Our Reader’s Rig of the week comes from Riley in Colorado, who shares the Specialized Chisel HT he’ll soon be riding in the 2026 Tour Divide, which starts next week. Get to know Riley, take a detailed look at his loaded hardtail, and learn about his longtime connection to the event here…

Tailfin

Words by Riley Osgood, photos by Henry Hibbeln

My name is Riley. I’m 29 years old and currently live in Colorado, but I am from Ohio and have also lived in North Carolina and New Mexico. I work in environmental compliance at a chemical facility that destroys old mustard gas bombs. The bombs are all safely/cleanly gone now, and I’m very thankfully being let go just in time for the 2026 Tour Divide. I used to work in the outdoor recreation/forestry industry and can technically say I was, at one point, a full-time wooden-spoon carver. I like to make my own bows and arrows, do a bit of leather work, and build up nice old bikes with rim brakes and quill stems.

Specialized Chisel HT

I’m mostly into gravel and bikepacking type stuff, but when it comes to actual mountain biking, a much more skilled rider once said, “he can hang.” I grew up tinkering with old bikes in Ohio and cruising along rivers on the incredible bike path systems there. Almost all my riding since my late teens has been with the intention of doing the Tour Divide someday, either consciously or subconsciously. I set off with the Grand Depart in 2024 on my lugged steel “Bad Romance” Crust Romanceur, scratched in Kremmling, picked right back up where I left off in 2025, and completed the last 1,200 miles of the Tour Divide on the bike I started with. I got to have a perfect sunset finish.

Specialized Chisel HT
  • Specialized Chisel HT
  • Specialized Chisel HT

I wanted to complete the full length of the route my way on the bike I started with, and I was very lucky to have achieved that goal. This new bike is built up with lessons learned from the last few years of riding on the divide, with the intent of finishing the route in one go. It fills the niche of a “go-fast” bikepacking bike. The first bike was about vibes and principles; this new bike is about performance, feeling strong, and going fast.

I’d say I’m a fan of the Tour Divide and a student of its history since watching Ride the Divide with my dad when I was a kid. The founding riders did the thing on early full suspensions with BOB trailers, bikes got better, bags improved, gravel became a thing, riders got faster, navigation became simpler, and the route, in a way, became easier. Too easy. Yikes, the Tour Divide almost became a gravel race! I can tell the route organizers noticed the same thing and have made some needed changes in recent years, with additions like Koko Claims and all the CDT sections. Those freaks at the front have a real challenge on their hands.

Specialized Chisel HT
  • Specialized Chisel HT
  • Specialized Chisel HT
  • Specialized Chisel HT

With these as part of the route, I think there’s just enough miserable chunk to still truly call this a mountain bike race. You may not always need suspension, but when you want it, you really want it. And so, I built a mountain bike optimized solely for pointing myself toward the other side of a continent and pedaling in a straight line all day. Balanced, of course, between affordability, preferences, my horrible opinions, and some advice from friends.

  • Frame: 2025 Specialized Chisel HT, best color
  • Fork: RockShox Pike with Sid stickers on it
  • Rims: Zipp 3zero Moto
  • Hubs: Zipp ZM2
  • Tires: Rene Herse Fleecer Ridge Endurance+
  • Handlebars: 46cm Ritchey Beacons, perfect bar-end shifter bar
  • Headset: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • Crankset: Some form of SRAM-like carbon crank
  • Pedals: Composite Burgtec MK4s
  • Cassette: 10-52 Eagle
  • Derailleur(s): Eagle S200
  • Brakes: TRP Spyre-C and TRP levers (God’s lever)
  • Shifter(s): 11-speed Microshift bar-end-shifter, does 12 in friction mode
  • Saddle: Ti rail Brooks with the gooch cutout
  • Seatpost: OneUp dropper, PNW trigger on the end of the bar
  • Stem: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
  • Front bags: Modified Carradice Nelson, Restrap top tube bag, Oveja Negra stem bag
  • Frame bags: Oveja Negra
  • Rear bags: Sea-To-Summit dry bag
  • Accessory bags: Swift Ardea fanny pack as my “sustain life” bag, all the essentials
  • Other accessories: Homemade adjustable water bottle holder, Apidura musette

My muse for this bike was Lael Wilcox circa 2023. Her bike that year just looked so good, properly fast and capable. Mine is built to plow through singletrack and chunky sections while still feeling fast on smoother stuff. I always suffer on the climbs, so if I want to regain as much time and comfort as I can on the descents, I will be happy to have a nice, comfy mountain bike with 120mm of travel and a dropper post. What could be an unrideable, miserable, jarring slog on a rigid bike could potentially be a breezy hop, skip, and a jump that saves me hours. I think if you’re going to put suspension on a bike, you’d be a fool if you didn’t put a dropper on it as well. Additionally, the dropper is wonderful for making micro-adjustments to saddle height throughout the day to engage different muscle groups and for getting very aero on descents with a lower center of gravity.

Specialized Chisel HT
  • Specialized Chisel HT
  • Specialized Chisel HT
  • Specialized Chisel HT

I like to build my bikes with a bit of indignance and disrespect for those who seem to write the rules in the bike world, and this build is no different. People love giving up on being triathletes and end up donating their aerobars to the nearest bike co-op all the time. I’m not much of an aerobar guy myself, since I can never get the pads wide enough to make the setup worth it. I just rest my forearms on the bars and hold on to the flap of my Carradice. But I did find some Zipp aerobars for five whole dollars in a parts bin. I took the pads off and tilted them downward to act as a cradle for my bar bag. It’s cheap, light, and works great, a 10/10 bike hack. I also have the most devious dropper trigger routing I’ve ever seen. I run a bar-end shifter anyway, so I set up a PNW dropper trigger on the other side. I kinda love it. We’ll see if it survives a crash hanging off the end of the bar like that.

  • Specialized Chisel HT
  • Specialized Chisel HT

Lastly, I’m also carrying a ridiculous amount of type 1 diabetic medical supplies for the Tour Divide, as well is the immense logistical anxiety that comes with them. Mistakes and absentmindedness have a much higher and potentially fatal cost when it comes to doing something like the Tour Divide with type 1 diabetes. I use a Dexcom G7 15 day sensor (new to me, the sensors keep falling off) and I use pens and needles instead of a pump.

You can follow along with Riley on Instagram.

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