Ep. 99 ~ Brett Stepanik, Ozark Gravel Doom FKT
Bikes or Death
Patrick Farnsworth
4.8 • 563 Ratings
🗓️ 10 January 2022
⏱️ 134 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Four days ago Brett Stepanik became the first person to complete the Doom Loop with a time of 3d 12h 9m. Doom is the brainchild of Andrew Onermaa, it's located in the Ozark National Forest it's 376 miles with 41,375 ft of climbing and almost all gravel. Andrew joins us at the top of this episode to share his thoughts on Doom before Brett hops on the mic.
Brett is no stranger to bikepacking and ultra endurance efforts. He first got into bikepacking in 2012 and his most notable accomplishment is becoming the Single Speed Triple Crown Champion (TDR, CTR, AZT). At this past Arkansas High Country he set a new SS FKT and finished 4th overall. Something about Arkansas got under his skin and Ozark Gravel Doom was a perfect excuse to come back to Arkansas.
It's by happenstance that Brett and I were able to meet up. I had coincidentally reached out to him about being a guest on the podcast at the same time he was scheming up this FKT, the stars aligned and we were able to meet up after he finished his race. Brett faced challenging conditions, namely freezing cold temps and lots of water crossings, making his effort even more impressive. Brett wanted to start the year off right and I'd say he accomplished that! Now what will he do the rest of the year? I'll be watching.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and happy new year from the Bikes for Death podcast. As always, my name is Patrick and I'm your |
| 0:04.7 | host and I'm looking forward to getting this year started with another great episode. Brett Stepanick is a |
| 0:12.1 | legend in bike packing. He's mostly known for setting the Triple Crown Champion on a single speed. |
| 0:19.2 | That's the Tour Divide, CTR, and AZT. And just recently, he came to Arkansas |
| 0:25.7 | to try to become the first person ever complete the gravel doom loop, which he was able to do in |
| 0:31.1 | three days, 12 hours, and 9 minutes. I followed him around in my van and caught up with him throughout his ride, at least on |
| 0:40.1 | day three. So on this episode, we're going to have some clips from him. Well, I think it's just one |
| 0:46.1 | clip when I caught up to him out there. I didn't want to bother him too much. I did take his |
| 0:50.9 | picture, but for the most part, I tried to leave him alone, focus, and let him do his thing. |
| 0:55.7 | And today's intro is going to be a little short because I am trying to get this episode out to y'all, |
| 1:02.5 | and then I am headed to Missouri to go interview Hal Russell. |
| 1:07.1 | And then I want to remind everybody that on this Wednesday, so this will be coming out Monday, January the 10th, and this Wednesday, the 12th, we are going to be at the Natural State Rockin Republic, and we're going to be doing a live and in-person podcast so i'm going to be interviewing |
| 1:30.4 | the lachuga family scotty ernie eli and ethan they're two 10-year-old twin boys and you're invited |
| 1:38.8 | that's going to be at 630 on wednesday night and i'll probably go for like a couple hours |
| 1:43.4 | we'll just kind of see how it goes. |
| 1:44.9 | But no RSVP. It's free to enter. So just come and heckle us and say hi. |
| 1:51.6 | All right. So let's get this one in the can and out to all you beautiful people. |
| 1:54.4 | But before we do that, let us give a huge shout out to the folks that made this episode possible. |
| 2:00.1 | Starting with our newest patrons |
| 2:01.8 | drew rainy jim sevilly eric warren jesska swanson kyle gilbert ryan boswell andrew young |
| 2:11.4 | howard chapman john gibson casey peters and john campbell Thank you all so much for stepping up to be |
| 2:19.3 | sustaining members of the Bikes for Death podcast. This is an eight-day podcasting trip that I'm on, |
... |
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