By Justin Short
Cover photo courtesy of Justin Short
Tour Divide (TD) has become so much more than a bike race since 1999 when ultra-distance mountain biking legend John Stamstad race-paced the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route (GDMBR), a mountain bike route from the Canadian border to the Mexican border created by the Adventure Cycling Association in the late ’90s. The first iteration of an official bikepacking race began on the GDMBR in 2004 with seven riders. In 2008, a second iteration extended the route 250 miles into Canada. Rider and filmmaker Mike Dion released his film “Ride the Divide” about it in 2010, which captured the imagination of the adventure cycling subculture.
There is a NOBO (northbound) option: It’s far less organized, and if I’m being completely transparent, the in-your-face snow-capped crags of the Canadian Rockies make a far more enticing destination than the barren moonscape of Antelope Wells, New Mexico.
Each year on the second Friday in June, riders gather for the Grand Depart of TD at the gazebo in the city park in Banff, Alberta, an exceedingly picturesque town nestled between towering snow-capped mountains. Crazy Larry, the self-appointed emcee of Tour Divide, herds riders together for a pre-race photo. Palpable excitement charges the atmosphere as the 7 a.m. start approaches. Waves of 20 riders are sent out in 15-minute intervals to minimize congestion on the trail.
The first wave of riders takes off like a shot. These are the nut jobs gunning to win this thing and finish 2,700+ miles in less than 2 weeks. Records would be broken in 2026 when I rode out for three hours with the third wave of riders for a momentary immersion into this absurdist world of adventure cycling. I wasn’t really what you would call trained up for the season, but even on an unloaded bike, the pace felt barely sustainable for a day ride, and way too hot for a ramble of this magnitude.
The temptation of the opening hammer fest is real! Think of it: you’re as trained up as you’ve probably ever been; you’re tapered down (tapering is the practice of backing off your training a week to 10 days out from an endurance event) and chomping at the bit to get rolling, and now you’re surrounded by a gaggle of really excited goofballs. What can you do but go like a bat out of hell and hope you don’t blow up down the trail? You’re definitely going to blow up down the trail; it’s how you manage it that makes all the difference. Some riders are touring the route, and they can party-pace with minimal stress. The race-pacers have to keep moving forward when they’re not eating, sleeping or maintaining bike and body.
I chatted with a young dude named Nick O. from Moscow, Idaho. He had ridden Cross-Washington a couple years ago after owning a gravel bike for two months. Four days into TD, he was 600 miles down the route, holding the pace that he had when he rode away from me on the first big climb.
I settled into a conversational pace with Dan San, a 44-year-old robotics teacher from Columbus, Ohio. You will always find your people out there, and Dan is definitely one of mine. We made plans to meet up for a ride sometime in the future, and I turned around, riding right into the storm that had been brewing behind us. Then I got down to the serious business of collecting high fives from the 180-ish riders coming up the trail on my now much slower ride back into town where my wife was hiding out from the rain in a cafe with Crazy Larry.
Crazy Larry has most certainly earned his nickname, and you do not want to leave your loved ones with him unattended if you value their sanity. This has been confirmed by Alex Malex, a rider from Colorado who sat next to Crazy Larry on the bus ride out to Banff from Calgary. I would meet and ride with Alex five days later in Butte while I was passing through for work (please don’t tell my boss). I yucked it up as efficiently as I could with riders coming the other way, stopping to yack with Eric Miller, a dude I know from the Cross-Washington community. I had somehow missed him in the hubbub at the start. I only run into Eric in places like this. The last time I saw him was in the middle of nowhere in central Oregon while we were riding completely different routes.
Everyone I encountered on my way back into town—and I mean everyone—asked if I was riding NOBO. I retorted, “I LEFT MY OVEN ON,” following the example of a dude named Jake whom Dan San and I had seen an hour before I turned around. “I FORGOT TO FEED MY GOLDFISH,” he shouted as we passed. Jake had ridden up from Frisco, Colo.; he was seated in the cafe with my wife and Crazy Larry when I got there, contemplating his next move now that he had effectively missed the Grand Depart. Zigzagging around Banff for a few weeks would sound more than enticing to me.
Later that night, I would think about those poor miserable riders out there in the rain, snow and muck while I was soaking in the hot springs. And I think about them now while I loll around under the golden larches of our Inland Northwest autumn.
OTO writer Justin Short has built a bike specifically for TD and is eagerly awaiting life’s cooperation with his silly little plans.
