Tracking the 2023 Tour Divide (Part 3): 17 days, 5,262 miles, and 3,719 photos

Some 17 days, 5,262 miles, and 3,719 photos later, I pulled into my driveway late Sunday night with a sigh of relief. It’s been 12 years since I last went border to border with the Tour Divide. While much of the route and the sights are the same, the race and its racers have certainly changed, and that evolution is just fine. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that starting last year with Sofiane Sehili’s ride—and especially this year with Ulrich Bartholmoes, Justinas Leveika, and Jens Van Roost—we have seen a new evolution of what’s possible on the Tour Divide.

I know without a doubt that Mike Hall would be happy to see this evolution of Tour Divide racing too, even if his 2016 record is still intact. In fact, he might even scoff at still having the record, considering the route he raced is not the same as today’s. In 2015, Mike and Anna were in Colorado for the Inspired To Ride premier, and it happened to be the same day of the Boulder Roubaix. They came up to my home in Boulder, and we jumped in my truck to go watch some top-notch US bike racing. Good times. Outside of the Tour Divide, our conversations often circled back to bike racing and its ethics.

To be fair, Mike learned and fed off the rides from those who came before him, and he did his best to better those performances. He did it with determination, detailed preparation, and a lot of heart, but also with a fond respect for his fellow racers and the race itself. His wins were accomplished within the confines of the rules, and he let his legs do the talking.

Going into the Great Divide Basin in 2013, Mike and Craig Stappler were leading the race and pushing each other at a rapid pace, half-wheeling each other to see who would crack first. Mike eventually got a gap, and Craig kept him on his toes for many hundreds of more miles. Craig later scratched near Kremmling, and when I talked with Mike about it later in the race, he was genuinely bummed for Craig and missed his competition. Mike admitted he really didn’t know whether or not he’d be the one to crack going into the Basin; Craig had pushed him to his limit. It was just one of our many conversations that cemented my respect for him not just as a bike racer, but as a kind, compassionate, and honest human—someone I was happy to call my friend.

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Picking up where I left off in my second report, after photographing Justinas at the northern side of the Plains of San Agustin, I proceeded to make a long highway drive around the Gila to intercept Uba on the trail before the paved road leading to Pinos Altos. I had driven the route through the Gila once before and vowed to never do it again. That section is quite rough, remote, extremely hot, and devoid of water, and it’s definitely a place where you don’t want to have a mechanical. The sunset light came and went before Uba got to the trail, so I moved further south along the route to find a place to sleep for the night after stopping to take a few photos of a fine New Mexican sunset in the Gila.

I slept uneasy that night, constantly waking up to check Trackleaders so I wouldn’t miss Uba finishing the race. Sure enough, he didn’t sleep, and I was up early to ensure I’d get some good finish line photos of him.

It was quite a remarkable ride, even if it was four and a half hours shy of Mike Hall’s record. Uba showed us what the new level of minimal sleep, efficient resupplies, and a fast pace look like when applied to the Tour Divide. As far as I’m concerned, Uba’s time of 14 days, 3 hours, and 23 minutes is the record for the current route. Well done, Uba!

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I then retreated from the finish and 100°F (38°C) heat to the shelter of the Bike Ranch in Hachita, where a group of us would talk about bike racing and the Tour Divide while Justinas made his way toward the finish.

I found a nice spot along Separ Road a few miles north of I-10 to grab some last photos of Justinas.

Justinas promptly got off his bike and sat on the hot dirt road when he got to me. It had been a long difficult race for Justinas, and without the numerous mechanical woes, he very well might have been sprinting Uba to the finish. His positive attitude shone through the adversity he’d been dealt, and he continued riding afterward to become the second person to finish the Tour Divide this year. The pace he maintained with a broken derailleur and detached pedal for so long is really quite amazing. I wished him good luck as he rode into the distance before I continued my slow trek back to Colorado.

Again I attempted to photograph the section of trail before the pavement leading to Pinos Altos, and again the timing was off. At least I quickly grabbed this photo of Joe Nation, who would complete a great ride for third place before he got to Silver City.

I called it an early night to catch up on some much-needed sleep, and the next morning, I grabbed a late sunrise photo of the Gila from the exact same spot as the previous sunset photo. Just like the rest of the route, New Mexico is quite green this year, and many of its cacti are blooming with vibrant flowers.

Pie Town was the next destination where I would resume getting Tour Divide photos.

Kyle Peterson had just rolled up to the Ohana Cafe when I got to Pie Town, which was also the perfect time to grab some lunch. I sat with Kyle as he ate, and I listened to his stories of his ride and the route this year. Calling it hard is one thing, and that takes on a whole new meaning when coming from a singlespeeder. Of course, Kyle had some pie like any good singlespeed rider would!

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Free the derailleur, free the mind. Kyle heads out with a full belly and topped off water bottles to become the first-place singlespeed racer of the 2023 Tour Divide.

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I then made my way up Pie Town Road to grab some photos of Katya Rakhmatulina and Caleb Helkenn in the heat of the day. I gave them a bit of time and slowly rolled, watching them from a distance, as it was far too hot for me to be leaving them in a trail of dust. From afar, I could see with my binoculars the route’s intersection at Pie Town and which way they would go (to the cafe or the Toaster House).

The Toaster House is on the route in Pie Town, and it serves as a place to rest and resupply for racers, cyclists, and hikers alike. The wall of worn-out shoes is from Continental Divide Trail (CDT) through hikers who mail a new pair of shoes to themselves at the Pie Town post office.

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The dry heat and headwinds had visibly taken its toll on both Caleb Helkenn and Katya Rakhmatulina, and the day was far from over.

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Katya Rakhmatulina packs up and heads out after a short stop at the Toaster House. She made it an exciting race for the women, even if she was just riding it for herself. After Katya and Caleb rolled out of Pie Town, I continued making my way back to Colorado and set my sights on the El Malpais National Monument for the next round of photos.

Before I left the Toaster House, I had a brief chat with northbound tourer Laura Killingbeck, who was having a blast cheering on all the racers as they sped past. Laura is also a freelance writer and was working on a story for Adventure Cycling Association, an organization you should be following. Without the ACA, bikepacking in North America would not exist as we know it today.

I arrived in the El Malpais National Monument just before sunset and decided to make a short 1.5-mile jaunt off route to check out the Sandstone Bluffs. Simply put, they’re quite an amazing geological feature with the black lava fields in contrast below them at sunset. A stop well worth the extra miles for anyone touring through that section.

At this point, the pink wave was rapidly approaching. I spent the night at the nearby campground and woke to six of the pink dots on the highway between Grants and Cuba. While I really wanted to photograph them in the mountains east of Cuba, I was still happy to reach this noteworthy junction in the race. The addition of a deep field of competitive and very strong women has been a long time coming, and this year it happened with an exclamation point. These women are all powerful and amazing people in their own right, and it was a highlight to see them crushing miles at such a rapid pace in the race.

I missed seeing Sacha Dowell while driving through Grants and figured she had maybe checked into a hotel room. I’d have missed Alexandera Houchin too if it weren’t for the fact that I still had cell reception. After not seeing her on the highway where her dot showed her position, I did a U-turn and found her taking a 10 minute dirt nap under the shade of one of the only trees along this section. She lamented her affinity for singlespeeds on the long section of mostly flat highway, and we joked about how we tend to just remember the better parts of the past.

In minutes, Alexandera was up and on her bike in her quest to best her own women’s singlespeed record for the Tour Divide.

One of the main reasons I didn’t want to photograph the highway section between Grants and Cuba is because it’s all the same from a photographic standpoint. Also, I think most every racer just wants to get through this section as the highway miles come with a large amount of boredom and stiff headwinds, making it unlikely that anyone would want to stop through here. I certainly didn’t want to stop either, and instead would slow down, grab quick photos, wave, and yell, “Have a great ride!” as racers passed by on my way to Cuba.

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There are still many more racers yet to finish their ride, and no doubt an endless stream of stories from this year will be making their way onto the internet eventually. I hope everyone has enjoyed the photos and my own stories and insight into the grandest of all bikepacking races.

In closing, I’d like to give a big thanks to BIKEPACKING.com and its community of supporters and bikepacking enthusiasts who have made it possible for me to spend these last two and a half weeks living on the Divide, photographing the racers and route. The Tour Divide is an amazing race and an even more amazing route, and I hope that everyone reading this will at some point get to experience at least a little taste of life on the Divide at their own speed.

—Eddie Clark

Further Reading

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