Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Bikes or Death podcast. As always, my name is Patrick,

and I'm your host. And I'm particularly excited about today's episode. It is with a

personal inspiration of mine and someone who I really look up to, and that is Chris Burkard.

He is a well-known photographer and storyteller who has brought his passion

for life and his dedication to be successful to the endurance cycling world. And the results are hard to

argue with. In 2019, he set a world record of the Wals Cyclothon in Iceland, traveling 844 miles in only 52 hours, 36 minutes, and 19 seconds.

He then put together a team and did the first ever traverse of Iceland through its interior on a bike and this time Chris entered arguably the

hardest cycling race in the world the tour divide it was evident from the start of this race that

Chris was there on a mission with a declared time of 15 days, his intentions were clear. And for much of that

race, he found himself on the pointy end and even ahead of Mike Hall's record setting pace.

And onslaught of mechanicals and navigation issues and harsh weather all played their role in this year's event. And in the end,

Chris touched the border wall in seventh place. A very impressive finish. And today, we're going to

talk all about it. But before we do, let's thank the people that made today's episode possible, starting

with our latest batch of patrons. So this week, we would like to thank Jason Willis, Patrick

Brown, Kevin Lang, Amanda Shee, and Quig for signing up to be sustaining members of the podcast.

And we would also like to thank Robert,

no last name, for increasing his monthly donation.

We appreciate all of our patrons.

They make these episodes possible.

And if you are enjoying this work and would like to support it,

you can find out more over at patreon.com forward slash bikes or death. All right, well, today's

episode is also brought to us by my friends over at hefe.com. That is their website address.

...