Ep. 86 - Jeff Kerkove, Determined to Finish
Bikes or Death
Patrick Farnsworth
4.8 • 563 Ratings
🗓️ 1 September 2021
⏱️ 76 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This episode is all about determination and perseverance. In 2007 Jeff Kerkove took on the Colorado Trail Race (CTR) as his first bikepacking race. He came into the bikepacking world with an accomplished racing career in 12 and 24 hour events. That year he DNF'd due to trench foot, a mistake he never made again. He would go on to attempt the CTR 5 more times, each with the same result, a DNF on the CTR. This year would be different for Jeff. He lined up to the start line for his seventh time, armed with all the knowledge of his previous attempts, and just as determined to finish. This year his perseverance and determination paid off with his first finish on the CTR. He finished in a very respectable 7th place with a time of 5 day, 1 hour. I love this story and I'm so glad Jeff got that "monkey off his back" and he came on the show to share it with us.
Jeff is also one of the main folks behind Ergon USA, so I took the opportunity to talk about their grips and saddles particularly as they relate to bikepackers and ultra endurance cyclist. Hand pain, wrist pressure, saddle sores, are common issues that come up and they make some good products that help address these issues. *This is not an advertisement for Ergon, he happens to work there, and I was curious.
Visit www.bikesordeath.com for the full writeup, pictures of Jeff's CTR, and picture from a 2018 bikepacking trip Jeff helped me plan in Colorado.
Episode Sponsors: tell them thanks for making this episode possible!
Kuat: This week Tom Lampe came on to tells us a little about the Piston Pro X
Quad Lock: Ben Moore has been riding with QL for 4 years and he came on to share some of his experiences!
Thanks to this week's newest sustaining Patrons and welcome to The After Party 🎉
🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
Anders Hedegaard
Annie Bilotta
Angela Kremers
Reese Stanley
Reid mikalsen
Bill Dietrich
Adam Murphy
Hans Noodleman
Indiana Schulz
Minnie Irizarri
🖤🖤🖤🖤🖤
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hello, bike friends, and welcome to the Bikes for Death podcast. |
| 0:03.8 | As always, my name is Patrick, and I am your host. |
| 0:07.3 | And today's episode is with Jeff Kirkove. |
| 0:10.9 | Could you imagine doing the Colorado Trail six times and D&Fing every single time, |
| 0:20.4 | only to come back for a seventh time and finally finish. |
| 0:25.6 | Well, that's exactly what Jeff did. His journey started in 2007 when he tackled the Colorado |
| 0:33.4 | Trail race as his first bikepacking event. And obviously he didn't finish. But what's amazing |
| 0:42.9 | about this is how he never quit. He never gave up. He never lost hope or determination or |
| 0:48.5 | grit or motivation or anything else that he needed, whatever he needed to get him to finally finish the Colorado Trail. |
| 0:57.8 | It was really cool to hear his story. I have a lot of respect for him. Just because of that, |
| 1:03.7 | I mean, what else do you need to know about a person if they're willing to fail at something? |
| 1:08.9 | I hate to say fail because he ultimately completed it. But until he |
| 1:11.9 | completed it, I mean, he kept, and also if you talk about failure, it's like, man, there's so |
| 1:16.9 | many variables and so many things that could go wrong. Is it like a personal failure, a mechanical |
| 1:21.3 | failure? So I don't really like the word failure, but let's just say he didn't finish six times. |
| 1:27.1 | And then to come back a seventh time and do it is just a truly incredible story. |
| 1:32.9 | My hat's off to him and I want to give a special shout out to Lee Bo who also just completed the Colorado Trail Race, but she sent me an email saying that she listened to the |
| 1:45.3 | Bikes or Death podcast quite a bit on her run, so I appreciate that. It's always cool to hear |
| 1:50.3 | that the podcast is helping people get through their rides or races or whatever it may be. |
| 1:55.6 | But she was the one who requested this interview, and I'm glad she did because Jeff is somebody who actually helped me |
| 2:03.1 | out with a bike packing trip in Colorado way back in 2018. So it was nice to hop on Zoom with him, |
| 2:10.0 | get a chance to think of them in person and also hear this incredible story. So thank you, Lee, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Patrick Farnsworth, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Patrick Farnsworth and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.