Ep. 185 ~ Justinas Leveika, New Tour Divide FKT!
Bikes or Death
Patrick Farnsworth
4.8 • 563 Ratings
🗓️ 13 July 2024
⏱️ 111 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Eight years ago Mike Hall made history and etched his name in the record books, and in the hearts of an entire community, with his record setting Tour Divide time of 13d 22h 51m. Since then, hundreds of others have lined up for the Tour Divide grand depart to chase his dot to the US/Mexico border. This year, on his second attempt, Jusinas Leveika became the first person to best Mike Hall's record with an official time of 13d 2h 16.
Justinas entered the world of ultra bikepack racing in 2021with a 4th place finish at Transpyrenees. Since then, he's racked up too many podium finishes to list, in the hardest bikepack races our sport has to offer. Last year, at Tour Divide, Justinas came in 2nd to Uba Bartholmoes and was plagued with mechanicals and bad weather. This year he came back with one goal, fix his mistakes.
While weather played a major role in this year's Tour Divide, nothing was going to stop Justinas. He got an early lead over his competitors and Uba, in particular, put on a hell of a chase, but in the end Justinas wouldn't be caught. On today's episode we get to know the man behind the dot, the man who has the honor of besting Mike Hall's time, Justinas Leveika.
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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, |
| 0:05.4 | and I am your host. And on today's episode, I am extremely excited and honored to bring you a |
| 0:12.5 | conversation with the new Tort divide FKT holder, Ustinus Laveca, who just became the first person to beat the long-standing record set by Mike Hall eight years ago with an official time of 13 days, two hours, and 16 minutes. |
| 0:35.2 | Eight years ago, Mike Hall made history and etched his name in the record books and in the hearts of an entire community, with his record setting Tortovi time of 13 days, 22 hours, and 51 minutes. |
| 0:51.0 | And since then, hundreds of people have lined up at the tortivide grand apart to chase his |
| 0:56.9 | dot to the u.s mexico border and this year on his second attempt eustinus became the first person |
| 1:06.1 | with an official time besting the eight-year record set by Mike Hall. |
| 1:12.5 | This is indeed a very exciting and a historic moment in our sport, |
| 1:17.8 | and I'm just stoked that I was able to catch up with Oostanus after his Tourdivide run this year, |
| 1:26.2 | and before he switches his caps from racer to race director |
| 1:32.2 | because this episode is coming out on Saturday and he is the race director of bright midnight |
| 1:39.3 | which kicks off tomorrow on Sunday so if you're looking for some more dot watching after this year's |
| 1:46.0 | Tour Divide, that might be a good one to follow. But for today's episode, Ustinus and I had a |
| 1:52.0 | wonderful chat. It was an absolute pleasure. And I'm so excited for him. This is an exciting time. |
| 1:58.7 | And I'm excited for you to hear our chat. But before we get |
| 2:03.7 | into it, let's take a moment to thank the people that made it possible starting with our |
| 2:08.3 | latest patrons. Well, normally we would include our latest patrons in this segment, but we |
| 2:13.6 | didn't have any this week. So if you appreciate these episodes |
| 2:18.4 | and the work we do over here at Bikes for Death, |
| 2:20.9 | you can support our efforts directly |
| 2:22.8 | over at patreon.com forward slash bikes or death. |
| 2:28.5 | And today's episode is also brought to us |
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