Ep. 132 ~ Ernie Lechuga, finding God and an FKT on the Arkansas High Country
Bikes or Death
Patrick Farnsworth
4.8 • 563 Ratings
🗓️ 1 November 2022
⏱️ 105 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Ernie Lechuga is no stranger to cycling success at a high level. He began his road cycling career in the 90's and earned a spot on the coveted Team Jelly Belly. After retiring he moved to NW Arkansas where he now helps other cyclist unlock their potential through his coaching business, Leborne Coaching. In recent years he's been signing up for more endurance cycling events. He's done Silk Road twice and this was his fourth attempt a the Arkansas High Country Race. Last year he had to pull out of the ARHCR due to liver problems that almost cost him his life.
This year, he came back with a plan to set a new FKT (Fastest Known Time) with a goal of 4 days, 8 hours. The previous FKT was set by Ted King in 2020 with a time of 4d 20h 51m, Ernies goal would put him well again of King if he was able to pull it off.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Bikes for Death podcast. As always, my name is Patrick, |
| 0:04.9 | and I'm your host. And on today's episode, my guest is Ernie Lechuga, who just set a new FKT on the Arkansas |
| 0:13.9 | High Country. The former FKT was set by Ted King back in 2020, and he got a time of four days, 20 hours. |
| 0:24.3 | Ernie was able to beat that with a time of four days and 14 hours, shaving six hours off the fastest known time. |
| 0:33.9 | But that FKT did not come easy. |
| 0:55.1 | Ernie had to dig deep. He battled Schmer's neck. And on this episode, he shares what it took to put together an amazing effort and ultimately walk away with a new FKT on the Arkansas High Country, thousand mile route. |
| 0:57.3 | If you're not familiar with Ernie, he's actually been on the podcast a couple times, |
| 1:01.2 | so you can search through the past episodes and listen to some of them if you want more Ernie |
| 1:07.0 | after this. |
| 1:08.3 | But listen, Ernie has been an elite cyclist for a very long time. He started a |
| 1:15.5 | road racing career in the 90s, eventually wound up on Team Jellybelly, and raced at the highest level |
| 1:23.7 | for a long time. After that, he found his way to Arkansas, where he now is the co-owner |
| 1:31.1 | of LeBorne coaching. And to boot, he's just an all-around supremely great human being. I've always |
| 1:39.7 | enjoyed my chats with Ernie, and this one is no exception. I appreciate his openness and his candor |
| 1:47.4 | during this interview and giving us a peek into what was going on behind the scenes and in his mind |
| 1:54.8 | and in his body during this absolutely amazing effort. Congrats Ernie. Well, before we get into today's episode, |
| 2:03.2 | let's take a moment to thank the people who make these episodes possible. We can't do it |
| 2:09.0 | without support. And so I would like to thank our newest patrons, but unfortunately we haven't |
| 2:16.6 | had any sign up this week. So instead, what I'd like to do |
| 2:21.9 | is send a shout out to our longest patrons, patrons who have been with us for years. So I'm |
| 2:31.2 | going to shout out the 10 longest sustaining members of the Bikes for Death podcast, starting with Paul Drees. |
| 2:39.9 | He signed up back on March 30th, 2019. |
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