Rebecca Rusch has a nickname: The Queen of Pain, which she earned … well, you’ll have to listen to learn that. Reba was a climber before she began adventure racing, which was before she started riding a mountain bike—something she did formally at 38 years of age. Quickly thereafter she won the Leadville 100 (and did so again three more times), then won the 24-hour solo, and 24-hour team mountain bike world championship title three times each, respectively. So much for the short stuff. Three years ago she rode the length of the Ho Chi Minh Trail (1200 miles) to the site where her father was shot down during the Vietnam War, a journey about which Red Bull made a documentary titled, “Blood Road”. She works locally and internationally as an advocate for cycling, organizes cycling camps, and a number of races the most notorious of which is Rebecca’s Private Idaho, and now the Queen’s Stage Race that includes the RPI event as the third stage. She appears tireless, motivated, and relentlessly optimistic—all characteristics we discussed during this episode.
