White Rim Micro-Invitational – Feb 22nd

In December I had the most incredible solo ride across Utah’s White Rim Trail, located in Canyonlands National Park. December is not, as far as I know, a particularly popular time to embark on White Rim, probably because the desert’s fickle ability to be quite warm, or utterly freezing, within hours. Thankfully, my trip wasn’t planned, it was entirely impulsive: I looked at the immediate forecast, saw a window with lows in the high 20s F, and highs in the low 50s F, and knew deep down that as long as I was dry, those temperatures would be doable, if not a bit of an unknown to plan for. I’ve ridden White Rim five times, always in a day. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends. On this outing I wanted and needed to go alone, to get some think time and rekindle the flame that keeps me excited for the wild, unscripted bicycle lifestyle. The trip was a spectacular success. On the first day I started late and rode to camp in the sunset and utter darkness. Magic. On the second day I woke up to a cold morning that warmed quickly, and had the entire place to myself as I completed the loop. Having done the trip, I had an idea: Why not try to invite others to come and do this same trip with me? So that’s what the White Rim Micro-Invitational is: An incredibly limited space invite for people I know and don’t know to come and do that same trip with me again in late February, 2025.

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The Tour Divide, Day by Day

In June 2024, Edyn Teitge became, at 15, the youngest solo rider of the Tour Divide. This is his story via his own words, day by day through the ride. Images throughout by Edyn and Eddie Clark Media.

The Tour Divide is one of the world’s longest and most well-known off-road bikepacking races. Stretching nearly 2,700 miles from Banff, Alberta, Canada to the US-Mexico border at Antelope Wells, New Mexico, it closely follows the Great Divide Mountain Bike route along the spine of the continent. The route gains around 150,000 feet of elevation with conditions ranging from unkept narrow single-track sections of the CDT, to smooth gravel and dirt roads, to death mud, and to long stretches of pavement. And somehow I got it in my mind that it would be a “fun” thing to do. 

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Iceland by Skis. Iceland By Bike.

Cody Cirillo and Matthew Tufts approached us early this year with an inspiring pitch: They wanted to spend a couple of human-powered months riding the outer perimeter of Iceland on Rodeo Labs bikes, all the while carrying their skis, and peeling off to notch seemingly innumerable ski descents along the way. We get plenty of project pitches at Rodeo, but this one stood out because it combined a world that we know a lot about with a world that we know very little about, all in a land that we very much want to explore ourselves someday.

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The Rodeo Podcast: Tour Divide Recap

We sat down with two Rodeo athletes, Edyn Teitge and Cade Reichenberger, who both completed the 2,700 mile 2024 Tour Divide with class, and both in with their unique style. Cade rode to a 4th place overall finish in 15 days on his Rodeo Labs TD4, an incredible achievement on it’s own, but even more so considering that this was Cade’s first go at Divide as a relative newcomer to the genre. Not to be outdone, Edyn rode to the finish in 20 days, also on his TD4, becoming, at 15 years of age, the youngest solo rider to ever complete the event.

With stories this diverse it’s hard to fit them both into a single episode, but we gave it a good shot with hosts Logan Jones-Wilkins and Steve The Intern tossing in questions from their own cycling perspectives.

Here is a photo breakdown of Cade’s TD4, which featured flat bars, a Tailfin rear rack, and a Fox 32 50mm front suspension fork.

Edyn chose a different built type for his TD4, leaving it in drop bar configuration, and foregoing a suspension fork in favor of Redshift suspension stem and seatpost combo. As a Tailfin supported rider, Edyn enjoyed a particularly cool array of bags built specifically for his bike.

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Edyn’s ride in particular has been well covered in the media at the following links:

Bikepacking.com

velo.com

Bikes Or Death

Both Cade and Edyn wore our Explorts Expedition bibshorts, which are design with the demands of bikepacking and ultra racing in mind, and each also wore RDO lab jerseys with Edyn chosing our SPF Highlighter jersey, and Cade option for our Merino wool short sleeve jersey.

Both riders also ran our Rodeo 2.0 wheelsets.

Unbound: The Gloopy Glamour of Gravel

When you’ve been living in a place for ages, it’s easy to overlook its charm. Growing up just a couple of hours outside Emporia and spending most of my life in Kansas, I couldn’t fathom why people would travel from far and wide to race on seemingly dull and unchanging roads. But then, amid a grueling nearly 25-hour journey, a realization hit me like a lightning bolt. As I pedaled along the ridge, the undulating emerald hills stretched for miles while ominous thunderclouds loomed above—a quintessential Kansas storm rolling in to welcome me back. There was nothing to do but smile and hope it wasn’t too harsh. Soon, a refreshing 30-minute drizzle came to my rescue, and I found myself grateful for the momentary respite from the heat and electrified by the surrounding beauty.

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A Change Of Plans: Trans Virginia 565

Written, shot, and ridden By Benjamin Carpenter

Changing plans is an enevitable element of life I find myself in constant confrontation with be it the weather, my body, my family or my work life. It’s a constant flux, and maybe probably for good reason. Change keeps me on my toes, and constantly adapting, but  the same is true about bikepackng, or any long ride that covers many miles in a prolonged amount of time. Dealing with change and adapting is how I flourish.

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Armenia Dispatch: Chapter 2 – The blitz

Armenia Bikepacking

Words and images by Evan Christensen with supplemental images by Stephen Fitzgerald

When I walked through Tom’s door and saw a flood of bikes and bags and cameras sprawling over the floor on the other side, I knew I was walking into another adventure entirely. Bo and I had been alone, just the two of us, for months up to the point. We’d ridden with other people for two days at the most, and in the three months riding to Armenia together we had developed a harmonious rhythm. It had been dug deep and as we fell deeper into that entrancing rut we rode through splendor and excitement and pangs and a new world at our own pace. We were happy with it. I felt like it could have gone on forever. 

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The Rodeo Podcast: Jay Petervary’s Tour Divide

Photo credit Eddie Clark.

As bike enthusiasts or even, dare I say, bike nerds, we obsess over bikes, gear, weight, suspension (or lack thereof), geometry, and tires. We can’t help but keep track of what are the the latest trends and tech. So when bikepacking.com releases their the famous list of participants bikes and photos tackling an event, we can’t help but ogle at the myriad of choices. We are giddy with excitement for what is to come; often untold hardship and profound moments for the participants. On the other side dot watchers are all over checking in at various points throughout the day only imaging the vast terrain that yields slow, but steady progress.

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Rodeo Podcast EP8: Arkansas High Country Race

On the eighth episode of the podcast, Nik and Stephen virtually catch up with Ashley Carelock and Dr. Seth Wood. They both recently competed in the 2020 Arkansas High Country Race and both set Fastest Known Time(s) (FKT). Your hosts dig into the experience the only way they know how, excitedly asking questions about what happened, like gear choices, or in Seth’s case a single gear!

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