Meaghan Hackinen: Silk Road Mountain Race/Triple Crown Recap

With her win of the women’s category (and 10th overall) at the Silk Road Mountain Race recently, Meaghan has smashed her goal of completing all three Mountain Races in the series in a single season (Atlas in Morocco, Hellenic in Greece and Silk Road in Kyrgyzstan). She wanted to establish a women’s record in these prestigious events and had an additional goal to get more women on the starting lines. We are thrilled to have had to chance to do a Triple Crown recap and Q&A with Meaghan.

Show notes (condensed):
Meaghan is the 1st woman to complete all three mountain races in a single season, and the 2nd fastest person overall.
What was the inspiration behind this challenge? It was a 40th bday present to herself, to set this challenge of completing these events in one season with the additional goal of gaining visibility and more women on start lines.

Stats:
1) Atlas Mountain Race
Morocco: 1,350 km with 25,000m of climbing – 2nd place / 17th overall
5 days, 1 hr, 30 mins

2) Hellenic Mountain Race
Greece: 833 km and 25,000m of climbing – 1st place / 9th overall
4 days, 7 hrs

3) Silk Road Mountain Race
Kyrgyzstan: 1900 km and 30,000m of climbing – 1st place / 10th overall
9 days, 4 hours, 6 minutes
Total time: 18 days, 12 hrs, 36 mins

*About Meaghan:*
Meaghan Hackinen is a writer and ultra-endurance cyclist from Canada’s West Coast. Her two-wheeled adventures have taken her from Haida Gwaii to Mexico’s high plateaus, across Canada and the United States, and from North Cape to Tarifa along some of Europe’s highest paved roads. In addition to being the 2024 Tour Divide winner in the women’s division, she is a Trans Am Bike Race, NorthCape4000, Transcontinental Race, and Paris-Brest-Paris finisher. Meaghan is also a 2X World 24 Hour Time Trial Champion and current Women’s Course Record Holder (478.8 miles).

Follow her adventures on Instagram @meaghanhackinen and check out her writing & events at https://meaghanhackinen

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All right. Hey everybody, welcome back. This is our third and final race recap with Megan Hackinan in her whirlwind year of taking on each of the three infamous mountain races totaling over 4,083 brutal kilometers in 18 days, 12 hours, and 36 minutes. My name is Taylor Kirk White and I’m a part of our small but mighty customer service team here at Redshift. So if you reach out to us with compatibility questions or uh warranty concerns, I may be one of the folks that you’re working with today. We are hearing from Megan about the Silk Road mountain race in Kir Gigstan. If you haven’t already, check out uh Red Ship Sports YouTube channel to catch our previous two conversations with Megan, where she covers in gripping detail her experience at the Atlas and Helenic mountain races. So, uh Megan is not only a multi-time world champion cyclist, um and the first woman ever to complete all three mountain races in a single season. Uh, but she’s also an absolutely incredible storyteller. So, it’s a great way to spend a lunch break or pass some miles and wonder while you’re out on a ride. So, go check those conversations out. Um, and can’t wait to hear from you today, Megan, about uh the Silk Silk Road Mountain Race and just hear a little bit of reflection about, you know, all three races in a single season. Um, so maybe we can just kind of kick things off and and hear a little bit about what inspired you to take on this triple crown. Thanks for having me here, Taylor, and thanks for doing the math on how long I was out there for and the mileage. It’s uh it’s cool to see that all put together. I turned 40 this year and I was kind of inspired by this big birthday to swing swing big, you know, do something um do something even larger than I’ve done before. In 2024, I did the tour divide. So, that’s kind of a hard one to top, but the mountain races definitely did it. Not quite as much distance, but longer time out there, three countries, more varied terrain. Um, I really wanted to to challenge myself because I’m competitive, but I also wanted to be like a a contributing force in the growing and dynamic women’s field. And, you know, in bike pack racing, we’ve seen the women’s field grow. It’s been exciting to be part of that community and and that competition. The Mountain Race Series dedicates equal coverage to men and women, so it was um it was yeah, cool to get some good media coverage as well, I guess. Um, and uh, I I’m really excited that I committed myself to the season and it feels great to wrap things up in this position. That’s incredible. We’ve really loved seeing you be a part of the, you know, global conversation, too, about the women’s field growing and inspiring people and really making an impact. So, thank you. Um, yeah, without further ado, let’s let’s jump in. For sure. So I’m going to present um a screen share. I have a yeah a few slides I guess to show and then we will jump into some more questions. Yeah, pictures are part of the fun. Pictures are part of the fun. Right on. Look forward to this part. Yeah. Uh so let me see. Okay. Can you see that? Looks great. Okay. Yeah. Great. We have like a skull of a big horn sheep. So, I’m going to bring you up to speed on the first two mountain races um before we move into Silk Road and then some Triple Crown kind of highlights and questions. Awesome. First, the first race of the year was Atlas Mountain Race. This took place in February. So, it kind of pulled me uh out of the deep Canadian winter and into the heat of Morocco. It was 1,300k uh covered 21,000 mters of elevation and the route goes from Marrakesh uh to a Sera. Um it was a really challenging race for me. I came in with a shoulder injury and a new bike which was amazing but I wasn’t quite fit to me yet. So I suffered a bit of pain and I think that was my main like opponent during the race was just kind of coming to terms with this pain. um incredible sceneries. I felt like I was on Mars and then you get these little oases where there’s palm trees and and water and people living and I was really motivated by the landscape to continue. This shot is one of the few paved sections on the route and I included it because it’s a great photo, but it’s it’s very much rocky uh rocky roads and rivereds. I placed second next to Mariah Moldenhower who uh had a standout performance and just raced with such grace and strength and power. Um even if I was coming in at my best, I don’t think I could have won that race, but I think I could have given Mariah a little bit more of a chase. Amazing. It makes all the difference to have those, you know, truly competitive folks that you can ride with, rival with, and then swap stories with afterwards. So, I love that. Yeah. Ride with and rival with. Like, that’s a great way of putting it. The next race of the season was the Helenic Mountain Race. This takes place in Greece. It’s about 3 months after um Atlas. So, I had time to start seeing a physio and just kind of addressing some of these issues that come up once you uh hit midlife. I felt a lot stronger, a lot more organized and confident coming to into Helenic. I was in Europe beforehand helping out at a training camp in Europe or in Spain. I stayed with my coach in Switzerland and then I flew over to Greece and toured from Athens to the start. This is the shortest race in the mountain race series. It’s only 880 km. But there’s almost 30,000 meters of elevation gain, which is just a crap ton. Uh if it’s not up, it’s down. There’s no flat. Um, I actually had a ton of fun in this race. I, um, you know, improved my mountain bike skills a bit. I put flat bars on my cutthroat and I just really, um, really committed to the challenge of, um, doing something like pretty far from my comfort zone with the terrain. Um, and I won the women’s division and I placed I think ninth overall. So, that chase to be in the top 10 was so much fun for me near the end. Yeah, it’s incredible seeing these side by side. Like you did just as much climbing, just as much elevation gain in almost half the distance from the Atlas Mountain race. Wow. That’s right. Yeah. Yeah. It’s uh it’s really Nelson really outdid himself in creating this course, I would say. And there are these incredible stone bridges that you cross and every time you get to one, you drop down into the valley, cross the bridge, and then start climbing up again. And you know, there’s got to be a more convenient way across. But this route was definitely more interesting, more historic, very low traffic, and beautiful as you can see. I love the idea of convenience playing a factor for anyone in designing these routes. What I also love about, you know, you winning this race and the f the your first win in this series, um, is how coming into the season, like the technical descending aspect was one that had kind of caused you the most hesitation. And I mean, you you managed to overcome that to to like achieve your first at least, you know, results victory and overall top 10, which is so badass. Thanks. Yeah, I really focused on the technical stuff in the time between Atlas and Helenic and it and definitely paid off. So, I think there’s a good lesson there. You know, maybe addressing your weaknesses instead of hiding from them can yield results. The final race of the season, the kind of big daddy of them all, is the Silk Road Mountain Race. This was definitely the one I was most excited about, but also most anxious about. Um it goes from Osh, the second largest city in Kystan to Caracle, which is kind of a smaller community in the mountains, bit of an outdoor hub um for trekking and horseback riding and um lake activities like fishing. It has um pretty much the same elevation as the um Atlantic Mountain Race except over double the distance. So it’s definitely not as much climbing per kilometer. But to make up for that, the terrain’s really rough. There’s a lot more hiking. It takes place at altitude, much of it above 3,000 m. The weather is way more severe. It was below zero almost every night that I was outside. Very hot in the valleys. Um, resupply is hard to find, difficult to find places to stay indoors. So, I think all those those challenges made up for maybe the lack of climbing. Um, but I would say it um it makes it that legendary and challenging course that it is. So, [Music] I’ll jump into the bike check and tell you a little bit about what I was riding for Silk Road. This is very similar to my setup for the other races. I did a full bike check um with Cameron Russell who filmed and edited it. Thank you, Cameron. And it’s up on Appy Dura’s YouTube channel. So, if you want to check out all the details and nerd out, go take a look at that. Um, I raced all of the events this season on my 2025 Salt Salsa Cutthroat Force uh with an Axis transmission. I have a 10x 52 cassette in the back and I have a 34 on the front. I raced a 34 in, um, Atlas and a 30 in Hellenic. And I think I should have put a 30 or a 32 on for this race. So, that’s one of my one of my mistakes is putting too big of a chain rail in front because it isn’t as um there isn’t as much climbing, but some of the pitches are quite steep and with the impacts of altitude and carrying um more gear, I I definitely wanted more gears. And um yeah, I added a Rock Shot Sid Select 3P front suspension with 120 mm of travel that was used for all the races. The wheels are by Light Bicycle. Um, the tires are Fleecer Ridge Renee or Renee Hurst Fleecer Ridge um 2.2 uh inch tires. Um I’m using the Kite Ultra and it’s paired with a Dynamo hub in the front uh wheel. I’ve got the little Klight Cube blinky light as well as the um the micro USB charger to keep my electronics charged. Um, for comfort and to reduce fatigue, uh, you can see that I have the Red Shift Sports Shock Stop Pro Race Suspension seat post. There’s a lot of washboards and rough descent. And over such a long and taxing race, I really wanted to prioritize selfcore, self-care in any way that I could. So, I think the suspension seat pose really paid off in the second half of the course when my body was, you know, starting to get more fatigued and I was just able to kind of um go harder than I would have been able to go if I had been, you know, beating myself up even more. It’s just such a long race. Like I said, you want to do everything you can to kind of take care of your body, take care of your bike, and uh I felt like the seat post definitely helped with preserving my strength and, you know, and everything. For bags, I’ve got the Apidura backcountry series packs. Uh this is the first time I’ve raced with a front roll and I have my um um sleep kit in there. So, for sleep kit, people are always curious about this one. I used the uh Rab Mythic Ultra 360 sleeping bag rated to minus 8 Celsius um O Helium Bivby bag and a Nemo allseason inflatable sleeping pad with an R value to 5.4. I found this sufficient to sleep to minus 6 Celsius during the race with like no discomfort. Um, really glad I had kind of a robust kit even though I didn’t bring a tent. And I was, yeah, just able to be comfortable when my water bottles were freezing at night. Um, I have apparel from Seven Mesh, which includes my Tour Divide tested sky pilot jacket and Thunderpants. I wear the rain pants all the time because I was cold and they just kind of kept me cozy. I also had three different pairs of socks. Um, I am uh waterproof. I called them my river socks for water crossings. A thin pair of like marino socks from Seven Mesh and a thick pair of wool socks that I kept dry and I wore to bed. Sometimes I would put plastic bags on my feet if I was using the thin marino socks at night or in the morning to try and keep my feet a little drier. Um, so again, prioritizing self-care. Here are some close-ups of the bike. This is me at the finish. I think it’s kind of cool to show the bike all dirty and everything. Um yeah um I will give a shout out to um Kurt Wormbby for that um STEM cap there. He says the only way is forward. It was a lovely gift and I’m really happy to kind of have that to look look at and inspire me. Before I raced, I arrived to um Bishk two weeks earlier and I toured the Celestial Divide. That’s a newer bike packing route that goes between Bishk and a little bit past OSH where the race starts. It was a great way for me to acclimate to the elevation a bit and just get used to bike packing in a different country. Um, you know, I was able to travel slower, enjoy food out, enjoy lots of time in my tent. I actually toured with a tent and, um, I think it was a, yeah, a great way to just kind of adjust without diving in head first. I met quite a few other bike packers. I got to chat with locals and um you know people run people on horses and uh yeah just had a really great time and then had to shift into race mode. Question on acclimating to the altitude. There is so much you know diverse experience and how much time you need to like really acclimate. Um some people say just go in raw overnight. it’s better to like go in before your body starts to like really try to acclimate and other people say like you need at least three weeks for your blood oxygen to whatever. What was your experience with two weeks like how did how did that work for you? I would say it was better than nothing um going in completely raw. Um from the people I talked to didn’t have good experiences with that. I think because it’s such a long race. So maybe if you’re doing a one day race or something, it might work out for you. But because it is so long and you’re there day after day, a little acclamation is to me better than none. Um, but you know, so much of the race takes place above 3,000 meters and I was only up at that al altitude for kind of shorter periods of time. I would get to the top of a climb at like, you know, 3,400 and then I would do all my stretches and like have lunch and and um I tried to camp high as much as possible when I was touring and then camp low when I was racing. And those two things didn’t always work out. Sometimes when I was touring, I was like, well, I kind of want to get to town so I can get breakfast because I have no food left. And when I was racing, um there are times where you’re just high for pretty long periods. And I um I would decide to camp before I got any higher because I, you know, didn’t want the temperature to drop anymore. So, you kind of have to go higher before you get over the peak and go low. Um if I was to do it again, I would probably do something similar. Yeah, maybe even spend three weeks um and and spend some time in a place like um Peak Lenin base camp where you’re up at like 36 3700 meters and you can just kind of have a home base and not necessarily be on the move all day. I think that would be a good way to do it, too. Cool. Yeah. I wanted to share this bridge uh as an example of some of the things I encountered touring that helped me um help me uh tackle the unexpecteds in Silk Road. No way. Yeah, it looks like a movie set bridge right from like Indiana Jones. It was terrifying. Um but to be able to like, you know, make a risk assessment, fortify myself and uh and get over it was something I had to do a lot during the race. And I got a little bit of practice with that touring. Um, wait, so this was on the tour, not on the race or both on the tour and the race? It’s on the tour and on a previous race route. So, okay. So, it wasn’t on the race route this year. That’s right. So, I posted a photo on Instagram and lots of people messaged me being like, “Oh my god, I have nightmares about this bridge still.” Oh my gosh, that’s incredible. Yeah. So, we’ll jump into the race. Um, it started in Osh at 6:00 p.m. This is me and Eric House, a rider from Texas, I think, who uh completed all the mountain races this year on a single speed. So, it was cool to see him again. Yeah, I’m sure he’s got some stories. I think he had a lot of flats, actually. Um, but uh yeah, it was cool to see these repeat riders as part of the bike pack community at every event. And and Eric was one of them I got to see at each race. Leaving at 600 p.m. was just a trip. We had a police escort. There’s 250 people leaving town. All the locals are on the streets videoing us. People are hanging out of cars and cheering us on. It was incredible. The 600 p.m. start meant that we missed some traffic and it’s very hot down in the valley. So, we were heading out into the evening, which was nice. Straight into like like a 2800 meter climb or something. It was my second largest climb on Straa after Halakala in Maui. So, it was huge. Wow. And um yeah, I rode through the first night. This is the sun rising. Incredible descent down to the valley and then off to uh CP1, which is about 300k in at Peak Lennon base camp. Um so kind of all according to plan up to that point. Yeah. Yeah, it was actually. I planned to ride through the first night, nap as needed. I didn’t need to nap. The one uh the one funny thing that happened was that I wanted to stop to get water to resupply and they didn’t have any water. So, I filled my hydration bladder with Pepsi, which is not what I wanted to do on day one. I wanted to save that kind of like, you know, um tainting the bladder sugar high. Yeah. Until later in the race when I really needed it or when I stopped being able to eat food because my stomach was turned or something. So, I was like, “Oh, we’re doing this already.” like we’re 14 hours in and we’re putting Pepsi in our hydration bladder. Like literally a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi. Um and it also I guess kind of showcases how how limited some of the resupplies are. They’re not meant for tourists. The local people don’t need to buy bottled water um because their you know stomachs are adjusted to it. In Yeah. In retrospect, I should have asked if there was a tap and I could have just filtered off the tap but you’re kind of just like you know get the thing and go. So yeah. Yeah. You have like one mission and it’s to get back on the road as soon as possible. Wow. Um, and you were like one of the earliest riders coming through the checkpoint also. So, wow, that’s incredible. Yeah, I think I was like around top 10 and I felt pretty good to that point. But on arriving in the checkpoint, I think it took me 23 hours and I was starting to feel the fatigue from not sleeping um as well as from the altitude because it’s up at like 3600 m. And uh I got to the checkpoint. I had fallen into the river earlier that day. So maybe not quite going according to plan if I think harder about it. Um, but I got my electronics wet and then my phone wouldn’t turn on and I didn’t know if it was from the river or was being glitchy and um, so I was just kind of on this mission to plug my phone into the wall to check that it worked and it did work. It just crashed for some unrelated reason and my electronics all worked. But after that I took more care going through river crossings. I developed a better technique and I also um put my electronics in like a ziplockc bag so that they weren’t just um they weren’t at risk of getting wet if my full bags like dumped in. So kind of just taking those extra steps to be to be really safe and you know when I crossed the river I didn’t keep my phone in my pocket anymore. I put it into the ziplockc bag in case I fell in. And I I did fall in again so I was glad I took those steps. Nice learning on the fly. Great job. Yeah. Um, from checkpoint one to checkpoint two, there’s actually a 200 km pave stretch, so it goes pretty pretty quickly. Um, I got some sleep and I was uh in good spirits. This is one of my resupply snacks. Stroop waffles were pretty yummy. Lots of sugar, lots of chocolate, lots of potato chips. um they had these really cool signs when you go through some of the villages that um I just thought were really interesting and intricate and um you’re out in the middle of nowhere and this community has like you know very few people and there’s this big sign um I love that. Yeah. Uh Kelsoo takes place um or it’s located kind of at the end of this valley by this lake and it’s this really beautiful idealic location for a checkpoint. Um, it felt good to get there. On route was the famous or infamous 30 kilometer hike a bike. Um, if you look hard in this photo, you can see Alex Cop um, pushing his bike up a switchback. You might not see it, but it’s kind of in the middle or he’s in the middle. Um, this was something that Nelson Trees, the race director, gave us a lot of warning ahead of time and mentioned that it’s kind of the only way to connect these two parts of the country. Well, there was another way, but it was a 60k hike a bike. So, he uh was gentle on us and gave us the 30. And um so, you know, it was something we were aware of. You could plan for bring more food, make choices around your shoes and how you’re going to tackle it. Um the first three river crossings in the hike a bike were substantial and you have to be very careful and uh consider time of day. I arrived in the morning so the water rises throughout the day and as the um as the melt increases and so people who got there in the evening or at night I think had deeper scarier crossings um a lot of it is this almost all of it is this trail that’s used to bring animals up and down um the valley um for like nomadic shepherds and then the final few k are kind of in the riverbed itself there’s not a lot of water at that point but it’s stony and difficult to walk on. And then the final bit is just this like super super steep pitch up to like 4,000 m and you’re kind of taking 10 steps and then taking 10 breaths and then pushing your bike a little bit more. When he got to the top, I wasn’t able to descend right away. So that’s why I said 30 plus km and I walked down. But it was such a relief to be walking down instead of up. It’s a lot quicker. You know, you’re not really um yeah, you’re not using your muscles the same way. And um it was absolutely beautiful. As you can see, this is right up at the top. So I think that it was a really cool experience to to undertake a 30 km hike in an event like this was something I wasn’t sure I could actually do. I’ve never hiked 30 km in a single day, but it’s definitely opened my eyes to what’s possible in a bike race, in a bike adventure, and uh I think I’m going to do some hiking this fall without my bike. Wow. Inspired. Yeah, I love that. From checkpoint two um to Narin. So at the checkpoints you get to eat some food and chat with the volunteers. That’s me holding my beret card and some of the earth outside. Fancy. It is fancy, right? So, I um I knew I would get to Narin, which is also known as Scratch City, pretty late at night, but I was really like I had a game plan to get there and do kind of a a reset and get my body and my shorts clean, get some good resupply for the 400 km stretch without resupply that I was going into and get a bit more sleep indoors because I knew that this might be my second and last chance to sleep inside. Um, I booked a hotel because it said it had 24-hour reception on Booking.com. I sent them a note saying I would arrive after midnight and they were all locked up and closed. And I called, I banged on the gate. I couldn’t get in. It’s 2:00 in the morning. So, I biked around. Yeah. Looking for another place, but it’s mostly guest houses and they’re not really very wellleled. They’re kind of, you know, it’s not like you’re in, you know, a city in the US or Canada where you can kind of see the reception signs or the hotel signs. there’s better advertising I would say in North America. Um, so I called a few places and no one called me back and it was this fancy place here and they said, “Yep, you’re welcome to come by. Here’s our address.” And I rolled in and she kind of, you know, showed me the room, showed me the shower. And I did everything I could to get into bed and go to sleep quickly, but it was like 3:30 a.m. And so I couldn’t get that much sleep without, you know, waking up really late. So, I I did get to wash everything and I did get to stay in this like ridiculous um guest house, which was so much better than the alternative, which would have been like sleeping in a park and not washing my kit. So, but even at 3:30 in the morning after all of that, you’re taking this smiling selfie, which I feel like just speaks to your spirit and the like need that you have on these adventures to just roll with the punches and like laugh about all the setbacks, like laugh through it, you know? I love that for you. Thanks. I’ve always been entertained by like absurdity and I feel like ultras have a healthy dose of that and you’re living it. You’re not observing it. You’re like, “This is happening to me. I am the character in the story.” Really sums it up. Absolutely. Like it’s like you can’t go out there and not even seek the absurd. So that is Yeah. Perfect encapsulation. The stretch from Narin to checkpoint 3 in Tangga was awesome. It was difficult. It was a longer stretch, but leaving Narin, um, it’s, you know, it’s beautiful riding through these valleys with little York camps and sheep and goats and wild, well, they’re not wild horses. They, you know, but they’re roaming free. Um there was a bridge out um and like the day before the race one of the control cars wreckied out an alternate for us which is just I think speaks to the level of um you know just the level of organization on the race team to be like don’t worry we’ll find a way around it. There was a bit more climbing but it was all it was all good. Um there’s also um a kind of a pretty challenging 200k loop on route to checkpoint 3. And you keep crossing this area called the Arabel Plateau, which is maybe 3,800 m and it’s high and exposed and cold. And I was always afraid of getting stuck up there in bad weather, but um I got lucky. Other people got snow. So I think that kind of, you know, speaks to the level of chance in these races. You just don’t know what you’re going to get and you have to be prepared for it all. [Music] From checkpoint three um to the finish uh in Caracle was awesome, hard, challenging. You climb directly back up from the checkpoint to Toor Pass, which is almost 2900 meters. It’s a long slow but ridable climb. Um, and then you head up this mining road to Juku Pass where this main photo is from. There’s also a sneaky little hiking trail that uh is in there that kind of caught a lot of riders by surprise. It took place right after the bog march, which also took me by surprise. Um, and just made the stretch a lot slower than I anticipated, which is fine, but it’s like, okay, you know, how much food do I have at this point? and I’m not making the target I thought I was going to make. So, how can I readjust? And, you know, where am I actually going to end up tonight? Um, and I was always good for food. Water isn’t a concern. So, it’s just kind of mentally being okay with being slow and being patient. And I’m usually pretty good, but you know, in the hiking stretch, I hit that in the evening. And it just gets a lot harder when you’re on a hiking trail at night trying to find your way with your bicycle. So, um, yeah, having patience and, you know, remembering that everybody’s doing this challenge together. You’re you’re not the only person, um, who’s being surprised by this. Um, and again, these hiking trails and these difficult roads kind of link up um, link up a route that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. and that um you know even though it’s following the historic Silk Road trading route and these routes are being used by um local shepherds and stuff in reality not you know not that many people have been there like I live in um Colona and we have parks there that see you know thousands and thousands of people every year and it’s it’s not like that in these places so it’s pretty special to get there. Yeah, that’s a a beautiful beautiful perspective. And I mean, I imagine that feeling that when you are so fatigued and you think you’re getting a flat tire, you’re like, there must be something wrong with my bike or equipment or the terrain, you know? And so I imagine the difficulty in kind of sussing out um it’s this hard for me, is it this hard for everybody or and and so I’m just imagining that mental moment and then being able to kind of snap out and have that perspective of like this incredible place that so few people have have and will have the privilege to see and experience. Love that. Yeah. Yeah, you narrated that really well. I think a lot of it is Yeah. navigating your own mind as well as the actual terrain for real. This is um one of the border military checkpoints in Eshkilot. It’s on the final finishing loop around Kacol. A lot of the finishing loop lies next to the Kazak border and there are these kind of border zones where you need to have permits to travel to. Um the race team took care of these permits for us. But um when I got to this border checkpoint, they didn’t seem to know about the event or have the permit information handy. And I probably would have gone by unnoticed except my brakes were really loud because I had just through some water. So I was like, somebody came running out to check my paperwork and I was like, damn it, if only I could have been sneaky. Yeah. Um should have gone for those quiet organic pads. But oh my gosh, how did you sway your way through? I know. I was um Yeah, so I was a little bit stressed. I get nervous when I encounter authority figures and this woman um you know didn’t um speak any English and I uh we were using the translate on my phone in Russian and English and it kind of went back and forth for a bit and then I was like okay like can I use your Wi-Fi and I’ll contact the race director and once I contacted Nelson Nelson not Nathan he sent me um the paperwork that I needed to show her that was probably at the border patrol somewhere um already but anyways um yeah She looked at it and um you know said you’re good to go and she sent me on my way with like a handful of candy which was very sweet cuz yeah she was she was being very like you know firm and uh and border official like before that. So it was professional very professional. So be sent on my way with a little treat. just another reminder of like there are perks um and challenges of being one of the earlier riders coming through that checkpoint, right? Again, like many of the folks earlier may have snuck through. Um but there are like what it sounds like 240 riders potentially behind you that you may have saved a ton of effort. Yeah, definitely having these conversations like um they’re going to get through easier, quicker now that the paperwork is accessible. Yeah, right. They didn’t get the candy, so Oh, right. Yeah. No, there there was no like candy bowl or anything, so I think I got a special treat. Um, so there’s one big final climb um called Sea Ashue. It’s not that big. It’s only like 1,000 meters, but it’s pretty rough in sections and it takes you up to close to 4,000 mters again cuz you’re starting high. And uh I got some snow there. I don’t have any photos. I was too like too concerned with just getting through and like staying warm and I didn’t want to stop and lose my momentum taking any pictures. And I arrived at the finish in the evening around 1000 p.m. pretty destroyed. And um in my head when I thought about getting to the end of the race of the series, I was quite emotional and um you know, but then I would tell myself, don’t think about the finish, Megan, like live in the moment. My motto was right here, right now from that fat boy slim song. And so I kind of snap out of the finish line, you know, fantasy and get back into what I was doing. But when I finally got to the finish, I was just kind of like, cool, I made it. I’m here. Like I didn’t really have the capacity or the energy to to emote very much. And it was so amazing to see a crowd of um other finishers, of dot watchers, of people who’d scratched and come to the finish. It was really It was really special. But I felt like I couldn’t like vocalize my appreciation. I just was like, “Oh, nice to see you guys.” Like, um, so that’s always kind of funny. Um, I’ll also note that this beer here, this APNA, it says 11%, but that’s not alcohol content. It’s only 4%. So, we’re not sitting around drinking 11% beers, just FYI. I spent nearly a week in Caracle greeting other finishers. This is Sammy Sari who placed second. It was awesome to be there for her finish. Wow. Somebody gave me some flowers. Yeah. And I gave them to her and she left them at the finish. So all these people have photos with these awesome flowers. Really good vibes. Um they just rented like a residential property and people were kind of hanging out and chatting and swapping stories. So uh it was it was nice to to be here for that long. Here are some of my key takeaways that um I learned this season. First is that your prep work pays off. Um everything I did to get ready, you know, um all the late night tinkering on the bike, all the um um thinking about which sleeping bag to buy, all of that pays off when you’re racing and and you can turn your brain off a bit and just enjoy being out there in the landscape. But if you don’t do that prep work, if you don’t know what’s coming, for me, I find I have more stress and anxiety, you know, um you might not make the best kit decisions and um and you might not have quite as positive an experience. For instance, I I took my bike in to get service before the race. I had my fork like sent off and fully serviced um in Silk Road. I had zero mechanicals. One uh only thing I happened is one of my little button batteries for my shifter died because I forgot to change it and then I replaced it and my shifting went back to normal. Um that is the only mechanical I had. And other people, you know, were plagued by flats and had things break and stuff on them. And of course, some of that is chance, but some of it is also um prep and servicing and taking care of your stuff beforehand so that you can kind of start with a pretty fresh bike and not have those issues and skill and choices that you make in the race. You can’t under like the the way that you ride, the finesse that you ride with can, you know, hugely be preventative of those mechanicals. So, is it is it true you I’m trying to remember back. You didn’t have a single flat. I had one flat during um Helenic. Yeah. And I was able to um one single flat. Got it. And I was able to cure it to cure it. I was able to fix it um with just um a tire plug and no issues after that. That doctor came to pay visit. Yeah. But yeah, I kept that tire on until um I swapped my tires out before retrace. So, I kept it on right until I came to um Silk Road and I swapped them out. Oh, nice. Oh, that’s Oh, speaks to the prep, too. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, I think you’re right, Taylor. And I um Yeah, I I think that riding I don’t want to say conservatively or cautiously, but being aware of what you’re riding over and and the water crossings, trying not to get your bike too wet. You know, the bikes aren’t made to fall into rivers, and I dropped mine a couple times, but just trying to, you know, keep things keep things dry, keep things clean. It’s an impossible goal, but the better you do, the happier and healthier you and your bike are going to be. So huge. So the next thing I learned a lot from using the same bike for three different races and adapting it from the bike that comes off the shelf. So I put that suspension fork on at the beginning of the season. I use that for all the races, but I changed my handlebars to flat bars for Helenic. I changed my bag configuration a bit. I added that front roll for this race. After every race, I did kind of a post-mortem and evaluated for my kit and myself. What’s what worked? What didn’t work? What would I like to change? What do I need to change? What should I research? Um so I got to know my bike a lot better u by you know riding and training on it for all these events and um and it was kind of uh yeah fun to experiment with different things. You could um you could have used different bikes for the different races and that would have worked as well, but like I said, I think I just learned a lot about my bike from using the same one. Um set realistic expectations. Uh it’s it’s hard to know what you’re getting into with each of these events. And I think the better you know yourself, the more you study the race manual and talk to people who’ve done the events, the the better you’ll be able to set your expectations. Um, I think you can go in and say like, I have no expectations for myself. I’m just just there to see what happens. Which is like a really cool attitude to have. It gets harder after you’ve done more events, but as a as a, you know, kind of a someone doing a race for the first time or something that, you know, it’s it’s great to not have expectations for yourself. But I think that you know you do want to have expectations for how slow some sections are going to be or you know for the weather and the temperatures for safety purposes. So it is useful to know what you’re getting into and um and like I said to be realistic about like the temperature range and stuff and sometimes we have a tendency to hope for the best when it comes to weather but you know hope for the best prepare for the worst right and just be safe and be prepared. uh eat as much as you can. It’s hard to compensate for all the calories you’re losing and you just want to um find ways to do that. Whether it’s um you know filling up at ice creams at the resupply or putting Pepsi in your water bladder or getting you know lots of sandwiches and packing them around with you. Um finding strategies to get as many calories as possible is super important for um for all of these events. And I I guarantee you, you will not eat as many calories as you’re um utilizing. Um and then finally, chasing adventure, not rankings. I’m really motivated by the landscape by discovering what’s around that corner. And to me, I think that is a more um that’s a healthier and more sustainable long-term motivator than rankings. I I like doing well and I am competitive and I find the tracker does motivate me for sure. But I think the bigger motivator is um you know the excitement of being in this landscape um being self-supported with minimal gear and and having to find my way through some of these challenging situations while there is a time pressure. I listened to a podcast with Robin um Greer who won the men’s division. um it was the one he did um yeah as a race winner with a Silk Road media team and he talks a lot about kind of the adventure of of the race and and how that motivates him as well. So um yeah I agree with a lot that he said in the podcast but uh adventure adventure is what I’m after. So uh would love to answer any other questions I guess if you are in the audience and have questions throw them throw them in. And I think Taylor has some prepped up for me. Yeah, we’ve collected uh a number of questions from uh folks following along and folks that have submitted them. Um so thank you to everyone kind of engaging and participating in that way. We really appreciate hearing from you. Um let’s see here. One question, let’s see, it was uh Fred has asked is um would you be keen to repeat any of these races? I think given some time I would consider going back to all of them. um not necessarily in one season, but there’s um yeah, there’s none that have like left me with lasting trauma bad enough that I would not return to, but I also don’t feel like compelled to, you know, get back next year. Totally. Well, speaking of next year, you know, after such a heroic triple crown, um do you have an idea of what next year holds? Do you have any ambitious 41st birthday gifts to yourself? Yeah, for sure. Well, I can say that 41 is too young to retire, so I’m going to be racing again next year. And I have some unfinished business. Um, so I’m going to return to uh a race in North America that’s also pretty legendary that I think that I could um think I could get a faster time at. Um, people know my race history. You can probably guess at which one this is. Um, and there um there’s another race being added to the mountain race family and I hope to sign up for that one. It takes place in Turkey and uh I’m Yeah, I’d like to I’d like to be able to do all four, not necessarily in one year, but I think it would be cool to Yeah. to do that one next year. Oh, I love that. That’s so exciting. Yeah. and leaving a lot of time in my schedule for um kind of like more Okonogan Pacific Northwest based adventures. I love doing like epic day rides and setting out a ridiculous route and being like, can I get here, you know, before I go to bed? Can I do this loop and still sleep in, you know, the comfort of my own home tonight? So, I I hope to do some more of those challenges because this year I spent a lot more time on prep and organization and taking care of my shoulder and, you know, working on full body fitness. Um, so I I I hope that I can spend more time kind of on epic day rides next year. Amazing. Yeah. Yeah, I mean it makes sense that with an undertaking this huge a huge part of the training is really just like the the logistics and even though you’re so focused on the adventure and like living in the moment with the experience, there’s a lot of structure and and and just kind of like organized chaos that goes into like even getting to the start line of each of these three events fully. Yeah, it it took me like almost a week to get to the start of Silk Road. I drove 4 hours from Colona to the Lori mainland. Stayed overnight with friends. Got a ride to the airport um where I bought an Air Tag for my bike box on route. Um took a flight to San Francisco, took a flight to Dubai, took a flight to Bishkek. Um and then my bike took 48 more hours to arrive. And then I packed up the bike and started touring. So I think I left my home Monday afternoon and my bike arrived um on Saturday morning. So it was a long time in transit. Yes. The like rolling with the punches muscle is just actively growing under strain there before the race even. Um what if um what about someone new to the series, the mountain series? um if they maybe weren’t quite ready to take all three on in a given season, like where would you have them start? Where would you recommend? Uh what which one should they take on? If you like climbing, I would do Hellenic. It’s a bit easier to get to it. To me, I found it to be the most fun race. I it might have been part of having really great prep for it, but I just really enjoyed the the pitchy climbs and fast descents and it was very clear when it was over my head and I had to walk and I just didn’t mind doing that. The temperatures are more moderate. You know, in the first year I know there was snow, but in general, I don’t think it’s as hot or as cold and there’s tons of water. There’s shelters in the middle of nowhere that you can sleep under so you don’t have to bring as much sleep kit. It’s still quite remote though and it’s not how you imagine Greece. So, you know, it’s not like a tame ultra. It’s still pretty wild and exciting. Um, if you’re if you’re not as much of a climber, Atlas is is I guess the the other choice. Um, but like personally, I found um I I Atlas was amazing, but I I found it to be a bit more Yeah. just a bit more difficult. It’s a little bit longer. Um, culturally it’s a bit more challenging than Greece, I would say, but also like a very cool place to visit. So, yeah, if you’re a climber, go to Greece. If not, maybe Alice. And, uh, and if you are like craving the adventure of a lifetime and you can’t get out of your head, I guess uh, sign up for Silk Road. That kind of leads me into, you may have already answered this, but which event of the three challenged you the most and and why? I would definitely say Silk Road. In my mind, it was similar to the Tour Divide except shorter and, you know, like in Central Asia. Um, but it was challenging in so many ways that I didn’t quite expect. So, you know, it takes place at altitudes higher than the divide. I would say a lot of the divide takes place around 2,000 mters. Here is more like 3,000. Um the surfaces are are more difficult. They’re rockier. They’re rougher. There’s probably 60 to 70 kilometers of hiking. Um so it’s slower in in many portions. I think I averaged like 275 kilometers a day in the divide and I did not average that here and it wasn’t for lack of trying. um there is less resupply and um in less indoor shelters. So you um one one thing I didn’t do was stay in any yurt camps. Um sometimes folks um are invited to stay in y camps if the weather is bad and and some yurt camps kind of are commercial and have you know places for people to stay on that commercial basis but other than that there’s really like nothing out there. There’s no there’s no trees to shelter under. There’s no buildings. there’s like just open space. So, you’re just a lot more exposed if the weather rolls in at night is what I’m saying. Or if you, you know, if you get cold or you just want a break, there’s there’s no options. So, that to me makes it quite different than than the divide where there’s, you know, kind of uh trees to shelter under or little cabins or you’re dropping down into communities more frequently. And then um again coming from an English-speaking country um there’s definitely challenges in in Kyasan where there’s not as much English spoken outside of the bigger cities and using translate is um is great and really useful but it still makes communicating more complex topics a challenge. Mhm. Yeah. It it does it seem like your experience with Silk Road compared to the other two events, is it fair to say it was lonier as well? I know that you had a huge lead for much of the race this year in your field. Um, but I didn’t hear stories like I may have in the other two events where you’re riding with other riders or, you know, had connected with other folks at aid stations or resupply areas. I was on my own a lot more, but I I wouldn’t say I felt lonely. I felt pretty focused and like determined and and content. Um, but I was on my own a lot more. The first night I rode with a few people, which was pretty pretty fun to kind of be swapping stories and just being like, can’t believe we’re actually doing this. Yeah. Um, and as the race progressed, I was on my own. I would say more and and more and uh sometimes I would bump into somebody um in the evening and we’d chat a little bit but yeah I was definitely um kind of in in my own bubble in the field for much of it which um yeah which was something I guess I prepared for with with touring you know because I was on my own um on my own there as well and I listened to the um the mountain race podcast every day so I was kind of being updated on what people were up to in the field and where folks were at. And so it was kind of an interesting way to to connect that way. And then whenever I saw the media team, I would be like happy to see them, but they never really talk to you. They want you to talk to them. So, and like sometimes I didn’t feel like talking, so they would just get like video footage of me. Um, so yeah, that’s kind of a funny those were funny interactions. I love that. And then in contrast, I’ve heard you reflect about the importance of community in the mountain race series. So can you tell us a little bit more about that? What is the sense of community given that this is such an individual pursuit in some ways? Yeah, I think it actually takes place a lot at the start and at the finish and online as well. being able to um you know connect with people before the race um and see what their yeah see kind of what their plans are and to talk a little bit about kit and share similar anxieties or whatever. Um and then when I was uh when I was touring I bumped into some racers. I spent a few days in Sire Mogul where folks go for altitude um acclamation and uh just hung out with a bunch of other riders outside the like only store eating ice cream. So I think that the coming together from around the world to compete in these events um is something that’s that’s really special and there are some folks that as I mentioned have kind of been repeat riders. Um, I got to hang out with Carla Shoemaker a bit after the race. We were both in Bishk and we were staying with two friends and so she was with one and I was with the other. So we like we went for a big fish fry. We were going to go to the hot springs one day but it was too late so we went out for dinner somewhere. So, it’s kind of cool to, you know, connect with her and we’re traveling to this location to compete in this race. But I would say for me the community aspects happen around the race and not necessarily in it. But because we have this shared experience, we have a lot to connect over. And then like the people who compete in these events, they’re just interesting people with cool jobs and backgrounds and lives. So, it’s a real treat for me to get to know them outside u or who they are outside of the race as well. Yeah, amazing. I have a a question from Mike here. Um, first Mike says, “Congrats.” Um, and asks, “When they inevitably make a movie about your rise to excellence in the bike packing world, uh, which actress would you pick to play?” Oh, wow. This is a big question. I don’t know. Um, you know who comes to mind? That would not be a great pick, but it’s Reese Witherspoon because she starred in Wild and I use Wild Wild as a comp title to my book. Um, so that’s who comes to mind, but I I will have to get back to you on that one. I’ll spend a little time brainstorming. Um, I have like a funny but embarrassing story um that I could tell. So, as an Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So, as an author, um, I received royalties from my books and stuff, and I received a payment in January this year, and it said, “Your book is being optioned for film. Here’s the, um, here’s the payment or whatever because you get paid when this happens.” I was like, “Holy smokes, this is so exciting.” So, I went around telling everyone, “My book is being optioned for film.” Um, and then I was like, “Oh, I didn’t get my payment for my audio book.” And so, I emailed my, you know, publisher and they checked with the accountant and and like, “Oh, we sent that to you in January.” I was like, “No, that was for the film optioning.” and they’re like, “Oh, we made an administrative error. Uh, it’s actually listening for the audiobook. It was the wrong code.” And so, I’ve been going around telling everyone that my book was being optioned. Megan, let me correct you there. What you’ve been doing is actually manifesting. So, Taylor, thanks. We’re just manifesting the film optioning here. Thank you. I think uh Yeah. Yeah. I think it would be great. Um, so I I wasn’t going to own up to it. I was just going to be like, “Oh, yeah. That film thing never happened. But I clearly I’m owning up to it now. But you’re not the one that made a mistake. There’s I know. I know. But it’s still embarrassing. Oh my gosh. Okay, let’s see other questions that we have here. Oh, I like this one. Um, do you feel your confidence in general grew over the season before each successive race or did you feel each one needed a completely different approach? I feel like there was some momentum building from for sure. Yeah. Um, and after after Atlas, I was in kind of a strange headsp space because like I I was injured and not feeling great, but I was also kind of like, wow, you did this really hard thing with an injury and um, you know, you need to take care of your body and but there’s time before Helenic to do that. So, yeah. Um, so it was kind of a strange space, but I was also like very determined like cool, what are the next steps to feel better for the next event and I was able to kind of carry those out and come into Helenic in a really really good space after Helenic. Um, I think there was some momentum from the success from you know the win there um and excitement about preparing for this final race of the season. I’d taken each race as its own little unit. So, I wasn’t thinking about Silk Road other than the fact that I like, you know, signed up and paid my fees for it um in in January, February. And as um that being said, I wasn’t thinking about it, but I was trying to like make sure I had some like energy in the bank or time that I could take off from work to prepare for it because I I knew it would take the most preparation and and be the biggest um one logistically. So yeah, taking each one as their own thing, trying to build momentum, but also to save some for Silk Road. Um, because I knew it would be just more. Yeah. Wow. So, I mean, what I’m hearing from you is not only confidence is surely a relevant part, but your your wisdom about listening to the signals of your body. I mean, it can be so hard when you’re in pain and injured to like trust and believe that you will recover in time for the next big goal and to differentiate like the the pain and suffering of an endurance sport that’s inevitable with a rugged endurance sport and the pain and suffering of injury that you really need to pay attention to is so hard. Um, but also the like the competence that you build through building this experience just it just set you off on this foundation. Huge. Yeah, I think you put that really well. Um, well, is there anything else that you want to kind of share as as we sum up in reflection of this huge year? It’s been a journey and uh I knew it would be when I signed up for it, but you don’t know what that’s actually going to play out like until it happens. And I think that’s the exciting part of a journey. And that’s one of the reasons I love bike packing is you wake up in the morning and you know you’re going to go someplace cool, but you don’t quite know what that’s actually going to look like. And so being there for all those twists and turns has been um a really uh it’s been an exciting and memorable year. And I’m I’m just so excited for all the people who’ve played a role in it and um brands like Redshift who’ve supported me in this big dream. I will say that previously I think I could have um I could have done all the races without outside, you know, product and financial support. And I reached a point this year where I needed support from others than myself to pull this off. So, I I guess I want to acknowledge the the roles of um yeah of of brands and other people in making this year happen for me because I um I really couldn’t do it alone. Um so, thanks for being part of my community. Yeah, I love that. I mean, so many of our biggest undertakings require that support system. So, it’s been a blast to see you experiment through our product lines and, you know, be able to experiment enough to dial in your, you know, rig that was going to support you through super different terrain and really demanding events. Um, and it’s been really cool to see like the shock stop system and the cruise control drip grips like add to your comfort and you know your confidence and your just experience in these events. But even more so, it’s just a huge honor for Redshift to be able to to back and partner with someone like you that brings such a passion um and like a sense of purpose to the sport. So, I’ve just really enjoyed getting to know like your unique experience and um also to be able to share your really powerful voice with our audience. So, it means a lot and I really hope we get to work together um and just stay in touch in the future. So, um speaking of staying in touch, um we’re going to drop your um some of your links and um some Redshift resources in the show notes. So, please check those out. Make sure you go back and and listen to our previous uh race recaps. And if you want to check out um Megan’s, you know, bike build and any other um future updates from events that she’s got coming out, please stay in touch with her there. And uh yeah, thanks everybody again so much for following along. Thanks everybody.