Fueling the Tour Divide | Phun Bar Crew Spotlight: Chase Willie
Adam Ragsdale
CREW SPOTLIGHT
Chase Willie on 2,745 miles from Banff to the Mexican border, with Phun Bar along for the ride.
Four years ago, Chase Willie rode his bike 508 miles from his front door in Golden, Colorado, to his brother's doorstep in Salt Lake City. He cried somewhere around the Utah state line.
Chase didn't know it yet, but that was the start of something bigger. That something bigger was the Tour Divide.
This June, Chase conquered what is widely considered the toughest off-road bike race in the world: 2,745 miles (4,418 km) of gravel, dirt, and all-around rough terrain along the spine of the Continental Divide, through two Canadian provinces and five U.S. states, ending at the Mexican border. There are no aid stations and no support crew. Riders carry their own food, shelter, and repair kit, and cover roughly 200,000 vertical feet along the way... the equivalent of climbing Everest seven times over. Most people who attempt it don't finish.
Chase did. Twenty-one days after leaving Banff, he crossed into New Mexico. He got there through a broken rear hub in Montana that nearly ended the ride, and a bonk in grizzly country that nearly did the same.
Phun Bar was in his pack for the whole thing, so we asked him for the good, the bad, and what fueled him from start to finish (including some time with mom).
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QWhat made you want to ride the Great Divide? Was there a specific moment that pushed you from “someday” to “let's go”?
It's been a goal for almost four years. In 2022, I rode from my doorstep in Golden, Colorado, to my brother's in Salt Lake City; a five-day, 508-mile trip I called Golden Salt. On day three, crossing into Utah, I hit my first real ultra-distance low and cried. Right after, I passed a fully loaded rider who said he was doing the Trans Am. I remember thinking, man, if he's doing that, and if all the people doing the Tour Divide right now can do that, I can do this. I finished that tour and it was an incredible, life-changing experience... one I think back on all the time now as the first thing that got me into this side of cycling.
QWhat did your training look like in the months leading up to departure day?
Most of my training came in the years before, through other races, long solo bikepacking trips, and getting comfortable with my gear. I took a long rest after Colorado North South in fall 2025, then leaned on the gym over the winter to build some strength. Starting in January, I was fitting in what bike time I could around a startup and a second job, so time was tight.
Zwift indoor cycling was how I started most mornings; an hour of focused riding whenever I could manage it. On weekends, I'm lucky to live close to one of my best friends who's always up for ridiculous rides in the hills around Boulder, so we'd get out for six-to-eight-hour days whenever possible, in any weather. That ended up being the best training I could've done. I don't think fitness is the primary thing that matters for something like the Tour Divide. What actually matters is your gear, your nutrition plan, and figuring out how to take care of your body out there. That's training, not just fitness.
QTake us to your hardest day on the route. What happened, and how did you talk yourself through it?
Day three was the low point. I'd burned through supplies faster than planned, so I stopped to re-supply and quickly learned grocery stores aren't built for this kind of ride. Everything on the shelves is an ingredient for a bigger meal, not something high-calorie and ready to eat. Lucky for me, I ran into a friend who had a hotel room off-route, since the stretch after Columbia Falls is notorious for grizzlies and he refuses to camp there. He offered to split it with me, and by the time I got to that hotel I was bonking worse than I'd ever experienced; dizzy and lightheaded just trying to order food at the restaurant. If Justin hadn't offered to share that room, I think that would've ended my ride.
QSame question, but favorite day on the route?
Silverthorne to Salida. By then I'd scratched from the official race because of the bike trouble in Montana, but that opened up more of a touring mentality than a race one. My friend surprised me in Silverthorne and joined me on the ride toward Salida. Past a small town called Hartsel, we pedaled into some of the strongest headwinds and roughest washboard I'd ridden all trip, heads down, not talking, barely acknowledging other riders as we passed them.
Then, out of nowhere, the wind just stopped. The sky turned beautiful, the road smoothed out, and we climbed into a fast, fun descent into Salida... a complete 180 from questioning why either of us were out there to suddenly remembering exactly why. My parents live in Salida, so I ended the day at their house with Jordyn, my mom, and Josh all there. That day had everything: hard moments, beautiful moments, good people.
QWas there a moment where you seriously considered quitting? What kept you going?
This is the story of how my bike broke. In southern Montana, I started hearing a clicking noise in my back wheel. I couldn't figure it out until I checked my rear axle, which wasn't tight, and when I tightened it down, it kept the wheel from spinning properly. Then my freewheel stopped working. It got progressively worse, to the point I'd have basically been riding a fixie for the rest of the route.
I called a bike shop in Victor, Idaho, to schedule a look, and decided hitchhiking there was unrealistic. Luckily, my fiancée, Jordyn, was staying there to cheer me on, so I called her to come pick me up. The bike shop told me the internal axle of my rear hub was bent, and they had no replacement part or wheel. I frantically called around and found one shop, Open Range Cycles. They had a wheel that came in dented; they'd straightened it but couldn't sell it, so they offered it to me for free. I felt like the universe was telling me to keep going. All in, it cost one full day of no progress, and I was back on the route the next day.
QThe Divide is famous for its solitude. Did you miss having company out there, or did you come to love being alone with your thoughts?
I actually prefer riding alone on long efforts; I get pulled into other people's pace too easily. What I craved wasn't company so much as the support behind me: family and friends who understood why I was out there. I rode fully self-supported through Canada, Montana, and New Mexico, and had people around more often through Wyoming and Colorado. Looking back, it was exactly the balance I needed.
QWalk us through a typical day. What time did you wake up, how many miles, where did you sleep?
I'd wake with the sunrise, around 5:30 or 6. I'm not much of an early-to-bed person, so my legs would really turn on in the afternoon and I preferred riding into the night. I usually aimed to stop around 11 p.m., giving me five to seven hours of sleep, but that depended entirely on where I was. Some nights, like the end of day three, I stopped as early as 7 p.m.; other nights I kept riding until almost 2 a.m.
Distance wasn't really the right way to measure a day. It was more about hours on the bike, and a running list of questions: do I need a hotel tonight or is camping the better call, where's my next resupply, can I push through this pass and still sleep below 10,000 feet? Once the sun started going down, the whole day became about figuring out how late to push and where that left me to sleep.
QWhat did you eat, and how did your food cravings change the longer you were out there?
I made myself a cheat sheet going in: different liquids to look for, different solid foods, different candy, things I could reference if I was brain dead walking into a gas station or grocery store. I don't think I ever actually pulled it out, but writing it was worth doing on its own.
At the very bottom of that list I had a section titled “think,” which was the order of macros I needed to prioritize. Number one, calories. Number two, carbohydrates. Number three, sodium. Number four, protein. Number five, fat. Phun Bars, better than any other energy bar on the market, tick off that number one better than anything else. They're also delicious, easy to chew, and go down easy.
QWhat did the Divide teach you about yourself that a shorter ride never could?
The word that kept coming up was discipline. Just the discipline to wake up every morning and pedal, without letting a bad stretch turn into too long a break. It also made me reflect on what's actually real in life, and that pursuing what's real means pursuing challenging, uncertain things. That's something I'm carrying with me into normal, everyday life.
QIf someone said “I want to do what you did,” what's the one piece of advice you'd give them?
Be patient with yourself. The body takes time to adapt, and if you feel terrible on day three or four, it'll get better. Study the route closely, but don't over-plan around daily mileage targets; mine fell apart once real days ranged from 78 to 168 miles. Carry more Phun Bars than you think you need, especially for the stretches with no resupply. And don't expect an easy day. There isn't one, and that's the point.
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Twenty-one days out of Banff, Chase rolled up to the border station at Antelope Wells, New Mexico. Jordyn was there waiting.