With Pace
Professional mountain biker Payson McElveen sits down with some of the biggest names in sports and adventure to get an inside look at what sets them apart. With no script, the casual conversations are as diverse as the guests, with topics ranging from harrowing tales of survival, to debates on current events, to everyday tips and tricks and everything in between. As Payson travels the world for his two-wheeled day job, listen in as he rubs shoulders with and learns from some of the most inspiring athletes, entrepreneurs, academics, and others as they chase and inspire greatness.
Episodes
349 episodes
Will Gilmore, performance coach at the Red Bull Athlete Performance Center
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 facili...
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Season 1
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Episode 347
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1:10:53
Maude Farrell on winning the Lead Challenge after months of balancing cycling and ultrarunning
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 tr...
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Season 1
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Episode 346
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1:36:42
Ride With Pace: Zach Calton the morning after the Leadville 100
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 experie...
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Season 1
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Episode 345
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33:54
Ride With Pace: Bradyn Lange after Leadville
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 Leadvil...
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Season 1
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Episode 344
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23:56
Leadville recap, with Torbjørn Røed, Cecily Decker, Emily Fagan, and key takeaways
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 prepar...
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Season 1
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Episode 343
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2:05:05
Cam Jones on his U23 misadventures in Europe and growing up in New Zealand
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 Wor...
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Season 1
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Episode 342
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1:18:16
Robin Gemperle on winning the Tour Divide in under 12 days
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 te...
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Season 1
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Episode 341
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1:24:21
Kate Courtney on tackling Leadville and her first season as a privateer
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 challen...
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Season 1
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Episode 340
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45:25
Cécile Lejeune on her steep gravel learning curve and medically retiring from sports in college
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 ...
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Season 1
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Episode 339
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1:47:40
Annika Langvad on coming out of retirement after having a baby
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 ...
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Season 1
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Episode 338
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32:05
Oregon Trail stage 5 co-hosted by Sarah Sturm, with Dylan Stucki and Nichole Baker
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 ...
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Season 1
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Episode 337
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46:17
Oregon Trail stage 4 co-hosted by Sarah Sturm
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 ta...
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Season 1
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Episode 336
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39:00
Oregon Trail stage 3 co-hosted by Sarah Sturm, with Skyler Taylor
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...
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Season 1
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Episode 335
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29:05
Oregon Trail stage 2 co-hosted by Sarah Sturm, with Cécile Lejeune
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, ...
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Season 1
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Episode 334
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47:16
Oregon Trail stage 1 co-hosted by Sarah Sturm
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 hair...
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Season 1
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Episode 333
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29:54
Ride With Pace: Sarah Sturm and Taylor Lideen at Unbound
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 ...
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Season 1
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Episode 332
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29:23
Ride With Pace: Rosa Klöser the day after Unbound
Going into Unbound this year as the defending champion, Rosa Klöser knew she was a marked woman. What she didn’t expect was that the usual crashes and chaos of gravel’s biggest event would start as soon as the first handful of miles. After a fa...
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Season 1
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Episode 331
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38:27
Unbound recap part II with Karo Migoń and key takeaways
In the second part of our Unbound recap, Payson chats with Karo Migón about her dominant win. After initiating an early breakaway with two other riders, she went solo with nearly 50 miles to go, finishing all on her own despite having a slow re...
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Season 1
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Episode 330
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1:30:09
Unbound recap part I with Cam Jones
In the first half of our Unbound recap, Payson sits down with men's 200 winner Cam Jones to talk about his stunning breakaway with TudorPro rider Simon Pellaud that stuck from mile 50 all the way through to a massive course record. Cam went int...
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Season 1
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Episode 329
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56:30
Unbound preview with Dylan Johnson
It’s Unbound week and Payson sat down with fellow sidelined-by-injury Grand Prix rider Dylan Johnson to set the scene and make some predictions. They talk about how last year’s race played out, what the weather is shaping up to be like and how ...
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Season 1
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Episode 328
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1:22:41
Nichole Baker on her unexpected detour into racing and graduating from Johns Hopkins
For years, Payson has maintained that Nichole is the most talented athlete in their household, but it wasn’t until this winter that she finally decided to add some structure to her riding and shoot for some concrete goals. It all came about dur...
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Season 1
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Episode 327
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1:37:59
Alexey Vermeulen on shaking up the Grand Prix and bringing new talent into the sport
Alexey Vermeulen has a lot of thoughts on how US gravel can improve. A 100-mile Unbound. A U23 field. Fewer elite riders in the Grand Prix—the list goes on. Since leaving the WorldTour to join the American off-road scene, Alexey has become one ...
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Season 1
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Episode 326
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1:19:35
Iz King on balancing gravel racing and pregnancy
When Iz King got pregnant six months ago, she wasn’t sure how it would affect her career as a gravel racer. Like many female athletes who want to start a family someday, she was all too aware that pregnancy, like being an elite-level competitor...
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Season 1
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Episode 325
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1:11:10
Biju Thomas on fueling the US Olympic team in Paris and cooking 900 pounds of chicken at Sea Otter
Chef Biju Thomas made a major impact on cycling when he helped co-found Skratch Labs with his friend Allen Lim, but these days, you're most likely to find him cooking for cyclists at large events. For example, he was part of the squad that fuel...
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Season 1
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Episode 324
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1:14:25
Anneke Beerten on her years as a four-cross champion, retiring after a brain injury, and becoming a top skills coach
Anneke Beerten was one of the top mountain bikers in the world for a decade, starting her career as a two-time BMX world champion before dominating the 4 cross circuit with three world titles. She’s gone through many career transitions over the...
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Season 1
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Episode 323
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1:18:30