Tour Divide: One Year Later

Watching this year's Tour Divide unfold has reminded me why I can't stop thinking about last year's.

This week marks one week since I rolled away from Banff and set off on the 2025 Tour Divide.

I knew it would be an adventure. I didn’t know it would stay with me the way it has.

Over the last year, barely a day has gone by without me thinking about that ride. This week, though, it’s been impossible to escape.

This week a new group of more than 220 riders has departed Banff to tackle this year’s Tour Divide. At the same time, I’ve been sidelined by the injury that ended my BT700 attempt.

The result has been a week of mixed emotions.

On one hand, I’ve been completely absorbed by this year’s race.

I’ve found myself checking the race tracker far more often than I’d care to admit, following the astonishing pace being set by Victor Bosoni and the chasing pack, while also keeping tabs on friends and familiar names scattered throughout the field. Some of them I met during last year’s ride. Others I know only through the strange community and camaraderie that develops around events like this.

Two years ago, when I followed the Tour Divide from home, it felt fascinating but distant, but now it’s different.

Every mountain pass, every town, every tiny waypoint on the map has a memory attached to it. I can picture the climb. I can remember the weather. I can recall exactly how I felt arriving there.

I’m glued to the Track Leaders site, watching dots crawl along the route. I’ve watched countless race updates and videos. I’ve exchanged messages with friends who have ridden the route and found myself comparing memories of places we all experienced differently.

I’ve been completely captivated by it.

At the same time, that excitement is offset by a sense of melancholy that caught me by surprise.

When I signed up for the Tour Divide, I assumed it would be a one-time thing. The preparation alone was monumental. Eighteen months of training, more than a year of all-consuming planning and logistics. There were periods when I felt permanently exhausted. Some mornings started with a two or three-hour ride before work. Some days I took a nap before sitting down at my computer.

And then there was the ride itself. It was incredible, but it was also brutally hard. Moments of joy and moments of pain, or doubt. Days when everything flowed, and days when I questioned why I was there, or whether I could finish.

Somewhere along the way, the Tour Divide got under my skin - just like past riders told me it would.

Watching this year’s race unfold has made me realize just how much I miss it. I miss the simplicity of having one job each day - just get up and ride. I miss the beautiful scenery, and the random encounters along the way. I even miss some of the hardships (not all of them, though).

The feeling has probably been amplified by my recent DNF on the BT700 - being forced off the bike has a way of making you appreciate the rides you can’t do. But to be honest, the feeling was there long before that.

Lately, people have started asking me the obvious question: Would I do it again?

If you’d asked me that question a year ago, I’d have said “no.” Or at least “probably not.”

Today, the answer is easy.

Absolutely.

Would I go back and race it again? Without hesitation.

Having completed the route once, I’ve learned a lot of lessons I could apply the next time around. I’m sure I could knock at least a day or two off my time, perhaps more.

But strangely, I’m also attracted to the opposite approach.

Part of me wonders what it would be like to ride the route more slowly - to spend more time in the towns, to linger in the places I rushed through last year and have more conversations with the people I met along the way. I suspect that there’s just as much enjoyment to be had in that version of the ride.

Unfortunately, work and family life aren’t especially accommodating of month-long cycling adventures, let alone slower ones - so for now, that remains a dream for a future chapter.

But one thing has become clear in recent months.

I thought the Tour Divide was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. Now I’m pretty sure I’ll see the Divide again. One day.