Ep. 79 - Brendan Heinig, when a Tour Divide 2nd feels like winning
Bikes or Death
Patrick Farnsworth
4.8 • 563 Ratings
🗓️ 8 July 2021
⏱️ 98 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When Brendan Heinig lined up to the start of this years Tour Divide "Classic" he didn't have any idea he'd be at the pointy end of the race with TD veteran Jay Petervary. If you didn't watch the dots as this race unfolded you missed a 1,500 mile "nail-biter"!!! That's because Brendan and Jay were able to put a lot of distance between them and their competitors, but not each other. In fact for the last 1,500 miles of the race they were rarely more than just a few miles apart and they often yo-yo'd back and forth for first place.
They were so close towards in end that they both found themselves in Pietown, NM at the same time and shared a pie for Jay's birthday. After that.....well, you'll just have to listen and find it!
I love an "underdog" story and this one hit all the right cords for me. I learned that Brendan began his Tour Divide journey in 2015 and only managed to break his bike and body. This is a story about his 6 year journey to get back on the Tour Divide and this time finishing was the only option. Being in contention for the lead, that's just a bonus.
This episode was made possible by support from these amazing Companies and Patrons.
Rockgeist - A cottage gear company specializing in custom framebags, accessory bags, and welded, waterproof gear from their Porcelain Rocket acquisition.
Ruby Coffee - A small coffee roasting company that sources their coffee from local farms and all of their coffee is roasted to order so it's always fresh.
Thanks to this week's newest supporting Patrons.
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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, |
| 0:04.8 | and I'm your host. And I'm so happy to be back this week. After last week's episode, I put out a |
| 0:12.1 | call to action, and y'all have stepped up in every way imaginable. I couldn't be more grateful, |
| 0:20.2 | more humbled, and I have been brought to tears |
| 0:24.0 | on several occasions just by the, oh man, by everything. It's been overwhelming. You know, it's a |
| 0:31.2 | hard thing to do to ask for help, especially when, you know, nobody made me start a podcast. |
| 0:36.8 | Nobody made me travel around and interview people and spend all my money trying to produce |
| 0:42.0 | this show. |
| 0:43.0 | But I had to realize that this show has become a lot bigger than just me. |
| 0:47.1 | All the guests, all the listeners, everybody who's been involved on so many levels that |
| 0:52.4 | I couldn't just fade off into the sunset without giving you a chance |
| 0:55.8 | to let your voice be heard. And I'm here to tell you that your voice has been heard. And |
| 1:02.3 | Bikes for Death is not going any damnware. Thanks to you, thanks to companies in the industry |
| 1:10.1 | who have stepped up to support Bikes for Death. |
| 1:13.5 | We're not all the way to our goal, but the response has been so overwhelming. |
| 1:17.6 | I know that we're going to make this happen. |
| 1:21.0 | So before we get to today's episode, let's give a huge, huge shout out to all of the newest patrons that have stepped up to |
| 1:30.0 | be sustaining members of the Bikes or Death podcast. As you learned in last week's episode, I |
| 1:34.8 | literally cannot do it without you. So let's give a huge shout out to these patrons that help |
| 1:40.4 | keep the lights on and keep the Bikes or Death podcast showing up in your podcasting feed. |
| 1:45.9 | This week's newest patrons are Paul Ress, Barry Spies, Ryan Williams, Robert Vanderbueman, |
| 1:54.8 | Aaron Chamberlain, Brad Cook, Amos Mayberry, Jonathan Robert, Lewis Clark, Anthony Patterson, Thomas Lane, Alex Tribble, |
... |
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