Ep. 990: Continental Divide Trail by Bike - Kurt Refsnider
Adventure Sports Podcast
Curt Linville
4.6 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 18 December 2023
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
More than 20 years ago, 7th-grade Kurt entered his first mountain bike race at the Minnesota Zoo, and he's been racing and adventuring on bikes ever since. After bouncing around the road and scenes while in graduate school, he eventually returned to the dirt and became enamored by probing mental and physical limits in multi-day ultra endurance events, winning and setting records in some of the toughest bikepacking races in the United States – Tour Divide, the Arizona Trail 300 and 750, the Colorado Trail Race, the Iditarod Trail Invitational, and more.
Today we’re honing in on Kurt’s recent completion (only the third ever) of biking the CDT. Yes, most of the CDT is bikeable (I didn’t know this), with the opportunity to take different routes through the non-bikeable wilderness segments. This trail is hard so even for a seasoned and record-breaking cyclist like Kurt, the mileage doesn’t come easy.
Rugged backcountry trails are where he loves riding the most. He rides for the Industry Nine - Pivot Pro Backcountry team, and beyond pedaling his bike, Kurt is a co-founder of and the Routes Director at Bikepacking Roots, a cycling coach, a former geology professor, and an advocate for landscapes, backcountry trails, and climate.
IG: https://www.instagram.com/kurt.refsnider/
Coaching website: https://www.ultramtb.net/
Team website: https://backcountry-mtb.com/
Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands
Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | Hey, folks, welcome to the adventure sports Podcast. I'm your host, Mason. Today is episode 990, which is crazy. And we're talking to somebody who I've known about for years and have always wanted to get on the show. But, you know, there's just so many great adventures out there. |
| 0:38.0 | You almost, you know, a year, two years, three years can go by before you've made the connection. Well, I was able to connect with Kurt, Ref Snyder, and we're going to hear about his most recent epic adventure, which is the Continental Divide Trail, which I'm sure you've heard of, but he's doing it by bike. And you might be asking, I thought, you know, bikes couldn't go on that |
| 0:56.9 | trail. Well, that's true for a lot of... Continental Divide Trail, which I'm sure you've heard of, but he's doing it by bike. And you might be |
| 0:54.5 | asking, I thought, you know, bikes couldn't go on that trail. Well, that's true for a lot of the trail, but quite a bit of it. I'd say most of it, you can ride a bike on. It's just really, really, really, really difficult, kind of like the Colorado Trail. It's, you know, mostly known as a hiking trail, but technically you can ride a bike on it. |
| 1:11.4 | It's just really hard because it's not a lot of it's not actually bikeable. |
| 1:15.9 | It's, you know, you've got a hiking bike and carry it over big passes and huge steps and down huge steps. |
| 1:22.7 | It's really wild. |
| 1:24.3 | Well, the Continental Divide Trail is similar. |
| 1:26.2 | And what's cool about Kurt's story is, |
| 1:28.9 | I mean, he literally has 20 adventures he could do, if not more, that we could have as its own |
| 1:34.6 | individual podcast. We wanted to focus on this one because it was so unique and something I'd |
| 1:39.5 | never done. And if you know anything about Kirk's story, you know that he was a professor for years and taught geology and studied geology. |
| 1:48.0 | And after years of education left all that to pursue some of the biggest and not only pursue, but win and set records on some of the toughest bikepacking races in the world. |
| 2:00.6 | The Tour Divide, the Arizona Trail 300 and 700, the Colorado Trail, the Iditarod Trail. |
| 2:07.1 | All these races, he was not only winning, but sometimes setting course records that still stand today. |
| 2:13.2 | And with his background in geology and love for kind of the earth and love for exploration, |
| 2:18.6 | he brings a really unique perspective to bikepacking and also adventure and is a co-founder |
| 2:24.1 | of bikepacking routes, an organization all about the culture and kind of promoting the sport |
| 2:30.2 | of bikepacking. |
| 2:31.2 | And I remember him from my early bikepacking days. |
| 2:34.1 | He was kind of a well-known figure because of all the races he was taken down. And I remember him from my early bikepacking days. He was kind of a well-known |
| 2:35.2 | figure because of all the races he was taken down. And I remember his absolutely epic mullet back then, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Curt Linville, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Curt Linville and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.