Paula Soler, known on the road as La Pantera, is an ultradistance cyclist from the Colombian Andes. She is now based in Girona, where she has lived for the past four years.

Paula enjoys taking on unsupported ultra-distance cycling routes, navigating gravel roads through remote landscapes. She finds meaning in the personal reflection that comes after hours on the bike.

Beyond cycling, Paula is a multidisciplinary artist and photographer. She documents her experiences on the bike through photos and reflective writing. From her roots in Colombia to the winding roads surrounding Girona, Paula continues to share her journey through her storytelling.

Alex’s first bikepacking race was the Colorado Trail Race in 2019. He was hooked on the CTR and participated every year afterward through 2025. The love for Colorado’s high country eventually led him to branch out and try other events and bikepacking trips including the Arizona Trail Race and the Tour Divide. He completed the Triple Crown Challenge in 2025 and is looking forward to expanding his horizons into other areas and events.

Alex has always had the mindset of maximizing time spent on the bike. He is a bikepack racer at heart but still has the drive to compete in XC-style mountain bike racing, including the National Ultra Endurance Series, Arizona Endurance Series and stage racing. Self-supported racing is his passion, but any mountain bike event sparks his interest. Alex calls Tucson, Arizona home and loves riding in the desert. He has raced in three Arizona Trail 800’s in a row, claiming two wins. In 2026, he will be taking the Arizona Trail 300 route for a change!

Hannah is a queer, femme, ultra-endurance cyclist who is happiest traveling the world by bike! Her ultra race endeavors started in 2021 with East Texas Showdown. Since then, she has competed in some of the largest bikepacking races in the world. In 2023, she completed the Triple Crown of bikepacking: Tour Divide, Colorado Trail and Arizona Trail. Her 2024 season included a 3rd place finish at Atlas Mountain Race in Morocco and 1st place at Silk Road Mountain race in Kyrgyzstan. In 2025, she spent the summer racing bikes in Europe at the Hellenic Mountain Race in Greece, El Piri in Spain and Bright Midnight in Norway.

Most of her cycling is long distance racing in remote areas, though when she is back home it is one of her most social activities. Bikes have brought many of her favorite people into her life and taken her to places she never imagined she’d go; two trends that she hopes will continue to be true as she continues to pursue riding bikes!

Jackson Long is a mountain athlete from Idaho with a strong passion for the intersection of endurance sports and creative expression. An accomplished ultra cyclist and ski mountaineer, he’s competed in events like the Tour Divide, Transcontinental Race, and Pierra Menta.

Jackson is a performance nutritionist and coach, supporting other athletes in their mountain pursuits, and also started Idaho’s first youth ski mountaineering team. His latest project is a forthcoming print magazine celebrating creative mountain athletes who find meaning through movement and expression through art. You can learn more about Mountain Athlete Journal HERE.

When Jackson isn’t riding his bike or finding new peaks to ski, he’s probably nerding out on film photography, sourdough baking, or dancing to house music.

Melvin de Groot is a bike mechanic and wheelbuilder from the Netherlands. He’s the owner of Adventure Wheels and co-organiser of Wildcard Rally.

Melvin has a background in fixed gear racing and got into outdoor sports when his girlfriend Nina introduced him to camping in Scandinavia.

His love for outdoor and cycling merged to bikepacking and ultra racing in 2022 and he has finished several offroad events like Seven Serpens, Bohemian Border Bash and Hellenic Mountain Race. Besides racing he loves micro-adventures and trail riding on the weekends with friends.

Alyssa is a graphic designer, community organizer, and lifelong athlete who loves spending time outdoors. After competing as a D1 400-meter hurdler in college, she found cycling in 2021 and quickly fell in love with the sport.

Over the past five years, Alyssa has worked with brands, organizations, and grassroots groups to help make cycling more welcoming and accessible for BIPOC, Asian, Queer, and FTWN-B riders by leading group rides, hosting workshops, speaking on panels, and helping run scholarship programs. In 2023, she became a UBI-certified mechanic and later that year co-founded Treehouse Cyclery, an independent bike shop in Boulder, Colorado.

She’s not a competitive rider (or racer), but she loves a good challenge and pushing her limits! Whether she’s riding across town for coffee or heading out on a multi-day trip, Alyssa loves how bikes create new ways to explore and connect with places. When she’s not riding, you’ll find her cooking, hanging with her cats, trail running, walking with friends, lingering at coffee shops, or dabbling in new creative hobbies.

Miguel Ovalles is an endurance cyclist and storyteller, also known as @racemetalbikes. He is an immigrant from Venezuela living in Santa Fe, New Mexico, with his wife and two kids. He is the creator of the Race Metal series on The Radavist, a project born from a simple question: can metal bikes go toe-to-toe with the fastest carbon bikes on the market?

In 2025, Miguel rode his first ultra-distance race, the 300-mile Mega Mid South and loved every aspect of it. The experience left him wanting more, and he now has his sights set on racing ultras in 2026 and beyond.

His connection to bikes started early, growing up riding mountain bikes with his dad, Javier, in the Andes region of Venezuela. He’s been riding bikes for as long as he can remember.

For Miguel, racing metal bikes is about sustainability, supporting small frame builders, and showing that thoughtfully built metal bikes belong at the sharp end of endurance racing. His goal is to lead by example for his kids by chasing his dreams, while creating content that inspires people from all backgrounds to get on bikes and see where they can take them.

Conor is an off-road and ultra-endurance racer with a drive for exploring new limits both on and off the bike. Drawn to the adventure of ultra-cycling, he quickly threw himself into the competitive side of the sport, motivated as much by athletic performance as by the freedom to go further and see more, pushing his limits in long, self-supported races.

Growing up on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales, he developed an early love for rolling landscapes and long days outdoors, a foundation that continues to shape the way he rides today.

Now based in Girona, he’s rarely far from the unknown, constantly seeking out new routes, chasing sunsets, and riding into the night. He has an unhealthy love for steep trails and feels most at home when things turn vertical.

Off the bike, Conor is a communicator at heart, forming narratives that inspire others and doing what he can to leave the world in a better place.

Dexter tried out a good many passions before settling down a bit: football, geology, sourdough baking, farming, thru-hiking, alpine climbing, foraging… Finally, at age 25, he got into ultra-distance bike racing.

Having found some success in winning five bikepacking races, he’s been taking racing more seriously each year. All the while, seeking balance to make it sustainable and gain perspective. In the end, a bicycle is mainly a tool to connect with places, people, and self. Side projects include working in the wilderness on a restoration crew, leading a youth conservation corps program, co-hosting the Sonoran Ultra Endurance Ride (SAUER), and impulsively baking sweet treats for whoever will take them.

Dexter is stoked to be part of the 2026 Experimental Bikepacking Team, aiming to build a mutually supportive network of brands and athletes to take on the most daunting challenges in the sport of bikepacking.

Karin grew up in Vancouver, BC and spent her childhood riding bikes in any way she could. Early mountain biking exploits included discovering the north shore trails on a fully rigid bike. Karin’s riding became sporadic as she developed a career as a backcountry ski guide and avalanche professional.

In 2018, a series of events and injuries conspired to make cycling the primary activity in Karin’s life. The years of skiing and climbing in the mountains supported the fitness needed for this burgeoning love of ultra distance riding, and the joy of traversing the land in this new way was unmatched.

Since taking 3rd in 2021 in her first ever ultra race, the Colorado Trail Race, Karin has dived headlong into bikepacking races and personal multi-day adventures. Karin has finished with podium spots on the Arizona Trail, Colorado Trail, Oregon Trail, and the Tour Divide among others. Racing has given her a chance to engage in self exploration, connecting to the land and the community.

Karin sees the intrinsic value of pushing herself past perceived limits and facing and managing uncertainty; and she feels lucky that her life allows her to both engage in these experiences and share the learning and growth with others.

She now calls Moab, UT home where she gets to enjoy one of the best training locations in the southwest while sharing her love of riding through guiding multi day cycling trips.

Paola Berber, known as Poli, is an adventure cyclist, environmental manager, and community organizer born and raised in Mexico City. Coming from the Global South, her work and riding are deeply rooted in highlighting both the challenges and the immense talent involved in being a cyclist from regions that are often underrepresented in the global cycling narrative.

Driven by a strong connection to land, territory, and community, Poli uses cycling as a tool to explore, question, and understand places. Over the years, she has bikepacked through 19 countries, choosing slow travel as a way to engage with landscapes, cultures, and the social realities that shape them. For her, cycling is not only about movement, but about presence, learning, and respect for the environments she travels through.

Her journey into ultra-cycling began two years ago, when she became drawn to the physical and mental challenges that long-distance racing demands. What excites her most about ultras is the personal growth that unfolds during the process: the confrontation with fear, fatigue, doubt, and resilience. Through these experiences, Poli seeks not only to push her own limits, but also to help normalize the presence of women from the Global South in ultra-endurance spaces, encouraging others to step into challenges that often feel distant or inaccessible.

Beyond racing and bikepacking, Poli is actively involved in community-building and storytelling. Through photography, writing, and video, she documents what it means to move through territories by bike, and the challenges, contradictions, and beauty that come with that. Her path is shaped by curiosity, perseverance, and respect for the places she rides through, always aiming to inspire others to take on challenges on their own terms.

Jill of All Trades: Not one for settling down, Susie Douglas lives a unique life filled with remote adventure and unconventional career pursuits. From professional ballroom dance instructor, to electronic music event director and DJ, to nine-year wildland firefighter, her path led to Antarctica for seven seasons, where she worked as South Pole Fuels Foreman, McMurdo Station Fuels Supervisor, and ultimately as a helo-tech, flying front-seat to deliver scientists to remote field camps.

Her bikepacking journey began in New Zealand in 2014. After purchasing an entry-level hardtail and panniers, she toured the south island for 3 weeks. Over the next decade, Susie immersed herself in the bike industry, working seasonally at bike shops, leading women’s MTB rides as a Bell Joy Ride and Ibis Cycles ambassador, and competing in Enduro, Downhill, XC, and Gravel races. She placed third at the 2025 Idaho Smoke n Fire 400, and has Doom, Trans Balkan, Alps Divide, and Taurus on the calendar for 2026.

But life has its challenges. In 2019, Susie was medevaced from Antarctica with undiagnosed Hashimoto’s Disease, followed by her brother’s terminal cancer diagnosis. After 16 years of unconventional seasonal work in remote locations, reintegrating into traditional society proved difficult. Biking became her outlet. She rallied support for a Colorectal Cancer Awareness Campaign, cycling the Great Divide Mountain Bike Route and raising $5,000 for her brother’s cancer center.

Today, Susie serves as Executive Director for Grassroots Wildland Firefighters and Director of Operations for Wildfire International. She works remotely with her canine companion, Evie, adopted months before her brother’s passing in 2022.

Like so many others, Jake found his path altered by lockdown, when the one-hour exercise window quietly ignited an obsession with bikepacking and ultra-racing. What began as casual curiosity soon became a full descent into a YouTube rabbit hole of documentaries, gear reviews, and meticulous route planning. It was there that he discovered the 2015 Transcontinental Race, and with that, the spiral truly began.

In 2023, he rode from the Arctic to Vancouver, crossing the Rockies along the way. Since then, every holiday has revolved around a single pursuit: bikepacking. 2024 only deepened the fixation. Spurred on by a bet, he trail-ran the 190km Corfu Trail with just two months of training. The experience posed an obvious question: if he could embrace the suffering on foot, why not race on wheels?

The steep learning curve of ultra-racing has left its mark. With more races beckoning than could ever be ridden, 2025 became a year defined by riding while racing. And 2026 shows no sign of being any different.

Eric House (housie), is an ultra endurance athlete with an unwavering excitement for exploration.

His hobby turned into a passion in 2021, following a snowboarding accident in November 2020 that left him with a broken clavicle and a mound of self-doubt. In an effort to rehabilitate and remove any fear of becoming sedentary, Eric committed to his first race: a triathlon (don’t judge too much). This is when he traded a vintage Peugeot for a steel gravel bike from his LBS, Race Ready Repair.

In addition to getting my body moving again, the bike world introduced him to a broader community of folks that have enriched life beyond what he could have imagined. He began working as a ride leader and vibe creator with The Gravel Collective, a non-profit bike group with the goal of inclusion and generating passion through bikes. These group rides showed the strength and value in community building.

His first ultra in east Texas solidified his love for long distance, unsupported bikepack racing and reinvigorated his love for exploration via bike. In 2022 he began racing short track XC through the Texas Mountain Bike Racing Association in addition to racing ultras. Though he loved long distance riding, XC is where he developed excitement for competition. There were a number of successes and failures during the year that helped boost skills and confidence, while keeping him humble and focused.The true bike “glow up” happened in 2023 when he turned to single speed. This is when passion turned into purpose. The shift to single speed provided the simple, raw body-bike connection, and that childlike joy from his BMX days growing up.

In 2025 Eric was is the 1st and only person to complete the three mountain races on a single speed!