More than 20 years ago, a gangly 7th-grade Kurt entered his first mountain bike race at the Minnesota Zoo and he has been racing ever since. After bouncing around the road and cyclocross scenes while in graduate school, he eventually returned to the dirt and became enamored by probing mental and physical limits in multi-day ultraendurance events, winning and setting records in some of the toughest bikepacking races in the United States. Kurt also makes time for exploring new landscapes at a much more relaxed pace on multi-week bikepacking expeditions. Amid all those miles, Kurt is also a geology professor at Prescott College, a cycling coach, the Founding Director of Bikepacking Roots, and an advocate for preserving our wild places and public lands.