Photos by Eddie Clark

At approximately 5:02 p.m. Friday, after a near-flawless ride that could serve as a master class in how to execute a winning race plan, Meaghan Hackinen arrived in Antelope Wells to win the 2026 Tour Divide. She was the first woman and eighth overall in with a provisional time of 14 days, 10 hours, and 2 minutes. Her finish is nearly 37 hours faster than her own Grand Depart record time of 15 days, 23 hours, set during her rookie year in 2024, and 13 hours faster than the overall women’s record of 14 days, 23 hours, and 12 minutes, set by Austin Killips as an ITT in August 2024. Hackinen was more than 700 miles ahead of second-position Torin Lackmann when she finished the race.

The race

Hackinen commanded the lead out of Banff, keeping a strong pace through the first day’s mud and rain. On her first night, she took a relatively early stop in Fernie, part of her plan to prioritize quality rest. As she increased her lead through Montana, she reported success in her goal to minimize frivolous stops. By limiting her resupplies to rapid convenience store and fast-food calorie grabs, she logged just 35 minutes of total stopped time during daylight hours by day three.

As she padded her lead to hundreds of miles and pulled in front of her own record dot, she continued to race with admirable steadiness and focus. On day six, after a 163-mile push into Wyoming, she “caught” the virtual tracking dot of the late Mike Hall’s historic 2016 record pace. But she still made a tactical choice to stop early in the evening at Lava Mountain lodge, opting to rest and refuel before taking on the heat and wind of the remote Great Divide Basin.

As racers in front of her began to drop out, she moved to sixth position overall, riding near singlespeed leader and fellow Canadian Felix Laberge, Dries Van Der Kleij of Belgium, and Yossi Baruch of Israel. High-altitude training helped her feel strong while climbing Colorado’s higher mountain passes. She spent several nights under the stars and frequently expressed her appreciation for the beauty along the route.

Temperatures soared into the high 90s as she entered New Mexico, where she reported surviving on massive amounts of Gatorade. She spent two nights in remote camps on the Osier Mesa and Polvadera Mesa before finding shelter from a stormier night in Pie Town. She arrived in the iconic Tour Divide landmark after midnight and left before 6 a.m., so it’s unlikely she was able to enjoy a piece of pie before leaving town.

But she never took her eyes off the main prize. With more than 300 miles left to race, she put in a nearly nonstop push through the lonely climbs of the Gila Wilderness and a tough stretch of singletrack on the Continental Divide Trail after dark when she felt shaky and weak. She made a brief 1 a.m. stop at the Denny’s in Silver City before stocking up on Twizzlers and continuing toward the border.

Meaghan Hackinen’s strategy: Focus and dedication

Hackinen spent months building her race plan to improve on her 2024 race and possibly break the overall women’s record. Her training included a mix of high-intensity intervals, strength training, focused sessions on a smart trainer during the cold Canadian winter, back-to-back endurance blocks, and finally a critical four-week training block in Colorado, living and riding at high altitudes.

While Hackinen trained to improve her moving speed, she said her biggest gains in 2026 would come from spending less time off the bike. By the second half of her 2024 race, she guessed that she wasted upwards of two hours a day on breaks that she couldn’t qualify. She planned to be more intentional with her stops.

Well-considered gear was also crucial to Hackinen’s race plan. She rode a Salsa Cutthroat C Rival GX AXS Transmission SUS with Light Bicycle WG44 carbon wheels and 2.2” tires. She used a rigid version of the Cutthroat in 2024, but equipped her 2026 bike with 100 mm of front suspension to minimize upper-body fatigue. She also moved to a larger frame triangle to maximize space for a frame bag. Her front wheel was laced to a SON Dynamo hub to charge her electronics and run her rear and front lights off the grid. She uses Apidura Backcountry bags, including bolt-on frame and top tube bags to increase stability.

For her sleep system, she used a Rab Mythic 180 sleeping bag, an SOL emergency bivy, and a homemade sleeping pad. She said her system worked best when she could find overhead shelter, such as awnings or gazebos. But she was prepared to wild camp and often did.

Meaghan Hackinen’s background

As a child, Hackinen was a self-described highly competitive girl who naturally turned any game into a sport of “force and contact.” She played rugby in high school and later joined a roller derby team. But her career in contact sports ended after severe knee injuries resulted in two separate ACL surgeries. Her physiotherapist recommended cycling as a low-impact method to strengthen her knee. The spark grew to city commuting, long-distance touring, and eventually an elite ultraendurance racing career.

Hackinen has said her background in team sports taught her the mental intensity and training focus necessary to succeed in solo cycling. She finished the Trans Am in 2017, completed several 1,200-kilometer brevets, finished the Transcontinental Race, and won the 24-Hour World Time Trial Championships and set a women’s course record after riding 460 miles in 24 hours. After moving to more off-road cycling events, she won the Arkansas High Country Race, the Alberta Rockies 700, the BC Epic 100, and the 2024 Tour Divide. In 2025, she completed the “Mountain Race Triple,” finishing first in the Silk Road Mountain Race and Hellenic Mountain Race and second in the Atlas Mountain Race. And these are just a few of her many cycling accomplishments.

In addition to her athletic success, Hackinen is an accomplished writer. She has published two adventure cycling memoirs: “South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels,” about a ride from Canada to the Baja Peninsula, and “Shifting Gears: Coast to Coast on the Trans Am Bike Race,” about her experience in the 2017 Trans Am.

The Tour Divide Women’s Record

As the only woman to finish the Inaugural Tour Divide in 2008, Mary Metcalf-Collier established the initial standard at 29 days, 17 hours, and 37 minutes. Her raw emotions while battling isolation and fatigue were documented in the classic bikepacking film, “Ride the Divide.” In 2009, Jill Homer finished in 24 days, 7 hours, and 24 minutes, which stood as the fastest solo women’s time until 2012, when Eszter Horyani finished seventh overall in 19 days, 3 hours, and 35 minutes.

In 2015, Lael Wilcox, then a relatively unknown adventure cyclist from Alaska, lined up for her first Tour Divide. As a prelude to the race, she rode her bike 2,100 miles from Anchorage. But early in the race, she came down with a severe respiratory infection that prompted her to seek care at an emergency room in Helena, Montana. Despite this illness, she went on to finish the race in 17 days, 1 hour, and 51 minutes, breaking Horyani’s time by more than two days.

However, she raced with an old GPS track that sent her through Rawlins, Wyoming, rather than an updated route that passed through Wamsutter. Because of this unintentional route deviation, she was technically disqualified from the official win. Dissatisfied with this result, she returned to the Divide two months later and shattered her own time, lowering the standard to 15 days, 10 hours, and 59 minutes in an individual time trial. Her record would stand for nine years.

Wilcox has returned to the race several times to attempt to break her own record. In 2019, she aimed to challenge the overall course record, then held by Mike Hall. However, her effort became embroiled in a controversy regarding self-sufficiency rules and the presence of a film crew. Amid the scrutiny and psychological strain, she ultimately withdrew from the race. She tried again in a 2021 ITT, but heavy wildfire activity aggravated her ongoing respiratory issues and led to reroutes that thwarted her campaign.

Wilcox raced the 2023 Tour Divide, but again suffered from lung issues that led to another ER visit in New Mexico. She won the race, but came up short of setting a new record. She tried again in 2025, but withdrew in Colorado due to ongoing breathing difficulties.

Hackinen put in an impressive performance during her rookie year in the 2024 Tour Divide, finishing the race in 15 days, 23 hours. This was regarded as a “Grand Depart” record, since Hackinen was the first woman to finish in under 16 days in the mass-start event. Wilcox’s overall record stood until later that summer, when Austin Killips completed an individual time trial in 14 days, 23 hours, and 12 minutes.

Once made official, Hackinen’s 2026 win will be the first time the overall women’s record and Grand Depart record have been the same since 2015. Her arrival in Antelope Wells completes the trilogy of a record year on the Tour Divide.

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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