Day 8 of the 2025 Tour Divide finds the race deep in one of its most iconic and unforgiving sections, the Great Basin of Wyoming. This stark, 100-mile expanse of wind, sun, and solitude offers little more than wild horses and heat mirages for company. It’s a place that has broken riders and forged legends. Find the latest update with another excellent photoset by Eddie Clark here…

Photos by Eddie Clark; cover: Svein Tuft on Bison Basin Rd in the Basin

The Great Basin in Wyoming is one of the most iconic parts of the Tour Divide and also one of the cruxes. For riders, it’s 100 miles of barren openness through the Red Desert of Wyoming and is often a mental make-or-break point for riders. Characterized by stark flatness and no water, the Basin is an endorheic basin, meaning that water from it doesn’t flow out into any ocean; it simply sits and evaporates. Once riders leave Atlantic City, there are few trees, few spots of shelter, and even fewer people. Wild horses run free, and the wind and sun can be relentless. The Oregon Trail detoured around to the north to avoid the dangers, the Overland Trail skirts it to the south, and Tour Divide goes straight through.

And yet, it’s one of the most beautiful stretches on the TD route and one that no one who crosses will ever forget. It has the added bonus that once out, a rider is only 80 miles from Brush Mountain Lodge, which provides an oasis for dehydrated and sun- and wind-battered riders.

Clockwise from top: Smokey Wind River Mountains from sunset in the Great Divide Basin; Wild horses in the Basin; Jens Van Roost crossing the Green River

The original Adventure Cycling Association route sent riders farther east through the Basin before it cuts south through Rawlins. More than a decade ago, Matthew Lee made the call to reroute the Tour Divide through Wamsutter instead, as the road south of Rawlins was being developed to support more oil and gas drilling and was becoming increasingly busy with truck traffic. Aside from skipping the famous “Aspen Alley,” which was the scene of many iconic Eddie Clark photographs, the reroute doesn’t particularly add or detract from the route. The whole area just has a feeling of needing to be crossed to get to the higher elevations of Colorado.

Wind and rain always have the potential to wreak havoc across the Basin. In 2023, the three race leaders, Justinas Leveika, Ulrich Bartholmoes, and Jens van Roost, were famously stopped in their tracks by mud in the middle of the night and ended up spending the night in a porta-potty together. The funniest part of that story is that there was a perfectly good shack to take shelter in just 100 yards down the road.

Clockwise from top: Jochen Böhringer with Max Riese in the distance; Max Riese; Jens Van Roost on Wamsutter Rd

It is an area prime for hallucinations, and when I crossed it while racing in 2012, I ran into the infamous Cjell Mone, riding his singlespeed and leading the NOBO race, his long hair wild in the wind, wearing a tank top and no helmet, exuding what can only be described as chaotic Cjell Mone energy. I thought I was meeting Jesus. Mone is famously known for, aside from building really cool bike frames from his home in Silver City, New Mexico, putting a giant rock in Mike Hall’s frame bag during a Tour Divide where Hall was leading the SOBO race (it might have been the year he set the course record). Mone was leading the NOBO race, and the two intersected each other at Brush Mountain Lodge.

Clockwise from top: Pronghorn at sunset; Jens Van Roost’s shoes/bike; Jens Van Roost

This year, wind conditions were favorable for race leader Robin Gemperle, who was blown across the expanse with a ripping tailwind. Unfortunately, conditions didn’t last long, and while Svein Tuft and van Roost made it most of the way across before the wind shifted, high winds have been buffeting riders in the Basin since.

Jens Van Roost and Svein Tuft chatting at the Love’s in Wamsutter. They were both a little knackered after that crossing. Early on, they had a nice tailwind, but it shifted to a partial headquartering wind on the way out, which, believe it or not, helped offset the blazing heat, which also sucked.

In race news, Robin Gemperle and Nathalie Baillon continue to fly in the lead of their respective fields. Tuft has been battling a respiratory bug the whole race, which has been causing him to cough all night and not get adequate sleep. While he considered pulling the plug at Brush Mountain, it sounds like he’s just going to take a break, recalibrate his goals and expectations, and head back out on the route. Van Roost, meanwhile, is picking up speed. He reports that he had stomach issues early on that seem to have resolved themselves, and he’s cruising. Ana Jager now sits in second place for the women and will soon face whatever the Basin throws at her.

The oil company treated a long section of Wamsutter Rd with Mag Chloride, and it sucked—man0made mud.

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.

Please keep the conversation civil, constructive, and inclusive, or your comment will be removed.