As a college student, Mateo Paez commuted on his Vespa up, down and around the hills of San Francisco. However, a collision with a car pulling out of a parking spot set Paez on a path to cycling up mountains, across the globe, that he never saw coming.
“I didn’t have any major injuries, but my scooter was totaled, which forced me to fall in love with the bike,” recalls Paez, 33, who like many people, “always had a bike around” but hadn’t considered it as a primary mode of transportation. Once his scooter was out of commission, he realized he didn’t want to drive a car or take the bus, so he got himself an inexpensive one-speed bike.
“I fell in love with it,” he says of cycling around San Francisco. “It was definitely surprising. It’s totally my life now. It’s this tool to see the world with but then has also morphed into this competitive world.”
Paez, who’s lived in Bend since 2014, is an elite athlete in the cycling world, but not in a discipline that’s necessarily well known, like road or mountain biking. Rather, he competes in bikepacking, an endurance sport that combines the toughest aspects of all-terrain cycling and backpacking. He placed second in the 2025 Idaho Smoke & Fire 400, third in the 2022 Big Lonely in Bend and third in the 2022 Westfjords Way Challenge in Iceland.
When the clock starts, bikepackers take off on a prescribed route that can range anywhere from 400 to 3,000 miles and 30 hours to two weeks. They ride mostly dirt and gravel roads, rail and singletrack trails, and even ford rivers. Off-the-bike wrangling occurs regularly, as competitors have to hike-a-bike over steep or rocky terrain, and for some races, such one Paez did in Norway, they must catch a ferry between the route’s points. Some races include predetermined nightly stops, but others are just the cyclist and their bike racing against the clock from start to finish.
Men and women compete equally, and they must carry everything they’ll need with them, although they can avail themselves of commercial establishments along the fixed route, such as restaurants, hotels, and bike-repair shops. It’s an “unsupported” form of multi-day cycling competition, meaning there are no vans with helpers who follow you and help when your bike breaks or you need food or first aid. Competitors must figure out their sleeping arrangements and worry about their dental hygiene, sun protection (particularly while riding high in the mountains), and deal with any minor injuries or sickness requiring first aid. Most importantly, they must plan their meals, which often involves eating whatever they can find during a quick gas station stop.
“You have to eat like it’s your job, so your body will keep powering through it. The first day, you’re eating tested nutrition, including candy, protein bars and gels, and gummies,” Paez said. “Once you get about 24 hours into a race, you’ve gone through your stockpile, so it comes down to anything you can find in commercialized shops. One of the more unappetizing aspects of the sport is that it requires eating gas-station food. Weirdly enough, if I haven’t done a race or event lately, I kind of look forward to it in a way, because I can eat like a crazy person or a kid. But definitely after the race, I crave natural, clean, simple foods.”
While it might sound easy enough to pop into a restaurant for a satisfying meal mid race, the competitive aspect of bikepacking doesn’t necessarily allow for it.
“Once the clock starts, the race doesn’t stop,” Paez explained. “You have to have everything that you need to take care of yourself and your bike. You’re doing it under your own steam and your own power to get to that finish line. You have to carry everything you need on your bike. Your nutrition, bike maintenance (tools and parts), and anything mechanical, you have to take care of it yourself. But you can go to a bike shop. You just can’t have stuff delivered to you or call a friend to bring it to you.”
And while rigorous climbs in the saddle and a lack of a comfortable mattress or hot meal are not small factors, the hours of isolation competitors endure, where they might not see, nor talk to, another person, can be the toughest aspect of all.
“It’s not just a bike race. It pretty quickly turns into wayfinding and just taking care of yourself,” Paez said. “Every single comfort that you’re used to in your daily life is kind of taken away. You’re in your own little bubble of eating, drinking, sleeping and riding your bike. I’ve kind of developed my own little ways of finding support. With my partner, I’ll call her once a day, if there’s service. For the most part, you’re on your own, and that’s part of the sport and what you agree to. But that’s also maybe what you’re looking for when getting into it. That time to focus on yourself and the task you set yourself up for.
“The idea of emotional support is a big topic in the sport. Sometimes, just seeing someone, like my partner, would be a big boost,” he added. “Depending on the race, sometimes I don’t interact with too many people at all. And the clock is always ticking. That’s kind of the pressure of the whole sport. You’re having to think about absolutely everything. Any time you’re stopping is wasted. Time is of the essence. Everything you’re doing adds up. There’s the weird pressure that’s always in the back of your mind, and you’re limiting your sleep and limiting your stops. You’re always doing mental math in your head, thinking ‘OK, I can do this in three hours when I stop.’ ”
Growing up in San Clemente, California, Paez never imagined he’d be a competitive cyclist. After finishing college in San Francisco, he moved himself back home, making the long trip down the California coast on his one-speed bike.
“There’s just never the right gear on a bike like that,” he said with a chuckle, adding after making that final trip on his one-speed, he sprang for a new road bike.
Paez then moved to Portland, where he lived for a few years before a weekend trip to Bend left him hooked him on Central Oregon because of the “thriving bike scene” and cycling community and also because “I needed sunshine at that point.” Today, he works for Chariot Bike, coaches at Bend Endurance Academy, and trains for and competes in, typically, two major long-distance bikepacking races annually along with several smaller cycling competitions. Two major races a year might not seem like a lot, he said, but the planning and training that goes into ensuring a smooth and successful multi-day race performance requires a significant amount of time and energy. However, after completing several long races, including the Tour Divide (twice), The Big Lonely (350 miles), and another around Central Europe, he’s becoming an old hand at the preparation it takes.
“Once you get it down, it’s a crazy little equation to freedom. You do all of these things at home to make it possible to go do this,” he said. “At the end of the day, you’re going on your own little personal adventure. Once you’re in (a race), there’s complete freedom. There’s no news cycle. The only things that matter are the clock, your physical state, and pedaling your bike. It’s one of the only things in life that I’ve found completely takes me away.”
The Tour Divide, which began in 2005, is one of the longest-running bikepacking races. Competitors ride the length of the Rocky Mountains, beginning in Banff, Alberta in Canada and finishing in New Mexico, cycling through Idaho, Montana, Colorado and Wyoming, racking up 2,745 miles in total. During the ride, competitors will climb nearly 200,000 feet, spending upwards of 16 hours a day on their bikes. Along the way, cyclists must camp out overnight or find shelter along the route, and it can take approximately two weeks to finish the race.
“It’s the grandfather of bikepack racing,” said Paez of the June race that sees competitors navigating through the many passes of the Continental Divide. He’s done it the last two years. “It’s one of those events that definitely takes control (of your life) and takes anywhere from six to 12 months of the year with planning and balancing other life things and financials. Then, if you’re going fast, it takes two weeks (to finish). If anything happens or there’s (bad) weather, it can take longer.”
Paez completed the race in 2024 but had to withdraw this year after a crash in the mountains.
“I pulled the pin,” he said, a tinge of frustration in his voice. “There were really high winds on day 10, just out of Wyoming, like 70 mile-per-hour winds. I was stuck in the middle of nowhere, and the only way out is through. I wasn’t paying attention and I got blown off the road. I crashed into a ditch. I was able to keep going, but I was definitely injured. I continued for two days and then…I decided to scratch in Silverthorne, Colorado. I was 1,800 miles into the route. I did it in 2024, and I wanted to do it faster this year. It was going great until it wasn’t.”
Stephen Shelesky, 31, is bikepacking competitor, photographer and close friend of Paez. The men met while both did the Westfjords Way Challenge, a five-day ultra-distance cycling race in Iceland, in 2022 and 2023. Shelesky was at the Tour Divide in June and saw Paez shortly after his crash. He said that it was obvious that Paez was struggling with the decision to drop out.
“I think that for folks that are competitive, those can be hard times. I could tell he was fighting through that one, and his body was not working the way he wanted it to, and that’s a very difficult thing,” Shelesky said. “I find him to be, yes, extremely competitive, and you see that energy come out of him, but it never comes out in a negative way. At a race, he’s one of those people that everybody seems to know. He’s competitive, but in the most fun, humble, and good-spirited way.”
Paez has shaken off the Tour Divide experience and is focusing on his next big race, the Tour Te Waipounamu 2026, which runs the length of New Zealand’s South Island, Te Waipounamu o Aotearoa. The route is approximately 900 miles long, going through lush forest and climbing up large mountains. However, this race won’t feature many conveniences along the route, such as stores and restaurants, and it’s going to be hot.
“This one will be interesting because I’m heading down to the southern hemisphere in January, which is their peak summer. Normalizing being in peak heat when it’s starting to become winter here will be my biggest challenge, and not having shops open will be a big challenge,” he said. Participants must ship themselves food to prescribed points on the route.
“I’m expecting long stretches without resupplying,” he said. “It’s kind of a unicorn race. It only happens every two years because the organizer has to get it approved and then it goes through private land. You gain access to some incredible wild spaces that you otherwise can’t get to.”
He’ll also have moral support in the form of his partner, Olivia Brumwell, 26, who’ll go with him to New Zealand, where the couple previously spent four months in 2018.
“Going back together will be super cool,” he said, adding that Brumwell, a Bend native and rock climber, plans to get in lots of hiking and outdoor activities while he competes, and then they’ll meet up at the island’s south end for a little rest and relaxation.
The other big 2026 race Paez will compete in is the inaugural Taurus Mountain Race in October in Türkiye. The route will be approximately 870 miles long and see cyclists tackling more than 114,000 feet of elevation gains as they ride through the Taurus Mountains in Southern Turkey.
“There’s never been a race like this in Türkiye. It’s a new event,” Paez said. “Getting to do a first-edition race, where no one has raced yet, is cool.”
This article appears in the Source October 23, 2025.
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