Ovando and the Tour Divide: A Small Town on a 2,700-Mile Bike Race
Each June, a stream of loaded mountain bikes rolls into Ovando. The riders are on the Tour Divide, one of the toughest bike races in the world, and Ovando has become one of the best-known stops on its route.
The route
The Great Divide Mountain Bike Route was completed in 1997 by the Adventure Cycling Association, which still maintains its maps. It follows the Continental Divide as closely as practical between Jasper, Alberta and Antelope Wells, New Mexico, crosses the Divide 30 times, and is about 90 percent unpaved, with more than 200,000 feet of climbing.
The race
The Tour Divide follows the route from Banff, Alberta to the Mexican border, roughly 2,700 miles. It is strictly self-supported and not a stage race: the clock runs from the start, usually the second Friday in June, until each rider reaches the finish, which takes most people more than two weeks. There are no entry fees, sponsors or prizes, and riders carry their own camping gear and food between towns.
Why Ovando
According to Escape Collective, the local fly shop sits at about mile 533 of the race route and keeps tubes, patch kits and chain lube for riders during race week. Leaders can arrive within about 48 hours of the start, while the last riders come through a week later. The same article describes how the town took the event to heart, offering riders a bed in the old jail, a covered sheep wagon or a teepee for a few dollars, with the money going to a town improvement fund.
That welcome is part of why Ovando received Montana’s 2018 Community of the Year award for tourism and recreation, as Glacier Country Tourism notes. The University of Montana’s column reports that around 3,000 cyclists camped or stopped in town in a single recent year.
If you are riding through
- Plan resupply carefully. Services in town are limited and hours change with the season.
- Store food properly; this stretch of the route is grizzly country.
- Respect private land along the route and in town.
For other things to do nearby, see things to do around Ovando.