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For 2023, we’re excited to be rolling into our second year as the Industry Nine – Pivot Pro Backcountry Team. After a successful first year, we’re still the 2-rider team of Kait Boyle and Kurt Refsnider.
With a diverse calendar of events, adventures, and projects spanning down-country and enduro style stage racing, self-supported ultras, trail initiatives, and trail traverses of the Continental Divide and the Iditarod Sled Dog route, we’re excited for the opportunity to be working with partners and organizations who share our values of backcountry trails, adventurous riding, stewardship, and excellence in our pursuits.
Here we share a bit about who we are and what is on the horizon this year.
World champion, record-holding ultra-endurance athlete, advocate, educator
Hi, I’m Kait. I love moving in mountains, through canyons, across deserts, and down rivers. I discovered the mountain bike amidst a career in outdoor education and quickly fell in love with bikepacking which dominoed into pursuing long bikepacking expeditions around the world. I started racing to see if I could, which turned into wondering what my best looked like. I’ve since won the 24-Hour World Championships, set records in self-supported ultras that rival the strongest men, survived and overcome a traumatic car accident, co-founded Bikepacking Roots, and found my voice and passion as an advocate for wild landscapes, trails, and climate. I now focus on backcountry trail riding and race shorter (non-ultra) distances occasionally but mostly ride to explore landscapes and enjoy the process of breathing up and down mountains on my bike.
Off the bike I love time at home in the Tetons with my partner, Will, and our dog Hank.
Home: Victor, Idaho, ancestral lands of the Shoshone Bannock, Eastern Shoshone and Cheyenne Tribes
Age: 35
Pronouns: she/her/hers
Education: M.A., Environmental Education, Prescott College. B.A., Wilderness Leadership & Environmental Education, Prescott College
Career highlights:
Favorite places to ride:
Ultra-endurance/bikepacking legend & record holder, route developer, advocate, cycling coach, geologist
Howdy, Kurt here! More than 20 years ago, 7th-grade Kurt entered his first mountain bike race at the Minnesota Zoo, and I’ve been racing ever since. After bouncing around the road and scenes while in graduate school, I eventually returned to the dirt and became enamored by probing mental and physical limits in multi-day ultraendurance events, winning and setting records in some of the toughest bikepacking races in the United States – Tour Divide, the Arizona Trail 300 and 750, the Colorado Trail Race, the Iditarod Trail Invitational, and more. But experiencing new-to-me landscapes and developing a deeper understanding of them is what really energizes and inspires me, whether that’s moving through those places at a rapid or relaxed pace. And rugged backcountry trails are where I love riding the most.
Beyond simply pedaling my bike, I’m a co-founder of and the Routes Director at Bikepacking Roots, a cycling coach, a former geology professor, and an advocate for landscapes, backcountry trails, and climate.
Home: Prescott, Arizona, lands of the Yavapai Apache and Hohokam Tribes
Age: 41
Pronouns: he/him/his
Education: Ph.D., Geological Science, University of Colorado – Boulder. M.S., Geology and Geophysics, University of Wisconsin – Madison. B.A., Geology, University of Minnesota – Morris.
Career highlights:
Favorite places to ride:
Personal sponsors:
Banner and 2023 schedule photos by Fred Marmsater