Riding the Toiyabe Crest Trail | E91
Ten years ago, Kurt the Trail Whisperer and four friends rode the 32-mile non-Wilderness portion of the Toiyabe Crest Trail, the longest trail in Nevada, about 30 miles south of Austin and Highway 50. The 13-hour adventure was ripe with bushwhacking and overgrown trail that hadn’t seen maintenance in 40 years. After the adventure, Kurt thought to himself if the TCT was maintained, it could be one of the greatest mountain bike epics in the country, so he bought himself a reciprocating saw and got to work in 2018. Eight years later, after thousands of hours of labor with friends cutting 32 miles of brush, the TCT is clear from Ophir Pass to Kingston Canyon. Last weekend, Kurt, Pow Bot and a cast of friends including Chad Kelly and Dean Kemp from @battlebornadventures shuttled to Ophir Pass to celebrate the achievement by riding the 32-mile maintained stretch of the TCT. It was a historic ride, reaping all the benefits after eight years of labor. Because of its high elevation, staying in the alpine between 7,500 and 10,500 feet, Pow Bot considers the TCT one of North America’s greatest mountain bike epics, calling it the closest thing to a long-distance, point-to-point ski traverse you can do on a bike. In Episode 91, the boys recap an unforgettable weekend spent in the remote wilds of Nevada, and dream about what’s next for this iconic landscape few humans ever set foot on.
Nevada Day with Sydney Martinez | E48
To most of America, October 31 is synonymous with Halloween, but in Nevada, it signifies statehood and one of the greatest parades ever. Nevada became a state on October 31, 1864, at the height of the Civil War, hence its status as the “Battleborn State”. On this Nevada Day, we sit down with the authoritative expert on all things Nevada, @sydneymmartinez . For more than a decade, Sydney and her husband have explored every square mile of Nevada, using her writing and photography skills to document a vibrant and ecologically diverse state most mistake as nothing but desert. Her website, findingnevadawild.com, is loaded with history and interesting stories, all about Nevada. She’s also a rock hound, and has started her own jewelry business called Song Dog Silver. This episode covers a lot of topics including ghost towns, hot springs, geology, the Clampers, cowboy poetry, Mark Twain, UFOs and Bob Lazar.