Free Speed for 3,000 Miles: Joe Nation’s Extreme Bikepacking Aero Hack

This week the Velo team is at Sea Otter covering the latest tech and Mike Levy is holding down the fort. In this episode, Levy sits down with New Zealander Joe Nation, a rider who possesses one of the most uniquely varied racing resumes in the sport.

Nation spent years following the mountain bike World Cup circuit as a privateer and racing in the Enduro World Series. Today, he’s trading three-minute downhill runs for events that span thousands of kilometers. He placed third overall at the 2023 Tour Divide with a time of around 15 days. More recently, he won the grueling 1,939-kilometer Silk Road Mountain Race across Kyrgyzstan in 2024.

Levy and Nation dig deep into the mindset required to survive these massive efforts, but they also look at the technology, the preferences, and the background that help Nation find success.

Nation has recently found some success, but there was a time when he was funding European downhill racing by participating in clinical drug trials, which earned him the nickname “the white rat”. He also spent two and a half months living in a tent in the Morzine woods, where locals dubbed him “Mowgli”.

That’s obviously not an easy life, and that background has played a part in Nation’s success. The old adage that “when you are hurting, so is everyone else” is something Nation credits as a major contributor to winning events. He’s also not above taking that mindset and weaponizing it with psychological warfare. After all, hiding how bad you feel can break your competitors—which is exactly what Nation did when he attacked at the top of a 3,800-meter pass during the Silk Road Mountain Race.

There’s also a healthy dose of tech. For the Tour Divide, Nation’s friend Rufus Wenlock built him a highly specialized bike through his company, Sufur Cycles. It has a massive bottom bracket drop, but not for the reason you think. Nation also pushes back on the trend of adding drop bars to everything, and he has good reasons.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Levy interview without UFO discussions, so jump in and see how that comes up, why Nation uses that massive BB drop, and what he thinks it takes to win.

00:00 – Intro & Downhill Racing Background
06:37 – The Dirtbag Days and Drug Trials
12:22 – The Tour Divide & Ultra-Racing Mindset
29:44 – The “Everyone is Dying” Superpower
41:29 – Psychological Warfare on the Silk Road
46:08 – The Custom Sufur Cycles Bike & Flat Bars
48:44 – The 100mm BB Drop Aero Hack
59:41 – Hunting for UFOs on the Trail