Tour Divide Update: Day 25 - Complete!

225km - Silver City to Antelope Wells, NM

Jul 16, 2025

I wasn’t sure what to expect from my final day of the Tour Divide. Would it be an emotional celebration? A hot, torturous slog through the desert? Another set of unexpected challenges?

The answer was, as might be expected from this race which leaves no opportunity unexplored, “Yes.”

Despite riding later into the night than I would have liked the night before, I was determined to get started early to beat the heat and increase my odds of blowing through the final 225km to the border crossing in Antelope Wells in a single day.

After snatching about five hours of sleep, my alarm went off at 5am and I headed out at around 5:30am. From looking at the elevation profile of the day, expected to have a moderately easy start.

Boy was I wrong.

After just a couple of kilometres, I turned onto a section of singletrack. By “turned,” I mean, “struggled to find” as it was still pitch black in the early morning. The next couple of miles would have no doubt been absolutely fine during the day but in the dark I repeatedly took wrong turns, ended up bushwhacking back to the trail for 10 minutes, and had a nasty moment when I unexpectedly took a branch to the face, which threw me off balance and into another branch, which tore a hole in my jersey and knocked me off the bike.

Not an ideal start to the final day, and by the time I finished the trail - whose sole purpose seemed to be to cut out a mile or two of road riding - the sun was up, the temperature was rising and I was decidedly cranky.

One of the narrow trail, the route turned onto the proverbial dirt road, and I began what I knew to be the hilliest part of the day - albeit nowhere near the kind of hills I’d tracked over the last three weeks. By the time I’d completed a quarter of the day’s distance I’d already tackled half of the day’s elevation gain, and I settled into the saddle for a long, fairly flat push toward the finish.

Of all the challenges that New Mexico presented (and there were many), the heat was key among them and this day was no different. By the time I reached the first resupply point at Separ - about 100km into the day - at around 11:30, it was scorching outside and I took advantage of the offer from the store manager to sit inside and eat my lunch while enjoying their air conditioning.

I then refilled every water container I had, and headed back out for a relatively short 40km push toward Hachita - the last town before the border crossing at Antelope Wells, which sits 80km from Hachita. While once again plagued by washboard, the ride itself was uneventful and I pulled into the general store in Hachita at around 2pm.

It was here that I realized I had neglected to properly research the final section of the route.

In my head the last push to the border was an easy section of dirt road and then highway to the finish line - still 80km long but not technically difficult.

In reality, the “dirt road” was another section of the Continental Divide Trail.

Speaking with the owner of the general store in Hachita, he shared that the final section typically took about 5 hours to complete, and that it featured deep, thick sand, rocky descents and some “canyons” that wouldn’t be safe to ride. Oh great, this sounded familiar - but there was nothing to be done but get out there and tackle it, as the temperature continued to soar.

Shortly after leaving Hachita a car pulled over in front of me, and I was greeted by fellow rider Steve Coombs who had just finished the ride, and well-known “Trail Coordinator” (he doesn’t like being called a Trail Angel) Jeffery Sharp who is well known to riders as someone who can provide “extractions” from the finish line so people don’t have to ride 80km back to Hachita after finishing (more on that later). Steve reassured me that the CDT trail section wasn’t as bad as people said, and that it was quite fun in parts.

The truth was somewhere in the middle.

Turning off the road, the trail immediately turned into thick, deep sand that stretched from one side of the “road” to the other, and would grip your tire and throw it sideways with no warning. Some parts of the trail were more substantial but it was impossible to tell what was rideable and what wasn’t, so this made for a frustrating and slow next 10km or so.

Eventually the trail opened out into the “proper” CDT section. Whereas the section of trail in northern New Mexico (which, again, can go to hell) was mostly singletrack, this was mostly… no track. The next 20km or so was essentially a series of posts about 400m apart, and a series of tracks showing how previous riders had tried to get from one to the next. Steve had been right that some parts of this were quite fast, flowy and fun - particularly a number of dry river beds into which I got to descend and then rapidly re-emerge from. Other parts were more challenging - some more gnarly drops and rocky sections, and more thick sand which if you weren’t careful would take you unawares and throw you off. Oh, and one part where four pieces of barbed wire helpfully lay across the track and threatened to cause some last-ditch tire damage.

I was part-way along this section when a torrential downpour hit as I was half way up a short but steep climb, together with thunder and lightning for added effect. My immediate reaction was that I’d throw my rain gear on at the top of the climb - about 300m away - but about 10 seconds later I abandoned that idea, threw on my rain gear and walked the remainder of the climb which was too steep to restart mid-way. Very dramatic and a little scary to start with, but one very pleasant effect of the storm was to completely kill the heat of the afternoon, which never returned. While I was a little grumbly thanks to the route and to getting soaked initially, the cooler temperature for the rest of the ride was a real bonus.

The other challenge of this section of trail was the plant life along it - with no maintained trail, I was left to pick a route amidst thorn bushes and cacti, and by the time I finally exited into Highway 81 a few hours later, I had an impressive collection of scrapes and scratches from the undergrowth.

With that section complete, I was into the final portion of the route - 50km of highway to Antelope Wells. The border crossing there closed at 4pm and it was already after 6pm, so there was next to no traffic - the only cars I saw were three border patrol vehicles, one car that was on its way to pick me up at the finish, and the family of Forrest who was about two hours behind me on the trail.

This last 50km was highly emotional for me - I spent it pushing hard but also thinking about what it took to get here, the people who supported me, the people and experiences I had along the way, and above all else what it would feel like to finish and to see my family in a few days.

I rolled up to the border crossing at around 8pm, and to my surprise was noisily greeted by my ‘ride’ and by Forrest’s family who very kindly recorded my final moments on the Tour Divide.

I was also fortunate that I arrived right as the sun went down and was treated to the most wonderful sunset to conclude my ride.

The adventure wasn’t quite over though. After taking a few moments to celebrate (and enjoy some of the food that Forrest’s mom generously shared with me), I hopped in a waiting car and headed to Jeffery Sharp’s Bike Ranch - an oasis for travellers on the Tour Divide and Great Divide alike. Jeffery is well-known for his trail “extractions” that mean riders don’t have to finish their ride and immediately ride 80km back upo the highway to Hachita (or the inverse if they are heading northbound). Instead, Jeffery offers to pick riders up, accommodate them at his ranch, and then link them to the next part of their journey - in my case the Greyhound bus to Phoenix for my flight home.

Essentially a series of very basic cabins and amenities, the Bike Ranch is far from luxurious, but it’s bursting with personality and frankly at this point in the proceedings it felt like a five-star hotel. I arrived there at around 10:30pm, spent the next few hours disassembling my bike and fitting it and the rest of my gear in a bike box, washing my clothes and taking a shower.

When I got to the point of grabbing a few hours of sleep I realized I’d packed my sleeping bag and pillow in the bike box (another thing that Jeffery provided), but it mattered not - I laid down on the camp bed in the bunkhouse, and immediately fell asleep.