Photos by Eddie Clark

At approximately 3:45 p.m. local time, Victor Bosoni of France arrived in Antelope Wells, New Mexico, to win the 2026 Tour Divide with a time of 11 days, 8 hours, and around 45 minutes. His finishing time was significantly faster than the former official men’s record, set in 2024 by Justinas Leveika at 13 days, 2 hours, and 16 minutes. As of right now, he holds a provisional record that should be confirmed soon.

After 2,700 miles of climbing and descending high mountain passes across the Rockies, Bosoni blitzed the final 134 miles of mostly flat, shadeless desert in just over nine hours. Temperatures climbed toward the triple digits with a buffeting 10-15 mph west wind, but the heat didn’t seem to faze Bosoni. He arrived in Antelope Wells nearly 375 miles in front of his closest competitor, Laurens Ten Dam, who was still tracking near the pace of the old official record while he rode through Grants, New Mexico, on Tuesday afternoon. Bosoni is the second rider to complete the Tour Divide in under 12 days, more than 10 hours in front of Robin Gemperle’s winning time in 2025.

The Race

Bosoni started the 2026 Tour Divide a bit late after organizers split the 221 riders into staggered 10-minute departure waves. Although he started 20 minutes after the first group, by mile 50, he caught up to the lead riders. He remained in front for the rest of the race, stretching his lead to hundreds of miles.

He was the first rider to cross into the United States, reaching the border with just 19.5 hours on the clock. Although the first day of the race had been rainy and cool, Montana greeted the lead pack with blue skies and sunshine. By day three, many of the top riders were showing signs of ailments and exhaustion. Bosoni disclosed little in the way of physical strain — sunburn and chapped lips, mainly. He took advantage of the favorable weather, riding a powerful tailwind into Idaho. Attrition began to whittle away at his chase pack, as Alex McCormack and David Tschan bowed out with fatigue and injuries.

Mechanical issues with his rear rack slowed him down slightly on days five and six, when Bosoni transitioned from the mountains to the desolation of the Great Divide Basin. A ferocious west wind continued to propel Bosoni across the desert, and he arrived at Brush Mountain Lodge after pedaling 260 miles in 17 hours. He’d originally planned to make his nightly stop in Steamboat Springs, but the hospitality of Brush Mountain Lodge was too enticing to resist.

“Thanks to Kirsten for her kindness, hospitality, and for giving me a moment of peace that made me forget all the struggles of the road, even if only for a little while,” Bosoni wrote in a thank you to the owner of Brush Mountain Lodge, Kirsten Hendrickson.

By day seven, Bosoni held a commanding 200-mile lead over second-position rider Laurens Ten Dam. He continued to expand the gap as he rode over the high point on the route, Indiana Pass, and into the rugged terrain of New Mexico. Despite temperatures in the 90s, extremely low humidity, and a strong west wind blowing in his face, Bosoni continued to hold fast speeds across his final state.

A strategy built for speed

Bosoni’s bike and gear were dialed to be as efficient as possible. He was riding a carbon Factor Ostro Sarana frame with drop bars and 2.2-inch gravel tires. He optimized his gear to be as aerodynamic as possible. Instead of the usual mix of bags, Bosoni used a Tailfin Cargo system to carry most of his gear. He wore a hydration vest tucked inside the back of his jersey with food stuffed into his front layers to keep a smooth profile around his body.

He packed extremely light, reducing his kit to the barest minimum. His Tailfin Cargo/ Speed Pack included an ultralight bivy sack, an ultralight sleeping bag, an emergency blanket, a medical kit, and a Rapha cold-weather kit, a rain shell, and insulated clothing. In a 1.6-liter top tube bag, he stored power banks and charging cables, a spare SRAM AXS battery, chain lube, and a multi-tool. A 1.7-liter downtube bag held a tubeless tire repair kit, an inflation kit, and a hand pump.

The washboard and rough roads of the Tour Divide tested Bosoni’s setup. On day five, a screw rattled loose from the rear bag, causing it to wobble. He found a temporary replacement, but the issue worsened on day six. He estimated he lost two hours to trailside repairs, but ultimately, his fix held through the remainder of the race.

Bosoni emphasized the importance of proper rest and refueling. His strategy relied on the usual mix of high-calorie convenience store food and hearty sit-down meals during his scheduled stops. Because he could only carry calories in his hydration vest and three-liter outer mesh pocket, he aggressively consumed as much as he could at every stop. He was spotted at convenience stores with handfuls of lemon-lime Gatorade, chips, nuts, bags of shredded cheese, and the occasional banana.

“Eat well and sleep well, and then you’ll have a real good day,” he advised his audience during one of his Instagram reels.

This “recovery first” approach had him rigidly adhering to a roughly eight-hour stop most nights, usually indoors at a hotel, hostel, or Airbnb. About five hours of each night were dedicated to sleep, with three hours to eat a meal, wash his clothes, do bike maintenance, shower, and apply anti-chafing creams. He often stopped earlier than his competitors and was up again at dawn to start the day fresh.

The Tour Divide record

Contending for the overall record, or fastest known time, on the Tour Divide is relatively simple. As the person who organized the first Tour Divide Grant Depart in 2008 and now refers to himself as the “race disorganizer,” Matt Lee, says: “The number one rule of Divide racing is that you must ride the entire official route.”

It’s a simple rule in theory, but it becomes more complicated in practice as the official race route has undergone more than a dozen changes over the years. Also, the official route can be disrupted mid-race due to factors beyond racers’ control, such as road closures necessitated by wildfires. Wildfire reroutes have derailed record rides before, including a fast 2022 win by Sofiane Sehili and last year’s fastest-ever win by Swiss rider Robin Gemperle.

The original Tour Divide men’s record was set by Matt Lee in the inaugural race in 2008, at 19 days, 12 hours. Lee dropped this to 17 days, 23 hours in 2009, then to 17 days, 16 hours in 2010. Kurt Refsnider brought the standard below 16 days with his 2011 win in 15 days, 20 hours. British cyclist Mike Hall, widely regarded as the “Legend” of the Tour Divide, shattered this time in 2013 with a 14-day, 11-hour finish. Unfortunately, 2013’s race was marred by forest fires in New Mexico that forced the field onto paved detours around the remote Gila section of the route.

In 2015, Josh Kato brought the course record officially below 15 days after an exciting sprint to the finish with Jay Petervary and Neil Beltchenko. His 14-day, 11-hour finish came a mere 23 minutes ahead of second-place Petervary and about 101 minutes in front of Beltchenko.

Hall finally secured the unasterisked course record when he returned in 2016. His historic time of 13 days, 22 hours was considered virtually unbeatable, and held for the next eight years. 2016 was also the year Chris Plesko set the men’s singlespeed record, coming in second at 15 days, 8 hours — a record that still stands, but is likely to fall to Felix Laberge in a few days. Tragically, Mike Hall died the following year, after he was struck and killed by a driver just before dawn near Canberra, Australia, while competing in the inaugural Indian Pacific Wheel Race on March 31, 2017.

Tour Divide racers shadowed Hall’s historic dot until 2024, when Lithuanian cyclist Justinas Leveika brought the official record down to 13 days, 2 hours. Leveika was also the first man to win the race on a full-suspension mountain bike, a bold choice as most top riders continue to move in the opposite direction. Leveika also eshewed the rigid planning of many top contenders.

“I prefer to race with heart rather than numbers and forge my way through chaos rather than planning,” he told the Adventure Stache podcast after his record-breaking win.

It was Robin Gemperle, a former cross-country mountain bike racer from Switzerland, who wanted to prove that the Tour Divide could be raced like a more traditional high-speed bicycle competition rather than an exercise in sleep deprivation. In an interview on the With Pace podcast, he said,

“There is untapped potential in maximizing how fast the route could be ridden, not just how efficiently riders could sleep and refuel.”

Gemperle prioritized self-care and an “anti-zombie” sleep schedule in 2025. He won the race in 11 days, 19 hours. However, due to a mandatory 140-mile reroute around the Trout Fire in New Mexico, Gemperle’s ride was ineligible for the official course record. In an interview with Pedaled magazine, Gemperle said that chasing the record added some spice to his ride that he appreciated. But he didn’t mind that his finishing time didn’t count as the official record.

“As it is still very comparable, some say even more difficult, this caused a lot of discussions,” he told Pedaled. “I think it doesn’t really matter so much, though. If you’re talking about fast rides down to Antelope Wells, you will probably end up with my ride at the moment.”

As a rookie in the Tour Divide, Bosoni reportedly closely studied Gemperle’s ride to learn more about the route and plan for resupply points. He also mirrored Gemperle in style — ultralight equipment, an aero bike, and a ride fast / rest well approach.

Eddie Clark, the photographer who was out in the field following the race, put it well: “On the bike, he looked damn good and extremely fast, riding with a fluidity seen only at the highest level among World Cup professional racers. His bike was also equally fast, very aero, and extremely dialed, with no detail overlooked. Most importantly, he was having fun and enjoying the ride — impressive to say the least!

Bosoni’s background

Victor Bosoni was born in 2001 in Dijon, France, and raised in Velars-sur-Ouche, a small village in the Burgundy region. He started cycling competitively at 14, initially focusing on cyclocross. He quickly rose through the ranks to compete in Nationale 1, the highest amateur racing category in France.

In 2022, after experiencing lingering physical difficulties in his racing, medical tests revealed an abnormally low testosterone level caused by a genetic condition. The symptoms deprived him of the explosive power necessary for sprinting, and he was unable to participate in professional road racing while undergoing hormone treatments.

Bosoni pivoted his career to ultracycling, where he proved well-suited to longer distances. He gained international prominence in 2025 by becoming the youngest-ever winner of the Transcontinental Race, a 5,000-kilometer race across Europe. Earlier in 2026, he won the Atlas Mountain Race, an off-road event in Morocco, and earned his second consecutive victory in the Traka 560 in Girona, Spain.

Bosoni also raced the Unbound Gravel XL just two weeks before the start of the Tour Divide. Torrential rain hit the 350-mile race, stirring up Kansas’ notorious peanut butter mud and forcing the top riders to hike for miles. Bosoni rode through the night with the lead pack, including eventual winner Robin Gemperle. But the physical and mechanical strain took its toll, and Bosoni didn’t finish. His support crew spent the weekend rebuilding his bike so he could head straight to Canada to start the Tour Divide.

Bosoni clearly possesses the physical stamina and mental fortitude to go far in endurance racing. It will be fun to watch what the future holds for this young rider.

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.