Stage 6 of Gravel Burn did not go according to plan. Strong winds led to treacherous conditions, and after Swiss rider Andri Frischknecht suffered a crash due to high crosswinds, the 144-kilometre stage was neutralised. To recap the day, Payson is joined by South African rider Hayley Preen, who is currently sitting in third place in the GC. They talk about the weather out on course, what it was like to slow roll the rest of the stage after the decision was made to neutralise it, and what they’re...
Oct 31, 2025•18 min•Season 1Ep. 361
Stage 5 of Gravel Burn was slow despite being more than 50% paved, and it finished on a 2500-foot climb. Tom Pidcock took the stage win and joins Payson to recap the day. They also discuss the logistics of his Il Lombardia / UCI Gravel Worlds double-header earlier this month, why he decided to take a break from his off season to come to South Africa, and how he chooses which events and disciplines to put on his schedule. This episode was made possible by TrainingPeaks . Gravel Burn GC standings ...
Oct 30, 2025•18 min•Season 1Ep. 360
Stage 4 of Gravel Burn was 111 kilometres of near-constant headwind. Payson is joined by Speed Company duo Lukas Baum and Georg Eggers to get the lowdown on their moves that shook up the race early and how Lukas’s flat impacted his third-place GC position. Lukas and Georg have been friends since they raced as juniors. After becoming XC Junior World Champion in 2013, however, Lucas fell out of love with the sport and quit altogether. It was Georg who convinced him to start again in 2022, this tim...
Oct 30, 2025•41 min•Season 1Ep. 359
Stage 3 of Gravel Burn was rough and tactical. Simon Pellaud, who has raced in just about every corner of the world this season and is hot off his second-place finish in the Life Time Grand Prix, took the stage win over Matt Beers and is currently sitting in second in the GC. He joins Payson to talk about how the stage played out, his strategy for securing the win, and the crash he witnessed. Thank you to TrainingPeaks for making this episode possible. Instagram: @withpacepodcast YouTube: Payson...
Oct 28, 2025•30 min•Season 1Ep. 358
Stage two of Gravel Burn was 108 kilometres from Avontuur to Willowmore and it was much drier than yesterday. Both Matt Beers and Axelle Dubau-Prévot managed to hold on to their leads, but there were shakeups in the rest of the field. Payson is joined by Haley Smith to break down the day, including her tight finish for third, why she was so excited to compete in the event, and how she's approaching this last race of the season after a challenging year. Thank you to TrainingPeaks for making this ...
Oct 27, 2025•20 min•Season 1Ep. 357
Stage 1 of Gravel Burn is done and dusted -- a cold, rainy 84 kilometers with a spicy 2,000+ meters of climbing. Payson is joined by French gravel national champions Axelle Dubau-Prévot and Hugo Drechou to break down the race. Despite viewing this trip more as a holiday than anything else, Axelle took the win today over WorldTour legend Ashleigh Moolman and her fellow South African Hayley Preen. Hugo also landed on the podium, taking third in a sprint finish with Matt Beers and Andri Frishknecht...
Oct 26, 2025•27 min•Season 1Ep. 356
Our daily Gravel Burn recaps start tomorrow, so we're bringing you an overview of the seven-day South African stage race, including a day-by-day breakdown of the route and a rundown of the start list, which features the likes of Tom Pidcock, Lachlan Morton, Alison Jackson, and Lauren Stephens. Instagram: @withpacepodcast YouTube: Payson McElveen Email: howdy@withpace.cc...
Oct 26, 2025•28 min•Season 1Ep. 355
The 2025 Life Time Grand Prix finished with a bang thanks to a razor-thin margin in the men’s field and a last-minute course change due to weather. Payson is joined by Paige Onweller to break down how it all played out. Paige was sidelined from the season after she was hit by a car a couple of months ago, but as a Bentonville resident, she knows the route better than anyone, including the pros who had planned to race the 100-mile route before it was scrapped for the completely different 50-mile ...
Oct 26, 2025•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 354
The second-to-last round of the Life Time Grand Prix shook up the points chase in a big way thanks to a ruthless course that caused a never-ending series of crashes and flats. Payson walks through the standings before the final round this weekend, in which four riders in the men’s field could come away with the series overall. Then, he sits down with Andrew L’Esperance, who got third at Little Sugar and has been on top form all season after fighting his way into the Grand Prix via a wild card sl...
Oct 18, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 353
Over the past handful of years, Dylan Johnson has emerged as one of the key voices in gravel through his YouTube channel, where he does deep dives on everything from drivetrain efficiency and crank length to tire size and science-backed training tips. At the same time, he’s been rising through the ranks of gravel racing, competing in the Grand Prix every year and taking a top 10 at Unbound in 2025. This year, however, he was sidelined with a broken tibia after being hit by a truck just before th...
Oct 13, 2025•1 hr 33 min•Season 1Ep. 352
What do Sepp Kuss, Christopher Blevins, Howard Grotts, and Asa Vermette have in common? They all grew up in the small town of Durango, Colorado. The list of cycling pros that now live there is formidable, and includes our guest, 3x Olympian and 15x XC and CX National Champion Todd Wells. Last week, it was announced that Durango would host the 2030 mountain bike World Championships, 40 years after hosting the very first edition in 1990. Todd sat down with Payson to talk about how he and a group o...
Oct 05, 2025•47 min•Season 1Ep. 351
In this bonus episode, we’re bringing you Payson’s ride-along chat with Ellen Campbell the day before Chequamegon. They talk about how her Grand Prix season is going so far, what it’s like to be sitting just outside the top 10 going into the final two rounds of the series, and her gear choices for the race. They also talk about her Ride Dirt program, a series of workshops in which she teaches women bike maintenance and handling skills. Keep up with Ellen at @ellen.m.campbell Use code PAYSON15 fo...
Oct 02, 2025•33 min•Season 1Ep. 350
Just a few hours after winning Gravel Nationals, Bradyn Lange sat down with Payson at the house they were sharing in the lead-up to the race for a wide-ranging conversation about the event and all the things that had to fall into place to get him there. Bradyn has always identified more as a mountain biker than a gravel racer, but after struggling to find sponsors and snagging a rogue 4th place at Big Sugar in 2021, he managed to secure a sponsorship from Pinarello and a place in the 2022 Grand ...
Sep 26, 2025•1 hr 49 min•Season 1Ep. 349
In our latest Grand Prix recap, Payson takes a recovery spin with Melisa Rollins, who won the women’s race solo and made the competition for the top spot in this year’s standings even tighter. Then, he chats with Charlie and Steve, two friends who work for the Forest Service who were the last people to cross the finish line before the cutoff. But first, Payson crunches some numbers to see where things stand with the Grand Prix points and how he thinks the final two rounds in Bentonville might go...
Sep 20, 2025•1 hr 22 min•Season 1Ep. 348
When Payson hobbled his way into the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center in May with a broken hip, he wasn’t expecting to be off crutches anytime soon, but thanks to the work of coaches like Will Gilmore, he not only managed to leave the facility without crutches, but also to jump back into racing a full month and a half before he’d planned. Will started his career in baseball, playing professionally before becoming a strength and conditioning coach for the Kansas City Royals and Cincinnati Reds...
Sep 09, 2025•1 hr 11 min•Season 1Ep. 347
Mountain bike racing is hard. Ultrarunning is hard. So why did Maude Farrell decide to make things extra brutal for herself this season by combining them? Earlier this month, she won the Lead Challenge, a multi-month series comprised of five trail running and mountain bike races at over 10,000 feet. The final week of the series involved racing the Leadville 100 mountain bike race, running the Leadville 10k the next day, and running the Leadville Trail 100 race six days later. Maude sat down with...
Aug 31, 2025•1 hr 37 min•Season 1Ep. 346
The day after placing top 10 at the Leadville 100, Zach Calton joined Payson on a ride to talk about returning to form after the toughest season of his career. They discuss how it all started a year ago at the Breck Epic, his disastrous experience at the Cape Epic, and how he’s slowly found his footing again this season. Use code PACE20 for 20% your first order of LTH supplements and take the quiz to get a plan tailored to your needs. Watch: Ride With Pace - Ep 4 Leadville Watch this episode on ...
Aug 23, 2025•34 min•Season 1Ep. 345
Barely half an hour after crossing the finish line at the Leadville 100, Bradyn Lange joined Payson for a painful cooldown ride at 10,000 ft. They debrief about the race, talk about Bradyn’s last-minute set-up change, and debate whether Leadville is harder than Unbound. Use code PACE20 for 20% off your first order of LTH supplements and take the quiz to get a plan tailored to your goals and needs. Watch: Ride With Pace - Ep 4 Leadville Watch this episode on YouTube here: Bradyn Lange Post Race S...
Aug 22, 2025•24 min•Season 1Ep. 344
In this packed Leadville 100 recap, Payson chats with 4th-place finisher Torbjørn Røed about his journey to the Grand Prix and their sprint finish last weekend. Then, he talks to Cecily Decker (aka Diesel Decker), who saw her months-long preparation for the race pay off when she took third place on the day and the top spot in the Grand Prix standings. Later, he chats with Emily Fagan, a middle school math and English teacher from North Carolina who took home the “Last Ass Over the Pass” trophy w...
Aug 18, 2025•2 hr 5 min•Season 1Ep. 343
Cam Jones has had a pretty memorable 2025 season, rocketing from Grand Prix wild card to winner of Unbound. And yet, that dramatic turn of events pales in comparison to his 2022 season. For his final year as a U23, Cam planned to race every World Cup in the hope that it might secure him a team for the start of his Elite career. After a promising start to the season, things went downhill fast. Kidney failure, Covid, and a five-day stint in a Belgian detention center followed, and somehow, that ba...
Aug 08, 2025•1 hr 18 min•Season 1Ep. 342
Robin Gemperle defied all previous Tour Divide records earlier this year when he finished the notorious 2,700-mile race in less than 12 days, more than 300 miles ahead of second place. Formerly a junior member of the Scott-SRAM cross country team, he felt that there was untapped potential in maximising how fast the route could be ridden, not just how efficiently riders could sleep and refuel. Bringing all of his racing skills to the table, he set a blistering new standard that got people debatin...
Aug 03, 2025•1 hr 24 min•Season 1Ep. 341
Kate Courtney returns to the show the day after completing the Leadville Stage Race. Just a few months ago, it was barely on her radar, but after a broken wrist took her out of the World Cup circuit, she decided to look for a new way to challenge herself before the season starts up again at the end of August. In a couple of weeks, she’ll be lining up for her first Leadville 100. Kate sat down with Payson to talk about how the reality of the stage race diverged sharply from her expectations, what...
Jul 28, 2025•45 min•Season 1Ep. 340
Cécile Lejeune started racing triathlons in her native France at 12 years old and quickly began picking up national titles. After gaining the attention of international recruiters, she moved to the US to race track in college. Soon, however, a chronic series of stress fractures took her out of competition and forced her into early retirement. Now, after just one year racing gravel, she’s become a top contender in the Grand Prix, even nabbing fifth at her first Unbound earlier this year. Cécile s...
Jul 21, 2025•1 hr 48 min•Season 1Ep. 339
With six mountain bike world championships, a Leadville win, six World Cups, and six Cape Epic victories under her belt, Annika Langvad is one of the most decorated off road cyclists of all time. But shortly after yet another career triumph in 2019 when she pivoted to road racing and placed second at the Strade Bianche, she decided it was time to retire from racing. She began working as a dentist, but after the birth of her daughter 10 months ago, she realised that she was ready to jump back int...
Jul 13, 2025•32 min•Season 1Ep. 338
Payson and Sarah made it back to Bend. They may be a bit more haggard than they were at the beginning of the race, but that hasn’t dampened their enthusiasm. They sit down to talk about how the final stage played out, including all the tactics that went into the series overall standings. Then, they bring in Sarah’s husband Dylan to talk about his week, which involved a lot of mountain biking and car maintenance. Lastly, Nichole hops on the mic to talk about winning the women’s open category, lea...
Jul 01, 2025•46 min•Season 1Ep. 337
Payson and Sarah had two very different experiences on day four of the Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder. They recap their respective miseries and triumphs on this second-to-last day, discuss how things are shaping up in the overall standings, and talk about the literal run-in with wildlife that left the racers shaken. They also talk about Dylan’s victory at the hot dog eating contest, the greatest gift Sarah ever received (an ice skating costume), liquified shower curtains, and, just in case you thou...
Jun 29, 2025•39 min•Season 1Ep. 336
Stage 3 saw the riders heading out for an enduro day that turned out to be very heavy on the climbing. Skyler Taylor, who won the men’s stage, joins Payson and Sarah to talk about how he managed to reel in Cam Jones who has so far dominated the race with his power and descending skills. He also talks about deciding to leave his full-time job to focus on gravel this year, which he quickly followed through on by winning a wild card spot in the Grand Prix. Plus, Sarah talks about why time has never...
Jun 28, 2025•29 min•Season 1Ep. 335
After the punishing 94.7 miles of stage two, Payson and Sarah sit down with Cécile Lejeune, who is currently duking it out for first place in the overall despite having raced fewer than 10 gravel races in her entire career. They recap the day, which included multiple crashes, plenty of interpersonal drama, and a few good samaritans. They also talk about Sarah’s issue with Cécile’s snack choices, the multiple jobs Cécile holds down when she’s not racing, and whether running (her first sport) feat...
Jun 27, 2025•47 min•Season 1Ep. 334
As the dust settles on stage one of the Oregon Trail Gravel Grinder, Payson and Sarah sit down to talk about the punishing 80 miles from Bend to Gilchrist. They discuss how things played out in the men’s and women’s fields, how Sarah’s new haircut might have taken her out of contention, Evel Knievel’s leap across the Snake River, and her husband Dylan’s run-in with a skunk that has followed them to the race. Today’s episode is presented by SILCA . Use code: withpaceoregontrail to get 15% off. In...
Jun 26, 2025•30 min•Season 1Ep. 333
In this final episode on this year’s Unbound, we’re bringing you two interviews that Payson recorded while on the ground in Emporia. The first took place with Sarah Sturm the night before the race in which she discusses the limitations of team tactics in the women’s field. Her husband Dylan Stucki and mechanic Anna Greetis also chime in to talk about what it’s like doing the aid stations at such a big and important event. Next, Payson talks to Taylor Lideen, who he caught up with the day after t...
Jun 22, 2025•29 min•Season 1Ep. 332
