The Bikepack Racing Podcast

The title says it all! Andrew Onermaa is the 2025 Tour Divide Single Speed champion! Ezra sits down with Andrew for 3 plus hours to get into all the nitty gritty details of Andrew's incredible run down the Divide. Going for a ride isn't required for this one, but it certainly is encouraged!

Andrew and Ezra sit down with good friend of the show, and member of the Old Man Mountain x Silca Experimental Bikepacking Team: Stephanie Hall to discuss the current state of bikepack racing in the United States in 2025. Topics range from Stephanie's new team, making ends meet as an up-and-coming bikepack racer, the current sponsorship landscape, the first half of the 2025 US race calendar, and I...

SURPRISE! After a very strange 2024, Ezra and Andrew are back to rambling about their lives, bikes, and all things bikepack racing. In this catch up episode (sometimes it feels like all we do is catch up episodes), we do just that. Catch up! It's mostly personal updates, but there is a bit of bikepack racing banter mixed in. We really are trying to make this a somewhat more consistent thing, espec...

The episode title really says it all! Ezra and Andrew sit down for a very informal recap of the 2023 season, while also looking forward to 2024. Highs and lows are discussed, future plans are divulged, and incredible accomplishments are recognized. We know it's a longer one...but the end does get a bit spicy as some strong remarks are made about the cycling industry relating to its lack of rel...

"The current best American bikepack racer." That's the title Ezra gave Abe Kaufman after he smashed the FKT at the Arkansas High Country Race this October. Add in a 4th place finish at the 2022 Tour Divide plus FKTs at Trans North Georgia and Trans Virginia, and it's safe to say Abe is certainly a dangerous man when it comes to bikepack racing. In this episode we dive into Abe&#3...

Making his second appearance on the podcast, Daniel Connell aka "Dirty Dan" is back to talk all things 2023 Tour Divide. This year was Dan's fourth consecutive Tour Divide finish! We take a deep dive into everything that went down as Dan fought through his fair share of obstacles to finish in his fastest time yet at 16 days 16 hours 4 minutes. This conversation is a must listen to for anyone consi...

To start...sorry! We know it's been a minute...or 8 months...but we are trying to get this thing rolling again. In this "catch-up" episode Andrew and Ezra sit down and have a meandering conversation about a whole lot of bikepacking, bikepack racing, bike racing, and general life things. It was oh so good to sit down and catch up. We hope you enjoy listening to this unedited conversat...

Jeff Kerkove is truly a legend of bikepack racing. Jeff and his friends were racing bikes offroad in extreme and unique ways before the words "Gravel racing" and "Bikepacking" were commonplace in the cycling world. In this conversation, we dive into Jeff's start in the 12/24 hour mountain bike race scene, a 14 year battle with finishing the Colorado Trail Race, his most recent race effort in Moroc...

We couldn't think of a better way to kick off 2023 than with a multi-time world champion. Our guest for episode 26 is two-time 24hr Time Trial World Champion Meaghan Hackinen. Meaghan had an absolutely massive 2022 season: competing in The Transcontinental No8, setting a new fastest known time while taking the win at The Big Lonely, and then winning her second 24hr Time Trial World Championship. W...

In this final episode of 2022, Ezra and Andrew sit down for a rather informal and rambling wrap up of the past year. They discuss their own personal highs and lows from the past racing season. Talk about the current state and future of The Bikepack Racing Podcast. And go on more than a few tangents into other bikepacking related topics.  Hopefully this episode finds you either on the couch re...

For episode 24, we have our first recurring guest of the podcast. Back in May, Lauren Brownlee sat down in Ezra's van to chat after a victory at Ride/Race Across Arizona and then a podium finish at Pinyons and Pines Bikepacking Race. You can listen to that conversation in episode 9. This conversation picks up where we left off as we discuss Lauren's second half of the 2022 season. Which included t...

Our guest for Episode 23 needs no introduction in the bikepack racing world. Kurt Refsnider is arguably the greatest bikepack racer of all time. He was the first person to ever win the "bikepacking triple crown", winning the Tour Divide in 2011, the Arizona Trail Race in 2018, and the Colorado Trail Race in 2019-- plus, he's earned countless other bikepack racing wins and FKTs. Kurt has also been...

...and we are back! This episode was recorded live from the finish of the 2022 Arkansas High Country Race in beautiful Hot Springs, AR where Ezra and Andrew sat down for an in person conversation with 3rd place finisher Daniel Connell. The conversation begins with a much too short exploration of Dan's extensive touring excursions in Central America, across the entirety of Africa (@locociclos on IG...

She's been a bit hard to track down...especially these past few months...as she bounces across the country from bikepacking race to gravel race to yet another bikepacking race. Even now, as I hit publish on this episode, Hannah Dhonau is on course at the Smoke 'n' Fire 400 in the mountains of Idaho. We wanted to get Hannah on the podcast after her first ever win at the 2022 North to South Colorado...

What does it take to win the Colorado Trail Race? For Will Bodewes, it might be a little...or a lot different than what you'd expect. Sleep banking for fourteen days before the start of the race, a majority of training being less than an hour, using olive oil as chain lube, and eating a block of cheese during the race. These are just some of the many unique ways Will prepared for and executed on t...

It's taken a minute (or a month), but in this episode we finally hear from Andrew on his incredible effort to win to his first bikepack race at North South Colorado Bikepacking Race. Andrew covers his time spent in Colorado before the race, pre-race mishaps, racing head to head with one of the greatest ultra endurance athletes ever, the lows you don't see while watching the dots, and what it felt...

Mateo Páez has stormed onto the ultra endurance/bikepack racing circuit in 2022. He started the year with a 3rd place finish at his debut bikepacking race: the Stagecoach 400, struggled with some gnarly weather at The Odyssey of the VOG, before bouncing back with another 3rd place finish at the inaugural Westfjords Way Challenge. In this episode, we chat about Matt's start in cycling, his first bi...

We had big plans to cover both Andrew's first bikepack racing win at North South Colorado and Ezra's experience at the Tour Divide, but we ended up taking the deepest of deep dives into everything that went down for Ezra during his first run at the divide. It's a long one...and Ezra talks a lot...so if that doesn't interest you...feel free to skip this one! But if you are interested in an indepth...

The Tour Divide might have taken up most dot watchers attention during the month of June...but we did in fact have other races going on! I'll be honest, outside of the United States we have a knowledge gap when it comes to international races and the players in those races. We'll continue to stick with what we know...but when the opportunity presents itself to go international...we'll take it! Our...

...and we are back! It's been a busy few weeks in the bikepack racing world, and we've got some catching up to do! We'll start where we left off...with the 2022 Tour Divide. Our guest this week is Andy Leveto. In 2018, Andy completed a northbound attempt of the Tour Divide in 23 days 2 hours and 9 minutes. In 2022 Andy was back for more! This time heading southbound with the grand depart. Ezra met...

The time has come. The 2022 Tour Divide is upon us. Making it's long awaited return after having been canceled and modified the past two years, the 2022 Tour Divide is going to be one for the ages. It will also be host Ezra's first run at the Divide. In this episode, Ezra and Andrew sit down for an informal chat about all things Divide. Ezra runs through his bike, his thoughts on the course, a few...

For our 13th episode (totally on purpose!), we return to Friday the 13th of May where our guest: Zeno Molteni went down to Oark, AR and absolutely destroyed DOOM. Andrew (Ezra was busy doing Divide prep things) sits down with Zeno for a conversation that covers Zeno's late entry into the sport of cycling, returning to his family's home to race the Italian Divide, a breakout performance at Gravel W...

Road cycling has the Tour de France...bikepack racing has the Tour Divide...and the 2022 Grand Depart is nearly upon us! Episode 12 is part Tour Divide preview show and part general conversation about the state of bikepack racing. Our guest this episode is Tim Tait. A man of many talents in the bikepack racing world. Tim is the race director of The Mixed Utah Epic aswell as a brand new gravel even...

The title pretty much says it all! Ezra leads the episode off by giving his full recap of a rather unsuccessful and frustrating debut race of the 2022 season at Pinyons and Pines Bikepacking Race in Flagstaff, Arizona. And then at timestamp 1:10:00, we head east to Oark, Arkansas were Andrew breaks down everything that happened at DOOM from his perspective as the race organizer. A bit of Tour Divi...

We are once again staying in Arizona for this one!...but rewinding the the clock back to the beginning of the month for a recap of Ride Across Arizona (RAAZ) with (Spoiler Alert!) the overall winner of the event: Dexter Kopas. Ezra (Andrew was busy riding/recovering from DOOM) and Dexter sit down and discuss the many facets of Dexter's life. Including, but not limited to: Dexter's decision to go t...