After a full week of 2025 Tour Divide racing, the lead woman is out, foul weather might be wreaking havoc on riders toward the back of the pack, and the fastest man already has his sights set on New Mexico. Get the scoop here…

A week into Tour Divide, everyone is settling into their sleep/ride rhythms. While small gaps and riders leapfrogging back and forth were exciting during the first week—both for the riders themselves and dot watchers—everyone has buckled in for the long haul. 

The big news of the day is Lael Wilcox has chosen to drop out due to poor air quality and breathing issues. She’s been dealing with not being able to breathe well for the past three days and has decided to call it a race and focus on future goals. This puts Nathalie Baillon in the solid lead for the women. 

It’s also worth noting that the original Lael Wilcox record dot has been replaced by Austin Killip’s and Meaghan Hackinen’s record dots on Trackleaders. Hackinen’s as the women’s grand depart record, and Killip’s as the individual time trial (ITT) record. For a bit of history, the original Lael Wilcox record dot was based on her 2015 individual time trial ride. Wilcox had raced the grand depart earlier that summer, crushing the previous course record, but missed the newly added section of the route that took racers to Wamsutter instead of Rawlins. She went back later that summer and went even faster on the new route, finishing in 15 days and 11 hours. Unfortunately, she lost her tracker in the northern part of the route, which is why the record dot tracking was so wonky for the early days of the race. In 2024, Meaghan Hackinen set a new fastest grand depart time of 15 days 23 hours on what by then was a different course from what Wilcox raced on, especially in the Canadian section. Then, last fall, Austin Killips set a new best time of 14 days and 23 hours. 

While some, including me, would argue that given the course changes year to year and the impossibility of comparing conditions between years, the whole concept of a fastest known time or course record on a route like Tour Divide is a bit silly, and we should put our focus on head-to-head racing at grand departs, but we’re humans, and we love to compare ourselves to each other, so here we are.

In other news, Robin Gemperle continues to lead with a huge lead that just keeps increasing by the day. Behind the pointy end of the race, more than 150 riders are out there having the adventure of their lives. 

Jacob Hora of Victor, Idaho, is the only American man in the top 10. Hora also has the distinction of starting his ride in Jasper, Alberta. A few years back, Adventure Cycling Association added a 372-mile extension to the route on the northern end from Jasper to Banff. Although Jay Petervary has tried to popularize the idea of starting the event at the new location, the change has yet to gain momentum. Hora, just 20 years old, is riding incredibly steadily and slowly moving himself up the field. 

John Freeman is attempting to become the first person to race Tour Divide with his dog, Mira. He’s a long-time dogpacker and seems to capture the hearts of everyone who comes across his story. Mira runs alongside Freeman for parts of the route and nestles up into a box on the back of his bike when she gets tired. If you don’t follow them on Instagram and need more cute dog content in your life, I highly recommend a follow. 

The father-daughter pair of Aaron and 11-year-old Molly Ehlers of Minnesota, who started the Tour Divide but were thwarted by a major mechanical early on, returned to the border after getting Aaron’s bike fixed and are now riding south again and being tracked on the Trackleaders trail tracker instead of the race tracker. Mary Ehlers, Molly’s mom and Aaron’s partner, finished the 2022 Colorado Trail Race. 

Near the back of the pack, weather moved into southern Montana during the late afternoon and evening. Precipitation makes many of the roads in this area a nightmare of peanut butter mud, so it’ll be interesting to see what choices riders make as the weather forecast gets progressively worse throughout the weekend.

Check out the 2025 Tour Divide Tracker page to follow along on the live tracking map, see our Rigs of the Tour Divide roundups, and stay tuned in for more event coverage. Find it here.

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