Aaron Arnzen had been riding since 6 a.m. and already logged 180 miles on his bike that day. But with a storm rolling in and a chance at first place looming, he decided it was no time to rest. Instead, he hopped back on his bike and kept pedaling.
Over 24 hours later, early in the morning of July 26, Arnzen crossed the finish line in second place in the Trans South Dakota Race. Since he had started riding at 6 a.m. two days earlier, the Notre Dame Regional High School graduate had crossed 370 miles and slept just two-and-a-half hours.
"That was something I've never dealt with before, ever," Arnzen said. "I've hardly ever done 100 miles back to back to back. I've done it several times, but never multiple days in a row. I guess that was a testimony to the body. It's so mental."
It was one of many firsts Arnzen experienced this past month when competing in the 745-mile event, taking four days, 18 hours and 5 minutes to traverse that distance. It was his first bikepacking race -- backpacking but on a bike and with competitors "always on the clock" -- and his first podium finish in such a race, and to get there he had to overcome a mechanical problem he had never experienced before.
Those firsts were part of a fun experience for Arnzen, who is still riding his bike every day and plans to compete in other bikepacking races in the future.
For the Cape Girardeau resident, it was an enjoyable first experience.
"This race was going to be a never-again race, or totally something I would want to do in the future, which I had every intention to believe that was going to be the case, and it is," Arnzen said recently while sitting inside Cyclewerx, a cycling shop in Cape where he works. "I don't have any goals now, race-wise. I have three or four that I had in mind to do in the future."
Arnzen might participate in races in Georgia, Arizona or Colorado. For now, he's sure of one thing: he loves biking and he loves exploring, and bikepacking combines those two interests.
Often, even on weekdays, he takes a quick trip with friends to Illinois. He enjoys the camaraderie and community at Cyclewerx, which is located on North Kingshighway and describes itself on Twitter as a "premier bicycle experience facility." Every Saturday, the shop leads an overnight bikepacking trip.
It was actually getting involved and meeting people in the Cyclewerx community that got Arnzen into bikepacking.
Origins
Arnzen has an athletic background. He starred for the Notre Dame soccer team in high school before playing in college for Avila University in Kansas City, Missouri.
After college, Arnzen stayed active with backpacking, where hikers carry the gear they need to survive on their backs and camp out every night.
He had some friends who worked at Cyclewerx, and in January 2017 they introduced him to bikepacking.
"You can do this, but do it on a bike," Arnzen said. "Like what you want if you want to go backpacking. You want to get out of town, see some cool things, be in nature, but you can do it on a bike and go way further, way faster."
He was hooked and began going across the river to Illinois with friends, trips he still takes today.
Then, on Earth Day in 2017, Joe Stiller traveled to Cape and held a bikepacking demo in Cyclewerx. The founder of the Trans South Dakota Race and BarYak.com is an accomplished bikepacker himself and also introduced the group to packrafting, which constitutes five miles of the 745-mile South Dakota race.
Time went by, and late this past winter Arnzen decided he wanted to compete in a bikepacking race.
"I started thinking about something realistic I could do," Arnzen said. "As I started riding more, I instantly became hooked on watching different people do stuff. I love even watching different people do things and the way they do it and there's so many different setups and there's ways to carry things, just because it's such a newer sport."
He registered for the race and prepared by biking. Once a week, he would bike at night, getting ready for the conditions he would endure in South Dakota.
"The biggest thing with these races is not as much as who's the fastest. That does play it into a little bit. If you're a fast rider you're probably a strong rider, but whoever sits on the bike seat the longest is probably going to win," Arnzen said. "Once you start, you start. There's no Tour de France or stuff like that. It's not stage race. It's not like a 21-day race, but every day you go back to your doctor or if you crash your bike, there's one right behind you, like a brand-new one you can hop on."
Arnzen learned the hard way the problems one can encounter during a bikepacking race.
Arnzen was less than two hours into the Trans South Dakota Race on July 21 when his seat collar broke. The ring around the seatpost had come off.
"I was like, 'Are you serious?' This has never happened before and I'm always riding," Arnzen said. "I ride every day, just to work, and I always have different weight on it and carry loads of stuff and have never had this problem."
He improvised, taking a bolt from the seat and screwing it in to keep the seat collar in place.
That wasn't the only mechanical problem he was having either. Every ten minutes or so, he had to stop to tinker with his "screwy" derailleur gear. To make matters worse, about a third of the climbing was packed into the first 90-100 miles of the race.
While others opted for a bike more suited to those initial challenges, such as a mountain bike, Arnzen hadn't. He had a bike that was more suited to the gravel portions of the course.
With all the mechanical issues, he was reduced to pushing his bike up the hill at times.
While it was discouraging, a chance talk with Cyclewerx owner John Dodd boosted his spirits.
"It was cool because it wasn't formal planning, but we had kind of touched base about that time when I was having a rough afternoon that first day," Arnzen said. "I had pushed the wrong button on my headphone, trying to change a song and it called like the last person in the phone, which was him. Anyways, he was like 'How's it going?' So we chatted, and he really helped me keep tabs on how I was moving."
Throughout the competition, Arnzen talked regularly with Dodd, who gave him updates on how far he had left or how close he was to passing other racers.
Arnzen's mood was also boosted by a large dinner that first night. When he rolled into a town that first day at 8 p.m., he was 60 miles into the race and 24th out of 25 racers.
Arnzen needed a break, though, so he stopped for pizza at a local restaurant. He ate a large pizza and a salad to refuel and then got back on the bike. He rode until 3 a.m., passing others who had stopped earlier in the night to rest. Arnzen made it to a campground a mile before Mount Rushmore, sleeping that night under the trail head sign.
He kept plugging along and then, thanks to a "random series of events," he had a chance at first a few days later.
Photo finish
Arnzen was 370 miles from the finish line when he started riding at 6 a.m July 24. When he stopped for dinner, having already ridden those 180 miles, he realized he had a shot at first place. With that in mind and a storm on the way, he kept riding.
Arnzen pulled within eight miles of the race leader early that morning before his competitor woke up and began moving again. That was when Arnzen decided to take a short nap.
Less than three hours later, he got a wake-up call from Dodd.
"I remember telling myself, 'Welp, I'm either going to catch him or I'm going to see him at the finish line,'" Arnzen said. "I'm going to ride until I'm done pretty much. I'm not going to stop."
He never ended up catching the leader but took second place in his first-ever bikepacking race, a great achievement, Dodd said. Many of his competitors had been competing for years in these types of races.
Arnzen thanks the Cyclewerx community for helping him during the race. He specifically remembers a post Dodd made during his last night.
"It said, 'Hey, I just talked to Aaron.' He's going to ride until he's finished,' and the amount of people that just kept chiming (in) and said good luck or this or that, it's like oh my God," Arnzen said.
"I know everybody, and I know it exists. But sometimes you don't realize how awesome that community is until you're in the middle of something like that."
That community helped get him into bikepacking, and thanks to their support -- along with Dodd and the whole Cyclewerx community -- Arnzen experienced a set of firsts in South Dakota.
Now, he's looking forward to some more new experiences. One day he would love to compete in Tour Divide, a bikepacking race that traverses the length of the Rock Mountains from Canada to the Mexican border, following the 2,800-mile Great Divide Mountain Bike Route.
In the meantime, he will continue to bike and go on bikepacking trips to Illinois as he chases more firsts awaiting him on the horizon.