Ep. 205 ~ Rockstar Women, hosted by Kayla Hall
Bikes or Death
Patrick Farnsworth
4.8 • 563 Ratings
🗓️ 13 August 2025
⏱️ 104 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Today on the Bikes or Death podcast it's all about the ladies! For the first time ever I turned the microphone, and podcast, over to the talented Kayla Hall who guest hosted today's episode!
Her guests for today's podcast are Abi Snyder, Jenny Klecak, and Leila Husain, who among other things, participated in this year's Rockstar Challenge. A 270ish mile, singletrack focused, backcountry bikepacking race in Virginia that boasts about 40k feet of elevation.
Each of these Rockstar Women put on an impressive performance, all beating the previous Fastest Known Time. Abi took the overall Grand Depart win and set a new FKT. Leila was 3rd overall and 2nd place female. And, Jenny, who had to scratch from the Grand Depart came back just 2 weeks later and set a new FKT, besting Abi's time by 2 hours.
Another story from today's episode that caught my ear was when Leila got a stick lodge into her leg on a descent. I'll let Leila tell that story, but trust me, you're gonna wanna hear it (or maybe not 😬).
I want to send a special shout out to Kayla for doing such a fantastic job facilitating a fun and engaging conversation! She emailed me this idea a couple of months ago and it seemed like the perfect opportunity to turn the platform over to the ladies for this conversation. And she killed it! Kayla is lining up for the Silk Road Mountain Race in a couple of days, so make sure to send her some good vibes.
Housekeeping: my computer is on the fritz and I can't post this to the Bikes or Death website yet, so in the meantime just find it wherever you pod (or in my bio links).
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, friends, and welcome back to the Bikes or Death podcast. |
| 0:04.1 | As always, my name is Patrick, and today I am not your host. |
| 0:09.2 | Today, we're mixing things up, and Kayla Hall is going to be a special fill-in guest host for the Bikes or Death podcast today. |
| 0:18.1 | We are shaking things up. |
| 0:20.7 | So a little bit of backstory, a couple |
| 0:22.6 | months ago, Kayla sent me an email with a show idea to highlight the women of the rock star |
| 0:30.1 | bikepacking race that takes place in Virginia. What she didn't know at the time when she reached |
| 0:35.5 | out to me is that I'd been percolating an idea to open up the microphone and potentially showcase other voices in the backpacking space. |
| 0:46.6 | And when Kayla brought me this idea, she was obviously very passionate about it. |
| 0:51.6 | She was familiar with all of the riders that were going to be on today's |
| 0:55.2 | episode. She was obviously like really excited and passionate about this idea. And so I thought it |
| 1:02.6 | would be a good idea to turn the microphone over to the ladies today and let them take the Bikes |
| 1:10.4 | or Death podcast for a spin. So yeah, today's |
| 1:13.6 | going to be a little bit different. Kayla Hall is going to be your host. And on today's podcast, |
| 1:18.4 | she has three great guests, Jenny, Abby, and Leila, all who participated in the rock star |
| 1:26.6 | bikepacking race earlier this year. Not only did they participate, |
| 1:30.9 | but they absolutely crushed it out there. When Kayla emailed me, she said all three of these |
| 1:36.8 | women beat the current FKT this year. Abby took the overall win during the Grand Depart and the fastest known time, beating the previous |
| 1:47.1 | fastest known time by eight hours. And then two weeks later, Jenny went back after a DNF and |
| 1:54.4 | bested that new FKT by another two hours. That was fascinating, as was the stick that got lodged into Leila's leg. |
| 2:06.0 | A lot of good conversations on today's episode. |
| 2:08.8 | I have to admit, it was kind of interesting just turning over the platform completely |
... |
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