After our tour of the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route in 2018, the route held a special place in each of our minds. Going back to race felt like a pilgrimage back to the start of when everything changed for us. Touring the Divide ignited an obsession with bikepacking and led us to structure our lives in a way that allowed us to adventure often. The Tour Divide is notorious for its challenging weather, and we had no shortage of precipitation during the race. From snow in the north, to monsoon thunderstorms in the south the Tour Divide weather lived up to its volatile expectations. Having everything one needs to survive the conditions is just part of the race, and the beautiful climbs over scenic mountain passes made the sogginess totally worth it.
Andrew had a stellar race, finishing in 16 days, 19 hours, and 12 minutes as the first singlespeeder. 32×16. Here’s a bikepacking.com article about his finish.
Katie was the second woman to finish, behind Ana Jager. Katie was also running a singlespeed setup, geared 32×17. Here’s a bikepacking.com article about her finish.
Katie recorded footage with her GoPro during her race. Here’s a video she made about her experience:
The experience of touring vs. racing can be drastically different. Here’s a link to Katie’s reflections about racing the Tour Divide vs. touring the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route:
If you’re interested in our 2018 tour, we kept a daily blog with details about the route, the gear we carried, and our Strava data. Here’s a link to our first blog post from the tour:
We also made a video with footage from our tour of the Great Divide: