After a third-place finish in 2024, Laurens ten Dam is lining up at this year’s Tour Divide with big goals. Learn about his Specialized S-Works Epic 9 build and why he thinks it might be the perfect bike for the route in his latest video here…

Laurens ten Dam is on a short list of highly experienced cyclists lining up for the 2026 Tour Divide. Not only did he finish third at the 2024 Tour Divide, but he also competed professionally in road cycling between 2003 and 2019 and had some impressive results, including a ninth-place finish in the 2014 Tour de France. Since “retirement,” Laurens turned his attention to gravel racing and bikepacking, taking part in several high-level events. Ahead of tomorrow’s grand depart, Laurens and Live Slow Ride Fast walk through all the details of his new purpose-built S-Works Epic 9.

In 2024, Laurens rode a Specialized Epic World Cup S-Works with drop bars, mechanical shifting, and a Tailfin rack setup with panniers on both sides. This year, he’s riding the newly released Specialized S-Works Epic 9 with an electronic Shimano XTR groupset. He also switched from drop bars to flat bars, explaining that the route was more technical than he thought, and he believes flat bars will be more comfortable. He’s also running Pro inner bar ends set up to mimic the width of the hoods on his drop-bar bikes.

Laurens is running Air Trak tires from Specialized, likely 2.2″ wide, and instead of a frame bag, he’s using traditional bottles for all of his hydration, with a 750ml bottle on the seat tube and two smaller bottles mounted side by side on the downtube. If he needs more, he’ll toss some bottles in his jersey pockets. Laurens is running an extended Tailfin top tube bag to help make up for the more svelte bag setup. His glasses sponsor, PPEEQQ, even engraved the lens of his sunglasses with the Tour Divide route.

They’ll be posting reels from the Tour Divide on the Live Slow Ride Fast Instagram account over the next two weeks. According to Laurens, he’s back for redemption, so we imagine his will be a fun dot to follow on our Tracker page.

Check out the 2026 Tour Divide Tracker page to follow along on the live tracking map, and stay tuned in for more event coverage. Find it here.

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