Ep. 214 ~ Daniel "Dirty Dan" Connell, Pacific Coast FKT
Bikes or Death
Patrick Farnsworth
4.8 • 563 Ratings
🗓️ 19 May 2026
⏱️ 146 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Daniel Connell, aka "Dirty Dan" is fresh off setting a new FKT on the Pacific Coast route from Alaska to the Mexican border.
Dan ripped down the coast on his new, yet-to-be-released Trek Domane, setting a new time to beat: 6 days, 15 hours, 53 minutes.
What some people may not know is that Dan is also preparing for a Guinness Book of World Records attempt on the Pan-American Route from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, to Ushuaia, Argentina this July. He initially approached the Pacific Coast ride as part of his training for Pan-Am, but it became much more than a tune-up. For Dan, this was a stand-alone achievement and a deeply personal accomplishment.
It also gave him the perfect opportunity to test the bike, setup, systems, and mindset he plans to carry into July. By the numbers, and by his own account, it was a clean run — the kind of ride that should send him into the next big challenge with a whole lot of confidence.
One thing that really stands out, besides the overall time, is his daily mileage:
- Day 1 — 280 mi / 11,738 ft / 16h 55m
- Day 2 — 212 mi / 10,019 ft / 14h 27m
- Day 3 — 240 mi / 12,423 ft / 16h 57m
- Day 4 — 198 mi / 13,174 ft / 14h 6m
- Day 5 — 238 mi / 15,679 ft / 17h 17m
- Day 6 — 492 mi / 20,471 ft / 32h 24m
That's remarkably consistent… until the final push, where he absolutely emptied the tank.
In today's episode, we talk about that monster final effort, how the ride unfolded, what he learned from the bike and setup, and what comes next as Dirty Dan looks ahead to his Pan-American World Record attempt.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I just had fun. I mean, I had so much fun. And so like, that really helped because, yeah, |
| 0:06.6 | I did have some tough things come up, you know, a little bit. And it just got completely overpowered |
| 0:12.6 | by like the joy, you know. I'm sure that played a part in, you know, it going quite well from |
| 0:18.0 | like an FKT perspective. |
| 0:22.6 | Hello, friends and welcome back to the Bikes for Death podcast presented by Old Man Mountain. |
| 0:28.1 | As always, my name is Patrick and I am your host. |
| 0:31.8 | And on today's episode, I am more than excited to bring you a conversation that I just had with Daniel Connell, also known as |
| 0:39.4 | Dirty Dan on the internet. Dan is fresh off setting a new fastest known time on the Pacific |
| 0:46.9 | coast, which will be the kind of meat and potatoes of today's episode. But what some people may not |
| 0:53.8 | know is that Dan is currently preparing for a |
| 0:57.6 | world record attempt at the Pan American route going from Prudo Bay, Alaska, down to Ushawa in |
| 1:05.0 | South America. He's getting ready to leave in July. And so this Pacific Coast ride was a part of his training and preparation leading up to that. |
| 1:16.9 | I'd say it went pretty well. |
| 1:18.8 | And that's what we have to look forward to in today's episode. |
| 1:23.1 | But before we get to it, let us take a moment to thank the people that made it possible, starting with Eric Finner from Old Man Mountain. |
| 1:35.7 | All right, everybody, welcome back to the podcast. Eric Finner, back to tell us about a brand new product once again from Old Man Mountain. |
| 1:42.9 | This time, the Manzanita |
| 1:45.4 | cradle, which is a really impressive. I've got to see it in person, has a lot of great features. |
| 1:51.9 | But the first thing I wanted to ask you about is the collaboration between Old Man Mountain and |
| 1:57.7 | salsa, where that came from and how that contributed to bringing |
| 2:02.6 | this to market. |
| 2:03.9 | Yeah, that was a surprise for us and a fun one. |
... |
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