With Pace

Sarah Sturm returns to the show for a wide-ranging conversation about the struggle to stay hungry in a profession full of uncontrollable inconsistency, Tour de France Femme, and the anxieties about what life might look like after retiring from professional cycling. They also discuss the many ways that grief is shaping the gravel community this season and how their mental and emotional connection to racing has permanently changed. Sarah also talks about her work with Protect Our Winters, and the athlete who she thinks is the gold standard for maintaining their integrity.Instagram: @withpacepodcastYouTube: Payson McElveenEmail: howdy@withpace.cc

Barry Wicks started racing professionally in 2002, competing on both the mountain bike and cyclocross world circuits. These days, he continues to race off road, but focuses much of his attention on managing Kona Factory Racing, the team he's been with since he signed his first pro contract. Last week, it was announced that he would be leading the new Bike Alliance with Protect Our Winters, a nonprofit that advocates for better climate legislation and large-scale measures for safeguarding the environment. Barry catches up with Payson to talk about how he confronted his own apathy towards the climate crisis and decided to step up. He recounts his experience going to Washington with Protect Our Winters earlier this year to talk to politicians about climate legislation, and why he decided to use his voice as a professional athlete to promote the environment. Usufruct: A Biking Story About Beetles and the Future of Our ForestsProtect Our Winters: protectourwinters.org Instagram: @withpacepodcastYouTube: Payson McElveenEmail: howdy@withpace.cc

Sam Pickman returns to the show to talk about Allied's first ever mountain bike, the BC40.  He and Payson discuss how long it's been in the works, collaborating with Barcelona-based Cero Design to get the look just right, and why they changed the name of the bike just before the launch. They also get into the technical side of things, including bike geometry and the carbon manufacturing process. Instagram: @withpacepodcastYouTube: Payson McElveenEmail: howdy@withpace.cc

Today on the show, we review the third race in the Lifetime Grand Prix, Crusher in the Tushar. Payson is joined by winner Haley Smith to discuss her emotional finish, her new position as a Grand Prix frontrunner, and the illness and self-doubt that made her path to this moment so uncertain. She also talks about how her mixed feelings about participating in the Tokyo Olympics are evolving with hindsight, and why she’s not fixating on the prospect of a Grand Prix win. Payson also answers all your questions about Crusher, from nutrition to Keegan Swenson’s dominance, and we hear from a few listeners who participated in the race.Instagram: @withpacepodcastYouTube: Payson McElveenEmail: howdy@withpace.cc

Daniel Oss has raced the Tour de France ten times and has noticed many changes over the years, from equipment to rider mentality. This year, he’s racing for a new team, TotalEnergies, where he followed friend and long-time teammate, Peter Sagan. He joins Payson from the first rest day of this year’s race to talk about how the Tour has changed since he first lined up for it in 2010, being Sagan’s right-hand man, and why the mental fatigue of The Giro d’Italia led him to start his Youtube series “Just Ride.”Payson also previews Crusher in the Tushar, the next installment of the Lifetime Grand Prix, and makes some predictions about this year's Tour de France.Instagram: @withpacepodcastYouTube: Payson McElveenEmail: howdy@withpace.cc

Annijke Wade joins Payson again, nearly a year after the mountain bike crash that left her paralyzed. The last time they talked on the show, she was living at Craig Hospital, a leading institute for spinal cord injuries. Now, she's home, learning the ins and outs of living with her injury. She talks about how she plans to spend the first anniversary of her crash, all the details about her new bike, and getting back on the trails with other adaptive athletes. She also talks about balancing optimism with realism. While she is technically paralyzed below the chest, she recently regained some musculature and sensation in parts of her body where she'd lost feeling. Now, she spends 40 hours per week on rehab, and talks to Payson about managing expectations while setting concrete goals for her recovery.Instagram: @withpacepodcastYouTube: Payson McElveenEmail: howdy@withpace.cc

Anton Krupicka fell in love with running at an early age. He competed in his first marathon when he was 12 and started running mountain ultras when he left college. He went on to win the Leadville 100 twice, and place second at the Western States 100 in 2010. These days, he’s added cycling and ski-mo to his competition schedule, recently completing the Unbound XL.In this interview, he tells Payson about growing up on a 600-acre farm in Nebraska and discovering mountain running when he moved to Colorado for college. After completing a few marathons, he went from running the Leadville Marathon to running and winning the Leadville 100 in just six weeks. He also talks about how injury forced him to diversify his athletic pursuits and how the mental and physical demands of ultra running differ from gravel racing. Instagram: @withpacepodcastYouTube: Payson McElveenEmail: howdy@withpace.cc

Gus Morton quit professional cycling at the age of 21 to pursue a career as a filmmaker. He was briefly pulled back into professional racing but left the sport for good in 2017, when he merged his two areas of expertise by creating the production company Thereabouts, which put an alternative lens on cycling that didn't revolve around competition or traditional,  straightforward narratives of accomplishment. Instead, the projects focus on "conveying the feeling rather than recounting the experience" of cycling adventures.In January of 2021, Gus joined endurance athlete Rebecca Rusch and photographer Chris Burkard on the first winter crossing of Iceland by bike. They set out to make a film about the experience, but the project became much more than a portrait of athletic endurance when Gus found himself trapped in Mexico for two weeks following the expedition, confronting a very different kind of struggle. In this conversation, he tells Payson about how his battle with alcoholism came to a head during that two-week stay in Mexico City, and why he decided to re-frame the film around his relapse and recovery. They talk about how he wrestled with alcohol as a professional cyclist, the moment he revealed to Chris and Rebecca that he'd relapsed after their trip, and the process of turning his experiences with addiction into a creative project. The film, 'I Am Here,' is in production. A Kickstarter campaign was launched earlier this month to fund the remaining work. Link to the Kickstarter campaign: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/chrisburkard/i-am-here-0Instagram: @withpacepodcastYouTube: Payson McElveenEmail: howdy@withpace.cc

In this week's episode, we hear from riders of all levels and distances of Unbound who tell us about their experiences participating in North America's biggest gravel event. Later in the show, Payson answers listeners' questions about the race. He addresses the muddy conditions, dynamics in the lead group of riders, the impact of WorldTour racers, aero bars, and all the crashes in the first 40 miles. Instagram: @withpacepodcastYouTube: Payson McElveenEmail: howdy@withpace.cc

Payson sits down with professional mountain biker and gravel racer Ryan Standish to preview the second race of the Lifetime Grand Prix, Unbound 200. They talk about the start list, a Who's Who of World Tour, gravel, and mountain bike racers, and make some predictions about the podium. They're also joined by unexpected guests Bobby Wintle, founder of The Mid South; and Howard Grotts, mountain bike Olympian and Grand Prix competitor.Ryan also talks about going all-in on racing after his father's MS diagnosis, his clothing line Rocket Sloth, and becoming an overnight celebrity after racing the Snowshoe World Cup short track in jorts. Instagram: @withpacepodcastYouTube: Payson McElveenEmail: howdy@withpace.cc