The Grand Prix is back and Hannah Otto is here to give a rundown of the first race of the season. She and Payson discuss the opposite tactics that played out in the men's and women's races, which new and returning riders caught their attention, and how the Cape Epic might have influenced the podium. They also answer a few listener questions and reveal the nutrition tip Hannah gave Payson the day before the race that ended up saving him on the day. Watch Life Time's Sea Otter Race...

After four years of pestering, Payson has finally convinced Nichole to return to the show to talk about her most recent trip to Uganda. In 2017, she visited the country for the first time to teach pathology residents and, based on her experiences and newfound connections there, started Path of Logic, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving cancer diagnostics and outcomes in equatorial Africa. She’s returned every year since to expand Path of Logic, and even started a Master’s program...

It takes a particular kind of grit to win the grueling 800-mile Atlas Mountain Race, and Cynthia Carson did it on less than five hours of sleep. The rising bikepacking star has had quite a year, winning Spain’s infamous desert race Badlands in September and becoming the first woman to finish in the top 10. Cynthia joins Payson this week to talk about how she rose so quickly from casual gravel cyclist to one of the top ultradistance racers in the world. She explains why she’s chosen to focus...

At 21 years old, Luke Lamperti is already riding for one of the biggest teams in the WorldTour, Soudal–Quick-Step, and he's hit the ground running. Since the season began, he’s racked up podiums at the Challenge Mallorca, the Muscat Classic, and the Tour of Oman, solidifying his place as a young rider to watch. Before signing with Quick-Step, he raced alongside Tom Pidcock on the Trinity Racing development team where he honed his reputation as a formidable sprinter, but he’s still figuring...

At approximately 12:30 a.m. last weekend, Beth McBride crossed the finish line of Mid South to a thunderous reception. The race is known for its celebration of riders of all levels, and the final rider to cross the finish line is arguably more of a celebrity than the first rider. Payson sat down with Beth to talk about her race, including overcoming her fear of riding in the dark, silencing the negative voices that she’s encountered over the years as a cyclist, and why the acknowledgment of...

In 2019, Morgan Aguirre decided to step outside of her comfort zone. Having never competed in any sports, she rented a bike from her local Trek store with the goal of riding 50 miles. Things escalated quickly, and soon, fellow Seattle resident (and now WorldTour rider) Veronica Ewers saw her posts on Strava and asked her to join the Fount Cycling Guild, a Seattle-based team geared towards new riders. But just as her aptitude for road racing was becoming increasingly apparent, Morgan made an...

During his eight years in the WorldTour, Paul Voss rode for some of the most successful teams in the sport, including Milram, Endura Racing, and Bora-Argon 18. In that time, he raced in multiple Grand Tours, and even wore the polka dot jersey for a stage of Tour De France in 2016. But in that same year, he was pushed off the Bora team when Peter Sagan signed on and brought several of his teammates with him. At 30, Paul retired from road racing, became a director sportif for Wiggins, did some...

In 2023, just four years after competing in his first bikepacking race, Ulrich Bartholmoes won the biggest race of them all, the Tour Divide. The 2,745-mile route is always at the mercy of the elements, but Ulrich and his two fellow race leaders found themselves in a particularly strange (and scary) predicament when cold temperatures and constant rain left more than a hundred miles of the route unrideable. In a stroke of luck, the three racers happened upon a porta potty in the Great Divide...

Danni Shrosbree knows a thing or two about multitasking. Having spent years juggling a full-time job in the footwear industry alongside professional road cycling, the British cyclist added the Life Time Grand Prix to her roster last year, traveling between races in Europe and the U.S. while holding down her in-person day job. Despite this grueling schedule, she placed 4th at Unbound a week after finishing the Ride London stage race.  Payson caught up with Danni in Girona to talk about the...

In 2016, Christian Meier made an unusual decision: at the age of 31, he walked away from a successful WorldTour career a year before his contract was due to end to focus on the coffee shop he and his wife had just opened in Girona, Spain. That year, they opened two more businesses. After dabbling in off-road racing for a couple of years, he made a second unconventional transition. He started competing in trail running events and found so much fulfillment in it that his focus began to...

Lawson Craddock grew up in the flatland of Houston but fought his way onto the WorldTour feeder team Trek-Livestrong when he was still a teenager. After turning pro three years later, he raced for Giant-Shimano, Cannondale, and his current team, Jayco–AlUla. In his 10 years in the WorldTour, he's taken podiums at the Vuelta, won the Time Trial National Championships in back-to-back years, and had a standout performance at the 2018 Tour de France, but not for the usual reasons. Lawson caught...

In 2022, Heidi Franz was approached with an enticing offer: B&B Hotels-KTM, a revamped team with a sky-high budget and some of the biggest WorldTour riders set to sign on, wanted her on its roster. But after months of unfulfilled promises and extensive press coverage, the team collapsed, leaving Heidi and dozens of other riders without a team right before the 2023 season. When an unknown team called Zaaf approached her and several other would-be B&B team members, there was nowhere...

Known to his fans as Jack Ultra Cyclist, Jack Thompson has been smashing world records left and right for close to a decade. Growing up in Perth, Australia, he struggled with depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder as a teenager and eventually entered rehab for a drug addiction. Once he was able to channel his focus into cycling, however, he found his element. Quitting his construction job and moving across the world, he found a niche tackling seemingly impossible ultra challenges and...

In 2014, Sam Gaze was a privateering teenager from a rural farming town in New Zealand when he took the men's title in the opening round of an eliminator World Cup in Cairns, Australia. With this breakout ride, he caught the eye of Specialized Racing and relocated to Europe, where he went on to claim five world titles, including U23 World Champion and Elite Marathon and Short Track World Champion. He now races for UCI team Alpecin–Deceuninck where he competes in the WorldTour as well as the...

Before migrating to off-road racing last year, Czech cyclist Petr Vakoč spent nearly 10 years racing in the WorldTour, most notably as a member of team Quick-Step. During his road career, he made the start list of multiple Grand Tours, including the Tour de France and the Giro d’Italia, and won the Brabantse Pijl in Belgium in 2016 after years of focused preparation. Payson sat down with Petr in Girona this week to talk about growing up in Prague and starting out mountain biking with his...

Even by the standards of WorldTour racing, Dennis van Winden’s career has seen a lot of highs and lows. Starting out on the legendary Rabobank development team as a teenager, he landed a spot on the WorldTour team and was starting to distinguish himself as a promising new talent when a catastrophic health incident changed his trajectory. He returned to Rabobank (then LottoNL–Jumbo) through 2016, but eventually stepped away from road racing and began focusing on the U.S. gravel scene. Now, he...

In this final episode of the year, Payson answers your questions about training, the 2023 season, UCI points, mustaches, and much more.  Instagram: @theadventurestache YouTube: Payson McElveen

This week, cycling trainer Derek Teel returns to answer more questions about strength training for endurance cyclists. He goes over the importance of mobility, how to do a proper push-up, and the equipment-free exercises everyone should be incorporating into their pre-ride routine. He also talks about some of his own endurance efforts, including double Everesting, in which he climbed over 58,000 feet in 27 hours, Everesting Roam, in which he climbed over 29,000 feet over 326...

Derek Teel began his career as a downhill mountain biker, only to pivot toward personal training when he became fascinated with his team’s trainers and nutritionists. Over time, he found a way to combine his two passions, and his company, Dialed Health, was born, a strength training program geared specifically toward cyclists. In this episode, Derek joins Payson to talk about why cyclists require a different kind of strength training than other athletes, and how conversations with his fellow...

Katie Burrell has been called the “action sports cult antihero” for her wildly popular videos satirizing the outdoor industry. Through YouTube videos and Instagram reels, the comedian has poked fun at everything from know-it-all mountain bikers to couples having relationship meltdowns in the middle of hiking expeditions. Now, she’s written, directed, and starred in her first feature-length film, ‘Weak Layers,’ which follows a woman in a ski town who tries to win a world-famous ski film...

After finishing high school in his native Australia, Angus Neaves devised the ultimate gap year plan: a 9,000-mile solo bikepacking trip from Mongolia to Scotland. After seven months and 16 countries, he finally completed the journey this week and joined Payson to talk about it. From the hospitality he found in Kazakstan to an impromptu trip to Gravel Worlds in Italy and a detour to Berlin for the museums, Angus found unexpected highlights along the way, in addition to some low points. He was...

Starla Teddergreen had an extensive professional cycling career behind her and a spot in the Life Time Grand Prix when she was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2022. Despite dropping out of the series due to the diagnosis, she reapplied in 2023 and completed the series.  Starla sat down with Payson this week to discuss the confusing mix of symptoms she began feeling during the pandemic and the skepticism and dismissal she received from doctors before finally receiving an MS diagnosis....

This week, photographer and adventurer Chris Burkard returns to the show to talk about moving to Iceland and his experience racing the Tour Divide this summer. Having spent the last decade exploring and documenting Iceland, Chris finally made the big move with his family. He tells Payson about why he decided the time was right, what it’s been like as a parent to watch his sons assimilate so quickly into the community, and how the current seismic activity has made him ponder the morality of...

For the past couple of weeks, Iceland has been shaking with earthquakes as an underground river of magma moves toward the surface. Over the weekend, more than 800 earthquakes were detected in 14 hours in the Reykjanes Peninsula in the southwest of the country, and nearly 4,000 people were evacuated from the small town of Grindavík. One of the people who has had a front-row seat to these events is Thrainn Kolbeinsson, a photographer who Payson worked with on both of his island crossing films....