Singletrack/MTB
Gravel/All-road
Dirt-road Touring
Fat-bike
Rolling into day 11 of the 2026 Tour Divide, Victor Bosoni is within striking distance of a record-shattering finish. Meaghan Hackinen continues her impressive ride toward a potential women’s record, and Felix Laberge is set up to nab the fastest singlespeed time. As the race enters its final stages, recovery, patience, and pacing are proving just as important as raw speed. Find our update covering days 10 and 11 here…
Photos by Eddie Clark
Victor Bosoni is still well on his way to shattering the overall men’s record in the Tour Divide, but he refused to relinquish his beauty sleep.
“What you’ll never see me do is try to go straight through to the finish,” he declared as he set out from Grants, New Mexico, at dawn Monday morning. I’m going to take as much time as possible. You can imagine, but we’ve been on the road for almost 10 days, and every recovery period is really important. I’d rather take care of myself and not overexert. I’m ahead of schedule, so it would be really stupid to push it, and I don’t want to. The last thing I want is to do it all in one go.”
Patricia Berthelier, who has been posting daily reports about Bosoni on Facebook, said that he planned to rest in Silver City before riding the final 135 miles to the finish. The distance between Grants and Silver City was still a hard day’s work, about 240 miles with a tough stretch through the Gila wilderness. He did enjoy a quick break for a slice of blueberry pie in Pie Town. The blow-dryer wind that Bosoni has had to contend with for the past couple of days did not relent as temperatures spiked to 100 degrees.
Tuesday’s weather will be more of the same. Sunny. Hot. A quartering headwind out of the west. One might think the daytime heat would motivate Bosoni to ride through the night, but there are still hard miles ahead after Silver City. The young French rider apparently believes that recovery is more important. He’s still likely to finish ahead of Robin Gremperle’s winning 2025 time of 11 days and 19 hours.
“Cool, calm and collected in all circumstances … well beyond his young years, our Victor!” Berthelier wrote.
Laurens Ten Dam held onto second position as he pedaled across the rugged Polvadera Mesa on Monday evening. He and third-position Angus Young bivied in separate spots near the New Mexico border on Sunday night. This area of Northern New Mexico is quite remote and a communication black hole, so their social media posts have been limited.
Earlier Sunday, Ten Dam announced, “I’ve got some sneaky plans to keep on riding tonight, so I brought breakfast for tonight and tomorrow morning.” His three-hour stop, starting at 10:30 p.m., suggests that fatigue overrode his ambitious plans. He started riding the tricky 18-mile section of the Continental Divide Trail before dawn and took about four hours to get through it. Young started down the trail later that morning and needed three hours to clear that section. As of Monday evening, Young was about 25 miles behind Ten Dam as they approached Cuba.
In fourth position, Finnish rider Mikko Kainu continues his quiet adventure, riding alongside “The Farmer” Xavier Chiriboga. The two started up the Continental Divide Trail singletrack just after sunset on Monday evening. Chiriboga reported having a tough day on Sunday, with hamstring pain that limited his performance. He made several stops during the day and bandaged his leg to reduce the pain. But this must have helped; he was making good progress through Monday after a six-hour overnight rest.
Meaghan Hackinen has been showing how a more traditional bikepacking strategy of reducing stopped time and camping as needed can still net a fast pace in the Tour Divide. On Sunday night, she bivied along Benny Creek north of Del Norte. She spent much of the day tackling the long climb and descent from Indiana Pass and crossed the New Mexico border on Monday evening. Hackinen still sounds cheerful in her daily updates, but the long miles are beginning to wear on her.
“Body’s starting to come undone a little bit,” she said. It’s kind of a low-grade pain and fatigue everywhere. Yeah, not much to be done but eat, sleep, and ride, I guess.”
Hackinen has fewer than 700 miles to ride to the finish, and she remains about a half-day in front of Austin Killips’ record-setting pace. She is in seventh position overall.
Torin Lackmann continues to hold second position in the women’s race, more than 500 miles behind Hackinen. Lackmann had to endure a typically hot and windy Sunday across the Great Divide basin, but she seemed to enjoy her overnight stay at a truck stop in Wamsutter, Wyoming. Torin and another rider ate Subway sandwiches for dinner and then rolled out their bivies on a strip of grass in the parking lot, sleeping next to the bright lights and rumbling semi-trucks. On Monday, Lackmann made a quick dinner stop at Brush Mountain Lodge and continued riding toward Steamboat Springs.
Leah Goldstein and Tanja Hacker arrived in Wamsutter on Monday evening. Goldstein appeared to stop in town while Hacker continued south toward Brush Mountain Lodge.
Singlespeed leader Felix Laberge is in sixth position overall. He also crossed into New Mexico on Monday evening. He likely had a tougher time up the steeper grades of Indiana Pass, logging paces closer to walking speeds for much of the climb. “Indiana Pass — a fine line between over- and underdoing it,” he posted on Instagram. He was likely heading toward a Monday night bivy after spending Sunday night camped at Luders Creek Campground north of Del Norte. But he still holds a commanding lead on the singlespeed record, with Chris Plesko’s historical dot trailing about a day behind him at this point.
Check out the 2026 Tour Divide Tracker page to follow along on the live tracking map, and stay tuned in for more event coverage. Find it here.
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