Laurens ten Dam returns for another crack at Tour Divide ultra race: 'I wasn't myself for 3 months'

Laurens ten Dam will embark on his second Tour Divide this week: a 4,500-kilometer gravel adventure from the U.S.-Canada border and the U.S.-Mexico border. The Dutch former pro looks ahead to it in his podcast Live Slow, Ride Fast .

"The Tour Divide is 4400 kilometers and has some 50,000 altimeters," Ten Dam explains. "And it runs a lot above 2,000 meters: the highest point, I think, is 3,800 meters. If you want to participate, you send an e-mail and get the route one week in advance. And then it's see who arrives first in Mexico, at the border. It's a competition, but it's non-commercial."

Ten Dam last took part in the Tour Divide in 2024. After a good two weeks of cycling, he then arrived at the border between the United States and Mexico, 7 kilograms lighter by his own admission.

"I thought: I'll do that. But I came home with a cold shoulder," he recalls. "You go so deep into your reserves. It took three months, I was that fucked up. I also looked back on it with a kind of trauma for a long time: I felt I had failed anyway, because I didn't meet my targets. And then I wasn't myself for three months because of the physical deterioration."

"They say: you need 12 months to think about it at all again," said Ten Dam, who did not ride the event in 2025. "The whole 2024 stage didn't ride last year, and last year's winner isn't riding this year."

So two years later, Ten Dam will venture back to the Tour Divide. "The big difference between then and now is that physically I was a lot better then. I recently did an FTP test and it showed that I did lose 40 watts," he said on the podcast.

"But now I do know a lot better what it means, such a 4,000-kilometer ultra, and what you have to take into account," points out Ten Dam. "Then it was also more exciting. I also made some mistakes then and will do it differently now." Ten Dam will start the 2026 Tour Divide on Friday, June 12

For example, Ten Dam plans to eat more, delete his Instagram and thinks he can do it with less sleep than last time, although he emphasizes that he wants to be in it with a freer mindset than in 2024. "As I used to prepare the Tour de France and in recent years Unbound, so it is now with the Tour Divide. But I have to enjoy it more than I did two years ago."

"The important thing is to stay close to myself," he says. "Two years ago I was preoccupied with the ride that Lachlan Morton had ridden and the guys who rode in front of me. But I do want to ride as fast as possible," said Ten Dam, who lists Victor Bosoni ('a 23-year-old ultra-god') and 28-year-old Alex McCormack as competitors. "But it doesn't matter either: you have to ride as fast as you can. That's really a lesson from two years ago."

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs | [email protected]