Tip 1: Let minimalism guide your packing<\/p>\n
Matthew Pioro Do you have an adage or a saying or a system that guides you with your equipment choices?<\/p>\n
Meaghan Hackinen I try to be as minimalist as possible, but without compromising safety. I\u2019ll always bring a rain jacket with a hood, even though the hood weighs more. I know that jacket will protect me more in the rain. I\u2019ll be a lot happier in a storm because of that hood.<\/p>\n
People are often like, what\u2019s your luxury item? And I\u2019m just like: a podcast download. I have no luxuries. But I do bring headphones, which I guess some would consider a luxury item. I really try to think of what I need, what am I using.<\/p>\n
In thinking about safety, we bring things that we don\u2019t use, like a first aid kit, right? Or gear to repair our bike. But I\u2019ve kind of figured out what I need to pare that down to the minimum that I feel comfortable with in these remote places and that works for me. So minimalist but also thinking about safety.<\/p>\n
I received a few questions about my sleep setup. I think people were a little bit in disbelief that I actually had a sleep setup on my streamlined bike. I got very defensive. I was like, of course I have a sleep setup. I have an emergency bivy, a sleeping bag rated to 0 C and a pad. This will keep me safe in a snowstorm, even, you know, like with my puffy jacket and my rain pants and my socks. I can tuck into that bag and just really have a warm, safe space.<\/p>\n
Matthew Pioro Is there a certain training specificity you have to bring to different events, like possibly Tour Divide versus say a Mountain Races series event?<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen The hardest thing about the Tour Divide is its duration. It\u2019s really long. Even Silk Road, I think I finished in nine days and Tour Divide was two weeks. To be able to manage yourself on the bike and put out reasonable power numbers for that long is the challenge. [My coach and I] worked on durability and doing some workouts where I\u2019d have intervals at the beginning. I\u2019d ride in Zone 2 for a few hours, and then I\u2019d repeat those intervals at the end. We\u2019d compare how well I did on the second set to the first set. The second set felt pretty terrible, always. But it kind of mimics what you would be doing in those longer multi-day races. The touring, I also think, mimics that a bit. Your body just gets accustomed to hopping on the bike every day and going. I think those two things kind of helped. I guess to answer your first question, what makes it different is the duration of it. It\u2019s not as hard as the Mountain Races in terms of technical challenges. There are some tricky bits, but just the strain on your body for that long.<\/p>\n Matthew Pioro What does a rider who wants to get started in ultra-cycling do when they start with training? Should they get a coach or does the old adage, \u201cride lots,\u201d to use a quote associated with Eddy Merckx, work when you\u2019re starting out?<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen I would say having a variety of things, doing a variety of things and riding lots is probably the best thing you can do if you have the time for it\u2014but recognizing that many people don\u2019t have the time to go out on these kinds of all-day adventures. When I think about my training schedule, I have maybe two or three hard workouts in the week, and then one longer ride. Somebody starting out, I would definitely encourage you to try to hit that weekly longer ride. In the winter, that might be four or six hours. In the summer that could be as long as you can handle out there on a bike. But that really gives you a chance to shake out your gear, to develop the saddle calluses you might need on your undercarriage to handle the the long days, to practise fuelling and nutrition, to get comfortable navigating, to make sure that you\u2019re comfortable riding at night and in any time of the day, right? For me I think of it as whatever training you\u2019re doing for any other event, and then add one longer workout. Take one of those Zone 2 rides and make it longer so that you get that practice in.<\/p>\n Tip 3: Fuelling\u2014A fifth grader\u2019s dream, a dentist\u2019s worst nightmare<\/p>\n Matthew Pioro Tell me a bit about your fuelling strategy on the Tour Divide.<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen I have an alarm on my Coros that tells me to eat every 45 minutes. That can just be a snack, like a handful of candy. I always had food in my pockets. I had food in the stem pack of my bike. Sometimes I wore a musette bag with snacks for the resupplies that would be, I don\u2019t know, I guess times when I was going to be about a day between resupply, I would have to put stuff in that musette bag. So, I just always try to be eating and make that a constant habit. It\u2019s hard to digest that quantity of food. Whenever I stopped at a gas station, because that\u2019s mostly where I was eating out of, I would go for all the liquid calories I could\u2014big fountain drinks, iced coffees, chocolate milk, smoothies, Yeah, everything I could. And then things that digest, or maybe maybe not digest, but things that go down easily, like ice cream and gummy candies\u2014just like a fifth grader\u2019s dream, a dentist\u2019s worst nightmare.<\/p>\n Matthew Pioro Meaghan Hackinen, welcome to the Canadian Cycling Magazine Podcast.<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen Thanks for having me. Stoked to be here.<\/p>\n Matthew Pioro We\u2019re speaking a few weeks after you set a new record for the Tour Divide, the ultra-cycling event from Banff, Alberta, to Antelope Wells, New Mexico. You now have the women\u2019s record for the Tour Divide, which is 14 days, 10 hours, and 2 minutes. How are you feeling about your success now that you\u2019ve had some time to settle in at home in Kelowna? Maybe you\u2019ve cleaned your bike, I\u2019m assuming, You\u2019ve gone to the dentist.<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen Yeah, I cleaned my bike, cleaned my teeth, no cavities after eating nothing but junk food and fizzy drinks for two weeks. So that\u2019s a relief. It feels just as exciting now as it did when I got to the finish in Antelope Wells. I think probably the biggest win that I\u2019ve had in setting the record is just something that\u2019s been on my dream list and to live your dreams, nothing could beat that.<\/p>\n Matthew Pioro This is your second Tour Divide record. You set your first in 2024, but there are some differences between those two marks, if you will. Can you touch on those differences briefly?<\/p>\n Getting the timing right for the Tour Divide<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen For sure. In 2024, I finished the Tour Divide in 15 days, 23 hours. I won the women\u2019s division that year. I was number seven overall, and it was the fastest Grand Depart time. So for a woman. So it was the fastest time in the women\u2019s category that someone had raced in the Grand Depart where everybody heads out from Banff together. This time, in 2026, I was able to win the women\u2019s division again. I was number eight overall. And I set a new fastest Grand Depart time, 14 days, 10 hours, 2 minutes. And that\u2019s also the fastest overall time that a woman has ever raced the Tour Divide.<\/p>\n You can race it as a Grand Depart, leaving with everybody on the start day, which is always the second Friday in June, or you can race it as an ITT and set that up any time of the year. The advantage of doing it as an ITT is you can fit it into your calendar year. We saw Lachlan Morton do that. And you might have the advantage of better weather if you can schedule it for a time when there\u2019s not going to be snowstorms and monsoons.<\/p>\n Matthew Pioro But as you mentioned to me, before we hit record, there may be other pitfalls with leaving later in the year, possibly wildfires in the U.S. that you might have to contend with their smoke.<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen That\u2019s probably the biggest danger is wildfires and smoke, especially with the climate change we\u2019ve seen over the last few years. To get a record on the route, you have to ride it as written. If there\u2019s any sort of detour to go around a wildfire, or yeah, usually it\u2019s wildfires, then it doesn\u2019t count as a record. And it\u2019s a 4,400 km route, so you could be 3,900 km in and be forced to reroute. And that would be heartbreaking. That\u2019s the reality of this race. The pitfall that riders leaving on the second Friday in June in the Grand Depart usually have is there\u2019s often snow in the mountains. The thing with snow is usually you can post-hole through it and it\u2019ll slow you down. It doesn\u2019t make for fast riding, but it\u2019s still passable, right? It\u2019s not like burning up in a fire.<\/p>\n Training for an ultra-distance ride like the Tour Divide<\/p>\n Matthew Pioro It\u2019s not like burning up on a fire. Right. Frostbite versus burns. I want to know more about your training for this event. When did you start structured work in preparation for this?<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen I started in November last year and that\u2019s the time when I\u2019d recovered from whatever my last event of the season was. I was starting to feel excited about training. So I did some testing with my coach. I hate testing. I hate working out to failure. I think some people enjoy it. I don\u2019t like that feeling. I\u2019d actually been kind of avoiding it and making up lame excuses for not doing certain workouts that are really hard.<\/p>\n But I did it this time because I really wanted to go back to the Divide and listening to your coach is one of those things that you should do if you\u2019re trying to get the most out of your body. Structured training through November and December aside from the testing looked like about three harder workouts a week kind of alternating between threshold and VO2 and in between those were usually easier Zone 2 workouts. That\u2019s when I could kind of schedule my adventure rides. I was house sitting in the Kootenays for some of that and just love exploring new places. They had a very mild fall so I did some great riding there. December was more indoor training in Kelowna where I live. I have asthma. My lungs don\u2019t do well in the cold temperatures so I prefer to train indoors when the temperatures are probably 5 C and cooler. Then I\u2019ll go out hiking or snowshoeing at a lower intensity that doesn\u2019t aggravate my asthma. Then I went to Baja California for seven weeks and bikepacked the Baja Divide. That was my January and February.<\/p>\n Matthew Pioro Your training for Tour Divide seemed, how can I say, you had a lot of flexibility. But is there a certain specificity you have to bring to different events, like possibly Tour Divide versus say a Mountain Races series event?<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen The Tour Divide is the hardest thing about it is its duration. It\u2019s really long. Even Silk Road, I think I finished in nine days and Tour Divide was two weeks. To be able to manage yourself on the bike and put out reasonable power numbers for that long is the challenge. We worked on durability and doing some workouts where I\u2019d have intervals at the beginning. I\u2019d ride in Zone 2 for a few hours, and then I\u2019d repeat those intervals at the end. We\u2019d compare how well I did on the second set to the first set. The second set felt pretty terrible, always. But it kind of mimics what you would be doing in those longer multi-day races.<\/p>\n The touring, I also think, mimics that a bit. Your body just gets accustomed to hopping on the bike every day and going. I think those two things kind of helped. I guess to answer your first question, what makes it different is the duration of it. It\u2019s not as hard as the Mountain Races in terms of technical challenges. There are some tricky bits, but just the strain on your body for that long.<\/p>\n Matthew Pioro What does a rider who wants to get started in ultra-cycling do when they start with training? Should they get a coach or does the old adage, \u201cride lots,\u201d to use a quote associated with Eddy Merckx, work when you\u2019re starting out?<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen I would say having a variety of things, doing a variety of things and riding lots is probably the best thing you can do if you have the time for it\u2014but recognizing that many people don\u2019t have the time to go out on these kinds of all-day adventures. When I think about my training schedule, I have maybe two or three hard workouts in the week, and then one longer ride. Somebody starting out, I would definitely encourage you to try to hit that weekly longer ride. In the winter, that might be four or six hours. In the summer that could be as long as you can handle out there on a bike. But that really gives you a chance to shake out your gear, to develop the saddle calluses you might need on your undercarriage to handle the the long days, to practise fuelling and nutrition, to get comfortable navigating, to make sure that you\u2019re comfortable riding at night and in any time of the day, right? For me I think of it as whatever training you\u2019re doing for any other event, and then add one longer workout. Take one of those Zone 2 rides and make it longer so that you get that practice in.<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen on strategizing pacing and sleep<\/p>\n Matthew Pioro Tell me about your overall strategy for riding Tour Divide. I\u2019m thinking of things like pacing, breaks and even sleep.<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen I looked at my 2024 day-by-day numbers from Strava and used that to help me make a plan for this year. I had targets for every day, but making those targets knowing I would probably fall off target in the second half of the race. So that\u2019s how I kind of looked at that.<\/p>\n I have a lot of experience racing ultras. I know that my minimum sleep is four hours. That\u2019s the bare minimum. Less than four hours on an event that\u2019s more than, let\u2019s say 48 hours, I start to become a mess and make stupid mistakes, navigational errors and just become very slow. I knew I needed to plan for four-hour stops. I left some room to feel it out. I wasn\u2019t feeling well-rested by the time I got to Wyoming, so I upped that time to five hours and feel like that was the right decision.<\/p>\n Also related to sleep, I hoped to stay in hotels most of the time. I brought a bivy setup for camping, so that I would be able to sleep outside as well. That was a really good decision because things didn\u2019t go as planned with the hotels. I ended up outside an awful lot. So I had these daily targets. I had an idea of where I\u2019d want to stop each night, whether that would be a hotel or a bivy.<\/p>\n For fuelling, I have an alarm on my Coros that tells me to eat every 45 minutes. That can just be a snack, like a handful of candy. I always had food in my pockets. I had food in the stem pack of my bike. Sometimes I wore a musette bag with snacks for the resupplies that would be, I don\u2019t know, I guess times when I was going to be about a day between resupply, I would have to put stuff in that musette bag. So, I just always try to be eating and make that a constant habit. It\u2019s hard to digest that quantity of food. Whenever I stopped at a gas station, because that\u2019s mostly where I was eating out of, I would go for all the liquid calories I could\u2014big fountain drinks, iced coffees, chocolate milk, smoothies, Yeah, everything I could. And then things that digest, or maybe maybe not digest, but things that go down easily, like ice cream and gummy candies\u2014Just like a fifth grader\u2019s dream, a dentist\u2019s worst nightmare.<\/p>\n Matthew Pioro That is the best description I\u2019ve heard actually of the current fuelling trends with high carb stuff. One rider said to me \u2014 he was a bit more cynical about it\u2014said we\u2019re all diabetics in the making. But I don\u2019t think the sugars are staying around long enough.<\/p>\n Meaghan Hackinen I feel you\u2019re burning through those calories as quickly as you\u2019re eating them if you\u2019re, you know, if you\u2019re doing these rides. Sometimes, for me, it can be a little hard to transition back to normal life. I go into a store and all of a sudden I\u2019m in the pastry aisle and just loading up my buggy with all this stuff that like, right, you get the vegetables over here. We can eat green things now. It doesn\u2019t matter how many calories are in something. We\u2019re not going for the most calories for the dollar anymore. We\u2019re going for nutrient density and taste.<\/p>\n Matthew Pioro That\u2019s a very interesting sort of gear-switch you have to make from in-race to out-of-race.<\/p>\n![\"Meaghan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/meaghan_hackinen_tour_divide_IMG_1446-3.jpg\")
<\/a>Meaghan Hackinen, 2026, Tour Divide.
\nTip 2: Tailor your training to the ride you\u2019re doing<\/p>\n![\"Meaghan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/meaghan_hackinen_credit_-Felix-Laberge.jpg\")
<\/a>Meaghan Hackinen, 2026, Tour Divide. Image: Felix Laberge<\/p>\n![\"Meaghan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/meaghan_hackinen_tour_divide_IMG_5870-3.jpg\")
<\/a>Meaghan Hackinen, 2026, Tour Divide.
\nFull transcript of the Meaghan Hackinen interview<\/p>\n![\"Meaghan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/meaghan_hackinen_tour_divide_IMG_6290.jpg\")
<\/a>Meaghan Hackinen in Antelope Wells, N.M., 2026, after setting an FKT for the Tour Divide
\nGetting started in ultra cycling: Tips for beginners<\/p>\n![\"Meaghan](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/meaghan_hackinen_tour_divide_IMG_5882.jpg\")
<\/a>Meaghan Hackinen, 2026, Tour Divide.
\nGetting started in ultra cycling: Tips for beginners from Meaghan Hackinen<\/p>\n