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Singletracks Mountain Bike Podcast

Iditarod 350 Bikepacking Race Winner Neil Beltchenko

Singletracks Mountain Bike Podcast

Singletracks.com

Wilderness, Sports

4.7574 Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2018

⏱️ 48 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Neil Beltchenko holds the record for both the Colorado Trail Race and the Arizona Trail 750, and is a contributor at Bikepacking.com. Neil recently won the Iditarod 350 bikepacking race in Alaska, and is hosting the second annual Bikepacking Summit in Gunnison, Colorado this September.
In this episode of the Singletracks podcast, I talk with Neil about bikepacking in Alaska, and the fundamental skills necessary to be a successful bikepack racer. Don’t miss this great interview!

--Keep up with the latest in mountain biking at Singletracks.com and on Instagram @singletracks

Transcript

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0:00.0

Something unexpected has arrived in Happy Meal. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Hello Kitty and friends are teaming up for the ultimate collab.

0:08.3

Joining your little ones on a fun-fueled adventure. Some fun, some food, it's all inside this happy meal.

0:16.3

Until the 2nd of February from 11am includes one pre-selected book or toy whilst it's last.

0:20.2

Hey everybody, welcome to the single tracks podcast. My name is Jeff, and today we're going to be talking

0:26.1

with bikepack racer Neil Belcchenko. Neil holds the record for both the Colorado Trail race and the Arizona

0:33.6

Trail 750, and he's a contributor at bikepacking.com. Neil recently won the Iditarod

0:40.3

350 bikepacking race in Alaska, and he's hosting the second annual bikepacking summit in

0:46.9

Gunnison, Colorado this September. Welcome to the show, Neil. Hey, thanks for having me, Jeff.

0:52.4

So this was your second year competing in the

0:55.7

Idira 350. Were there things that you learned last year that you were able to carry over

1:02.0

into this year's win? Yeah, so I've kind of been chatting with a bunch of people about this,

1:07.7

and really, it's so huge to have at least one finish under your belt.

1:14.7

There's just little things along the route that you kind of, you know, you gain knowledge of

1:19.8

along the way. And even just following somebody that's done the route in the past is huge.

1:25.5

So last year, you know, we started off the race. There was like six

1:29.5

racers in the lead pack. And basically all I was doing was just kind of observing what they do,

1:35.7

you know, a lot of, a lot of time wasted is in checkpoints. And so kind of figuring out, you know,

1:42.2

the best, the best kind of situation when you get into a checkpoint, you take off your clothes, you take off your boots, you put it next to the fire, you eat food right away, you hydrate, you fill up your camelback.

1:54.8

All of these things, you know, I learned just by observing what other racers were doing.

1:59.9

And so this year, coming back into the race, I was like,

2:02.2

all right, well, what can I do to kind of save those minutes and seconds in the checkpoints?

2:08.7

And, you know, a lot of things that the guys were doing were, you know, they were doing it swiftly

...

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