With Pace

Koen de Kort is a professional road cyclist who currently rides for the UCI WorldTeam Trek-Segafredo. After 15 years on the WorldTour, he is one of the most respected road captains in professional cycling, making tough tactical decisions during races and maintaining the focus and collaboration of his teammates. In this interview, Koen talks about why he ended up in this role, and why it fits his s...

Rachel Olzer is an activist, evolutionary biologist, and mountain biker, who has become a leading voice in the current wave of racial justice advocacy taking place across the world. As a transracial adoptee growing up in an all white family, she had to navigate the cognitive dissonance of a grandmother who vocalized deep-seated racism and a family whose conservative politics were directly at odds...

Ruth Winder is a professional road cyclist who rides for the UCI Women’s WorldTeam Trek-Segafredo. In this conversation, she talks about her nail-biting win at road National Championships last year, and why her experience doing the Everest Challenge in May was even harder. She opens about her struggle with an eating disorder early in her career when the team she was on requested that she lose weig...

In this episode of Quarantine Companion, mountain bike World Champion Kate Courtney returns to the show to talk about how her life and training have changed in the last few months. She and Payson talk about her covid-19 fundraising challenges, why the last few months have provided her with greater confidence in her process, and why the support of the global cycling community is more important now...

Chloé Dygert is a track cyclist who has won five world championships and a silver medal from the Rio Olympics in 2016. She currently races for the UCI team Sho-Air Twenty20. In this conversation, she tells Payson and Justin about how her extensive history of injuries has only served to strengthen her drive and competitive mindset, how she managed to win every single title at the 2019 Colorado Clas...

In this special episode, Payson and Justin are joined by fellow pro cyclist, Christopher Blevins, for a wide ranging conversation about racial justice. Growing up as one of the only people of color in his small mountain town, Chris confronted the realities of race in America from an early age, and has gone on to study criminal justice and prison reform in college. Justin shares his own experiences...

Coryn Rivera is a road cyclist who rides for the UCI WorldTeam Team Sunweb. Over her 16 years of racing, she’s achieved 72 national titles and won the Tour of Flanders in her first year on the World Tour. In this conversation, she talks about growing up racing and training with Justin in California as a junior, the nail-biting team relay at Collegiate Nationals when she went head-to-head with Pays...

Chase Garrett is a former Red Bull athlete marketing manager, and founder and CEO of Icon Source, an online marketing platform connecting brands with like-minded athletes from all realms of professional sport. Throughout his career, Chase has managed athletes and agents in tennis, NFL, MLB, NBA, cycling, snow, and motocross.  In this conversation, he talks with Payson and Justin about why he chose...

Four-time cyclocross national champion and world champion silver medalist Ellen Noble returns to The Adventure Stache to chat about how life has changed since her first appearance on the show way back in Episode 34. They talk about the pressures of being a role model in women’s cycling, the lose/lose reality of being a female athlete on social media, and why Ellen has finally started her own progr...

Todd Ballard is the former Chief Marketing Officer at GoPro. During his nine years there, he was instrumental in elevating the brand to global recognition and choosing which athletes the company sponsored. In this conversation, he tells Payson and Justin what drew him to GoPro long before it was a household name, why passion is more important that fame when it comes to sponsored athletes, and why...

Ayesha McGowan is a professional road cyclist. As the first African American woman to reach pro status in cycling, she balances her racing career with advocacy for greater representation in the sport. In this conversation, she talks with Payson and Justin about using her platform to elevate athletes from underrepresented backgrounds, and her previous career in classical music and teaching. They al...

In the third episode of Quarantine Companion, Payson and Justin are joined from Andorra by pro cyclist Robert Gesink, whose many accomplishments include 4th place at the Tour de France in 2010 and 1st place in the Tour of California in 2012. He currently rides for the ProTeam Jumbo-Visma. In this conversation, Robert talks about how his training has changed since Andorra went into one of the world...

In celebration of The Adventure Stache turning one year old, Payson visited Reggie Miller, the show's first ever guest, at his home outside Los Angeles. Along with filming the first episode of "StacheTV", the new sibling YouTube series to the podcast, they sit down to discuss what legacy means to Reggie, his ever-growing ambitions in cycling, and an epic never-before-told story abou...

In this episode of Quarantine Companion, Payson and Justin are joined by cyclist Rahsaan Bahati, whose twenty-year career in criterium and track racing included ten national championship titles and multiple appearances on the USA Cycling Worlds team. They talk about his career and transition into activism through his creation of the Bahati Foundation, which works to promote the health and educatio...

In this first installment of Quarantine Companion, Payson is joined by co-host Justin Williams to lay the groundwork for this new limited series. They talk about how they’re getting by in the age of social distancing and lockdowns, including what books they’re reading, what snacks they’re consuming, how they’re maintaining motivation to train, and what their daily schedules and workflows look like...

Brook MacDonald is one of the best downhill mountain bikers in the world and has snagged multiple podium spots on the UCI World Cup circuit since he began racing professionally in 2011. Known as “The Bulldog” for his fearless, full-throttle racing style, Brook is no stranger to injury, and 2019 saw the most brutal setback of his career so far. At Mountain Bike World Championships in Quebec in Sept...

Justin Williams returns to the podcast after appearing for the first time in episode 48 with Kate Courtney and Colin Strickland. In this episode, he and Payson confront some controversial topics, including the death and legacy of basketball superstar Kobe Bryant, social media backlash, and why we should accept the shades of gray in the lives of influential public figures rather than choose to only...

Larissa Connors is a two-time winner of both the Leadville 100 mountain bike race and Belgian Waffle Ride. Payson caught up with her at her home in Orange County, California in February to talk work/life balance, over-training, and why she has unfinished business in Leadville. They also talk about why she’s glad she doesn’t live near any of her toughest racing competitors, how she manages to maint...

Sarah Bidgood is a leading nuclear nonproliferation expert and Director of the Eurasian nonproliferation program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies. As a specialist in US-Russia cooperation in nuclear security, she has written books, appeared on news outlets such as CNN, and presented her research at the United Nations in Ge...

Following Payson’s win at the historically muddy “The Mid South” gravel race, many asked for a Q&A episode giving a look inside the race. In this episode, Payson responds to the questions you've been submitting over the past few days about the race, including why he chose to use slick tires for one of the muddiest races on record, how he kept his head in the game and managed to catch the...

Nik Hawks is an entrepreneur, athlete, and veteran (Navy SEAL). Among his many pursuits, he is a paraglider, writer, podcaster, Red Bull athletic performance consultant, and founder of a paleo dessert company. In this conversation, Nik talks to Payson about why it took him three tries to complete the Leadville 100 ultramarathon, choosing between health and athletic performance in regards to diet,...

Tyler Jewell is an athlete performance coach at Red Bull, and has been instrumental in helping athletes reach the heights of their sports and come back from injuries. In this conversation, Tyler talks about his early career as a two-time Olympic snowboarder, why he doesn't necessarily like the word "talent", how years of persistent relationship building was key to creating a success...

Hans Rey is a pioneer of extreme mountain biking and a former trials riding world champion. After retiring from professional competitions in 1997, Hans forged a new path as an adventurer, traveling the world with camera crews and journalists to document his explorations by bike. To date, these experiences have taken him to over 70 countries and landed him over 400 magazine covers. Because of this,...

In the summer of 2019, acclaimed photographer Chris Burkard set a new record in the WOW Cyclothon in Iceland, completing the 844 mile ride that traverses the perimeter of the country in 52 hours, 36 minutes and 19 seconds. In his second appearance on the show (he appeared previously in Episode 2), Chris does a deep dive on his record-breaking effort, which included 45mph crosswinds, zero sleep, un...

Justin Williams is a professional cyclist who has raced both domestically and internationally. He’s won multiple national titles, including both the road and criterium races at the Elite National Championships in 2018. As one of the small number of professional cyclists of color, Justin has chosen to prioritize inclusivity and representation in a sport that still lacks diversity. In 2019, he and h...