The record for the 2,745-mile Tour Divide stood for 8 years until Justinas Leveika smashed it by 20 hours
For 13 days, 2 hours and 16 minutes, Justinas Leveika was best known as a dot on a website tracker, slowly tracing 2,745 miles of the Continental Divide. That dot didn’t reveal much. Staring at it didn’t tell you whether he was freezing in the wind or burning in the sun, whether he was hungry, or thirsty, or looking up at the sky to decide, at that moment, whether to push through to the next town or make camp. You couldn’t look at that dot and know, for example, that he was taking a nap in a porta-potty, hoping to catch one hour of sleep, not realizing that a snowstorm was creeping in to greet him when he woke up.
The Tour Divide is one of the crown jewel events in ultra cycling, but the sport is inherently lonely. It’s physically demanding, but it’s also a battle against one’s own insignificance in the face of a vast landscape, with no lasting, tangible reward — no big prize, no roaring crowds — at the end of the road in Antelope Wells, N.M.
“The distances between civilization, when you have to cover 250 kilometers between towns, if you are not friends with yourself, you can freak out,” Leveika said. “It can break you. Lots of people get lost in their head and they get afraid of the length of it, of the challenge that is in front of them.”
If you are not friends with yourself, you can freak out. It can break you.
Leveika’s dot encompassed a world of anguish. One day it stopped moving near the border of Mexico, without ceremony, having finished the ride faster than any dot ever. Leveika broke Mike Hall’s record for completing Tour Divide, set in 2016, by more than 20 hours.
But being one of the best ultra-endurance athletes in the world seems coincidental to Leveika’s pursuit of brain melting challenges. He says he’s unlike many ultra-endurance athletes, who spend their lives deep in Excel spreadsheets planning their nutrition, where they can resupply, where they can sleep, etc. He did his first Tour Divide in 2023 without much forethought. His bike was in shambles by the end. As he battled searing heat for the ride’s final legs through New Mexico, he was down to a single functional gear, one pedal, broken front suspension, and a missing spoke in his rear wheel. Despite it all, he finished second.
“People were joking that I just happened to be at the start line in Banff when I found out about the race happening,” Leveika said. “That was kind of my preparation level for last year. I was there for adventure.”
Justinas Leveika battling snowstorms in Montana. | Photo: Eddie Clark
This year, Leveika allowed himself some strategic planning, if only to give himself a more pleasant experience. He came up with a loose outline of possible stops, and made sure to have 2,000-3,000 calories on the bike with him at all times in case of emergencies.
Leveika’s biggest quality of life adjustment was upgrading to a Trek Supercaliber for this year’s ride. Tour Divide has traditionally been the domain of hardtail mountain bikes, but the Supercaliber was designed to give riders race-worthy efficiency and responsiveness with full suspension compliance. Leveika used the Supercaliber at the 800-mile Atlas Mountain Race earlier this year and won with a time of 3 days, 19 hours, and 27 minutes, and found that the added comfort of a rear suspension helped him feel fresher during the pivotal late stages of ultra racing.
“I got very familiar with that bike, and very used to it at the Atlas Mountain Race, and really loved how it performs on all surfaces,” Leveika said. “The longer the race, the more you want from the bike, and the faster you become if you’re comfortable and you don’t waste energy.”
Leveika suffered no major mechanicals during his ride. Not even a flat tire. He changed his front and rear brake pads and made minor adjustments to his brake calipers … and that’s it, across nearly 3,000 miles of rocks, roots, the full spectrum of weather conditions, and the Tour Divide’s infamous peanut butter mud.
The bike performed amazing. I really felt one with it, and I just enjoyed the riding.
“It performed miraculously,” Leveika said. “I felt that this time my bike was really in top shape. I tried to eliminate all the problems I had last year that could come from bad preparation, and the bike performed amazing. I really felt one with it, and I just enjoyed the riding.”
Leveika may have stepped up his preparation in 2024, but his moment-to-moment ability to adapt to changing conditions and withstand long stretches of grueling tedium set him apart as an ultra competitor. According to Leveika, the idea that the Tour Divide is “boring” is a popular misconception. His mind is active nearly every moment of the race, constantly scanning his environment for unforeseen obstacles or changing weather patterns. The best weather app, he said, is “looking at the sky.”
The elements hit hard just a few days into the ride, when rain and snow hammered riders in Montana. According to Leveika, it was to his advantage. He’s Lithuanian and has been living in Norway for the last 10 years; snow and cold don’t faze him.
But though Leveika may be as mentally and physically suited to ultraendurance competition as any one person can be, Tour Divide was hardly easy. Case in point, that night in a porta-potty.
Justinas encountered the full spectrum of weather conditions on the 2,745-mile ride. | Photo: Eddie Clark
Leveika was leaving Butte, Mont., and riding uphill. The trail was soggy and slow-going, waterlogged after days of unstable weather. He saw that water was evaporating off the ground up ahead. If he took a break, he thought, he could regain some energy and make faster headway by letting the route dry out.
At the top of the climb, he came upon a porta-potty and decided to make a quick, makeshift camp. Inside, he had enough space to fit his bike, set up a bed, and nap for an hour, hoping the sun would be out when he woke up. Instead, he opened the door onto a snowstorm.
“If I would have continued, I would have avoided a lot of fuss,” Leveika said. “But I made a stop and I didn’t get out of the toilet to check the weather periodically, and I paid the price because then I had to ride a proper snowstorm. The snow didn’t melt, and it was a mess.”
But of all the daunting factors of the Tour Divide, time is perhaps the biggest. Time is what allows the mind to wander, unchecked, into dark places, to start calculating the miles and minutes left until sweet release from pedaling a mountain bike, day after day after day. Those intrusive thoughts break through more easily as fatigue accumulates, and mind and body are hanging by a thread of willpower.
We are those dots, and if they are able to connect the dot with a face and have a good experience, they're gonna come again.
In those moments, Leveika learned what it meant to be a dot. Early morning near Silverthorne, Colo., he was changing out of his night clothes to get ready for the day. A car pulled over and a man got out and started ringing handbells to encourage him. Leveika told him to come over, telling him “I don’t bite.” The man had been following Leveika’s journey on the Dot Watchers website and wanted to congratulate him on how well he’d been doing in the race.
“He said, ‘Sorry, I really would love to spend more time, but I have to go to work,'” Leveika said. “Then he went a ways down and he stopped, and he said, ‘Dude, just so you know, you inspire so many people, and you inspire me, and I’m not easily inspired by others. It’s amazing what you’re doing.’
“When you hear something like that, it’s crazy. I rode up the climb with 20 watts more probably.”
Leveika stopped for fans and curious onlookers whenever possible. He recalls riding through Salida, Colo., and stopping seemingly every 500 meters to talk to a new family who had come out to watch him pass.
Justinas' Supercaliber came through on a brutal ride. | Photo: Eddie Clark
“I stopped and talked to every single one of them. Because this is how we make this sport, right?” Leveika said. “I mean, we are those dots, and if they are able to connect the dot with a face and have a good experience, they’re gonna come again.”
Leveika moved across America like a small phenomenon. Sometimes he’d talk to people who just happened to bump into him outside of their homes, unaware that the Tour Divide even existed, much less that they lived in its path.
Those interactions buoyed Leveika on an otherwise lonely journey. They kept his mind sharp, giving it respite from the constant hum of microcalculations as he navigated an oppressive landscape.
In the final leg of Leveika’s journey, sleep deprivation finally caught up to him. He had planned to get two hours of sleep in Silver City, N.M., roughly 10 hours from the finish line, but because of forecasted storms, he had to push through to Hachita, the last major town before the end. Exhausted from the effort on a sandy surface, he laid down by the side of the trail for 10-15 minutes of rest.
This race is something different. You really are out in the elements, and you are exposed, and you are so little.
When his alarm went off, his body woke up, but his mind didn’t. He was still in a dream. And in that dream he was standing with two other people, waiting for a bus that would take them to Hachita.
“I sat on the side of the road for 30-40 minutes waiting for that bus, talking to people that weren’t there,” Leveika said. “But eventually, the lady that was there said to me, ‘Isn’t there a race you’re doing, and isn’t there anyone waiting for you at the finish line?’ And that’s when it started to come back to me that I should maybe go.”
When Leveika reached his final destination, he felt a deep relief. The fanfare at the finish line was small but joyous. The welcoming committee consisted of two dot watchers who drove from Tucson to congratulate him, a photographer named Eddie Clark, and Jeffrey Sharp, who runs a bike ranch where hikers and bikepackers can stay in the Hachita Valley. There was no finish tape to cut. The race ends at a Border Patrol office that stands indifferent to being one of the most welcome sights in ultra racing.
“This race is something different. You really are out in the elements, and you are exposed, and you are so little,” Leveika said. “You go to Great Basin, which is a huge area of nothingness, there is nothing for miles and miles and miles and miles and wow. You feel little. You understand how little you actually are.”
If you wonder why Leveika, or anyone, takes on challenges like the Tour Divide, their own insignificance is largely the point. At every moment in the journey they are committing an act of defiance against something immense, against the landscape and beyond, to the known limits of human physical and mental capability.
Before Leveika left Banff, he was just a dot. He was a dot during the race, and he is still a dot now, one of billions in the world. A record breaking ride didn’t change that. It only emphasized how special it is to make a mark at all.
