Hello, friends and welcome back to the Bikes for Death podcast. As always, my name is Patrick, and I am your host.

And today we've got a great episode with Mr. Colorado Trail himself, Hefe Branum.

Hefe lives in Gunnison, Colorado, which basically puts the Colorado Trail and the Colorado

Trail race in his backyard, and it has been for about the past 30 years.

His relationship with the trail goes back to almost the very beginning of when he moved

there and hyped it for the first time.

Since then, he went on to bike pack it for the first time in 2007,

and he just completed the Colorado Trail Race for the ninth time.

And out of those nine finishes, he won four of them.

There are truly probably very few people who are more knowledgeable of the

Colorado Trail race than Hefe Branham, which is why he's earned the title Mr. Colorado Trail

over here at Bikes or Death. I really enjoyed our conversation. He's a super down-to-earth guy who has a lot

of experience on this race. And we talk about what keeps him coming back year after year,

what motivates him. And why does he keep coming back to one of the hardest bikepacking races there is?

But before we get to that episode, I want to extend a special thanks to all the supporters of the Bikes for Death podcast.

Legitimately a month ago, I had talked to my friends, my family, and I had come you know, come to the conclusion that it looks like this

might be the end of the road for at least a little while as I potentially refocus on my

real estate career. And I threw a hail Mary. And since then, I have been overwhelmed by all

of the support I've received. So let's give a special shout out to our newest sustaining patrons of the Bikes

for Death podcast, starting off with Mike Monroe, Lee Johnson, Matt Windsor, Mark Bryson, Pierre

Joven, Steve Capps, Boss Bertrand, Brianne O'Neill, and Eric Elbert.

Thank you all so much for signing up to be sustaining members of the Bikes for Death podcast.

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