesome.

The Multi-Year Racers

Believe it or not, people were out racing the Tour Divide for the second – even the third or more – time. What the hell was wrong with these people? I knew this was going to suck, but if I knew it was going to suck this badly, I don’t know if I would have signed up for this. These people knew. They knew, and they were still out here. Why?

My presence was justified as far as I was concerned – I had never done this before. This was my one shot. All these other second—or third-rounders? They must have either failed their previous attempt(s) or been among the few people racing to win the thing.

What other reasonable justification could there be for being out here again?

But no, I met riders out on the Divide who had completed their previous ride(s) – races – of the Divide and were not in contention to be on the non-existent podium. The hell was wrong with these people? It’s not like they were having a better time than I was. They were just as tired, just as sore, just as beat up and broken – but they knew all this would happen. They had all this information ahead of time, and they still chose to be out here.

Why, with the benefit of hindsight, would anyone choose this life? Why knowingly do this to yourself? There’s no way I would ever do this again. Not with what I know now. No way. Never.

This was just like all those other things I did and swore never to do again.

…and then mostly did again.

Doing It Again

Throughout the entire ride, I repeatedly said to myself, “Remember, when time has passed, and you’re looking back on this ride thinking, ‘Hey, the Tour Divide was awesome—even fun—maybe I’ll do it again,’ remember that you’re wrong. This is neither awesome nor fun. You do not want to do this again. You regularly think you’re going to die out here. It’s not worth it. You hate this.”

I told myself this over and over. I knew I would look back on the experience and somehow think it was awesome and that it was something I wanted to do again. I knew this, and I attempted to account for this. I left myself messages; I pleaded with my future self to listen to past/current me. I literally have videos of me on the ride pleading with me writing this now to remember how terrible it was.

Riding through mud and lightning with bloody saddle sores and practically no sleep, I implored future me not to fall victim to the misguided idea that this was somehow worth doing again. One and done, remember!?

But sitting here now, I’m thinking, “When has past me ever been a more reliable narrator than future me?”

Future me, me now, is much wiser than past me. Why should I let past me tell future me what to do? Don’t tell me what to do past me. I know what I want to do. This is too great a question to leave in the hands of past me. Present me must decide.

And present me is thinking – maybe I should race the Tour Divide again.

There are several things I could have done better to prepare, things I could have done to make better time, things I could have done to make my time on the bike slightly less awful. At least, I think these things exist.

Why not do it again and make these tweaks to improve upon my first ride?

Sounds like a good idea, right, future me?

Damn, you, future-past me, that’s now the current me that’s making decisions on behalf of the future-current me in direct opposition to the wishes of past-current me.

What a trip.

Wrap Up

The Tour Divide. The stupidest most awesome thing I’ve ever done. I don’t know how better to sum it up.

Would I have raced the Tour Divide the first time if I had known what it would be like? Honestly, probably. Am I going to race the Tour Divide again? Honestly, I can’t say. I’m not going to rule it out entirely, but I also don’t know that I will specifically carve out a year to do it.

I had an itch this year. I thought about getting back on the bike. But previous commitments made this year a logistical and financial impracticality. As a consolation prize and as a tribute to the one true god that is masochism, I’ve instead done something else I’m never going to do again and signed up for another ultramarathon.

So what do I have to say to the Tour Divide-curious out there? Should you do it? If you’re at the point where you’re considering it, then the answer is yes. Do it. Just know it will be the stupidest, most awesome thing you’ve ever done and that there’s a non-zero chance you’ll hate nearly every second of it, and it will be the best thing ever.