2023 Tour Divide Debrief (Days 3-4): More Rain, Less Rest

Photos by Eddie Clark (taken on days 1-3 of the race)

We’re exactly four days in on the 2023 Tour Divide. Race leaders Ulrich Bartholmoes and Justinas Leveika finally stopped for a relatively long rest this morning at Elkhorn Hot Springs in southwestern Montana. This was well-deserved after the two continued to exchange the lead and flirt with Mike Hall’s 2016 record pace throughout day three. At the time of this writing, Ulrich is in the lead at mile 825 and is averaging about 205 miles per day. However, the more interesting part of the story is that Ulrich has the least rest of the entire leaderboard, and according to Trackleaders’ Run/Rest metric, the third least of the entire field of riders, at just under 12 hours.

As you can see in the Run/Rest screen above, Belgian Jens Van Roost is starting to push toward the front and is only five miles behind Ulrich and Justinas as I’m typing this. Jens poses a significant threat as he’s better rested—as evidenced in the horizontal lines in the race flow—and moving significantly faster than Ulrich. Speaking of speed and rest, Vermonter Ted King shouldn’t be discounted, despite being 100 miles behind the leader. Ted’s 12.1 MPH average speed is nearly two miles per hour faster than Ulrich, and Ted’s working with nearly 27 hours of rejuvenating rest.

The two leaders in the women’s race, Lael Wilcox and Katya Rakhmatulina, are showing a similar rest dichotomy. Lael has accumulated about 12 hours of rest time and Katya has about 21. The two are about 60 miles apart, and Lael is currently tracking ahead of her own women’s record dot. We’re excited to see how the two progress, as they’re both riding incredibly fast, especially considering the conditions.

According to Kathy Schoendoerfer at Blackfoot Anglers, singlespeeder Alexandera Houchin is all smiles even as she’s struggling a bit with her gearing. She set up her Chumba Yaupon with 34x17t to match Chris Plesko’s singlespeed 2016 record. However, Alexandera reported that it’s not working that well for her and, “I may have made a mistake there.” No doubt she’s still crushing it and having fun.

Rain and muck are still the stars of the show and may play hell on the leaderboard today. As former Tour Divider Neil Beltchenko posted in our Slack channel last night, “It’s so easy to ride in good weather. Once things get wet, you and the trail start to have fights.” The wet conditions on route have already been rough on the leaders. And that doesn’t appear to be improving anytime soon, as evidenced in the forecast below. Today looks pretty bad for all of the leaders. Wednesday looks better, but the pop-up storms trend south, which could mean peanut butter mud for the next few days, quite literally stopping riders in their tracks.

The takeaway? With the potential for big stretches of leader-stopping peanut butter mud, anything could happen. Apparently, there are two sections notorious for the stuff coming up for the leaders—Bannack Branch Road being one of them. If they end up at the wrong place at the wrong time, it could change the course of the race, allowing riders such as Ted King and Joe Nation to catch up and alter the dynamics. It could be an exciting watch from here on out with Mother Nature playing conductor.

For another take on the race and some further analysis into several of the leaders, check out Josh Ibbett’s video summary below.

Check out the 2023 Tour Divide Tracker page to follow along on the live tracking map, find our Rigs of the Tour Divide roundups, and more event coverage. Find it here.

Please keep the conversation civil, constructive, and inclusive, or your comment will be removed.