In this episode of the Bikepack Adventures Podcast, I catch up with Meaghan Hackinen, the first woman across the line in the 2024 Tour Divide Mountain Bike Race (7th overall), becoming the first woman to complete the Tour Divide Grand Depart event under 16 days, with a finishing time of 15d 23h 00m.
Meaghan Hackinen is a British Columbia-based ultra-cyclist, bikepacker, and writer whose two-wheeled adventures have taken her from Haida Gwaii to Mexico’s high plateaus, across Canada and the United States, and from North Cape to Tarifa along some of Europe’s highest paved roads.
She is a multi-faceted rider with a dozen women’s wins, several FKTs, as well as the course record at the World 24-Hour Time Trial Championships. Meaghan has an MFA in Creative Writing and is the author of South Away: The Pacific Coast on Two Wheels, a Kobo Emerging Writing Prize nominee, and Shifting Gears: Coast to Coast on the Trans Am Bike Race. She was the overall winner of the 2021 BC Epic 1000, 2023 Buckshot and Lost Elephant. In 2024, Meaghan was the first woman across the line in the Tour Divide Mountain Bike Race, Ozark Gravel Doom (3rd overall) and Buckshot (8th overall).
I first got to know Meaghan when she was on the podcast in episode 120, was back in 2021. Meaghan was also the keynote speaker at the inaugural Canadian Shield Bikepacking Summit in 2023 and I was fortunate to host her for the month she spent in the region while getting out on some bikepacking adventures. It was awesome to follow her on this journey along the Tour Divide, not just as a dot watcher, but also through her captivating social media posts that allowed us a glimpse into her days on the bike.
