045. Darwin Rakestraw - aka Darwin Onthetrail

When I first started dipping my feet into the world of bikepacking, my searches for gear information on the internet led me to this guy, Darwin Rakestraw aka Darwin Onthetrail - Long Distance Hiker, Creator, Human Powered Adventure Machine.

The crossover between thru-hiking and bikepacking is pretty short and since I was looking for gear recommendations from experienced hikers and bikepackers alike, Darwin’s YouTube channel became a wealth of information for me and I made many of my gear choices based on the information he provided.

As much as he enjoys hiking and backpacking, cycling has always been his one true love and a huge part of his life enabling him to loose more than 100 lbs. Cycling also became a catalyst for him racing triathlons for 8 years.

He created his YouTube channel to inspire others to get outside and push their limits but found that there just wasn’t a lot of interest in the bikepacking videos he put out there. 2021 will change that.

As you’ll hear in this episode, Darwin is making a shift and has decided to devote more time to bikepacking and is going to get back into bikepacking events in 2021. Recently he posted a great short film of a bikepacking trip of the Sky Island Odyssey “a journey through the vast borderlands of the Wild West, featuring a diverse network of dirt, rocky, and sandy roads that traverse the ever-changing landscapes characteristic of the Sky Islands bio region in the Sonoran Desert.”

This was such a great conversation. We chatted about the importance of getting outside and moving in nature, the difficulty some people experience when returning to real life from their adventures, the importance of creativity in our lives as well as other topics.

Enjoy!