Matthew Fairbrother

The Aug 9-14, 2026 MEGA ticked every box I’d been searching for. I just didn’t manage to tick every one myself.

I came here with one goal: finish the course. I didn’t.
This was my first endurance race. I expected the competition to change things, but it didn’t. I was still playing my own game, eating, moving and solving problems as they appeared, just with others drifting in and out of the day.

Early on I crashed and snapped my GPS mount. Navigation then meant pulling it from my pocket at every intersection. Somewhere in that process I missed a 30km loop that returned to the same point. When I next checked, I was back on course. Nothing looked wrong.
Hours later, the numbers stopped making sense. The race director told me to continue, but my goal was already gone. I still had around 20 hours ahead, pushing towards a finish that could no longer give me what I wanted. Although I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I stopped there, so I kept going.

That mistake meant I was the only to attempt the Wheeler stage before organisers cancelled it due to incoming weather. It also added back more distance and vert than I’d missed. Nearly 4,000m up, somewhere between exhaustion and lucidity, I climbed alone with a fox following me for close to an hour. Then the mountain changed its mind. Minutes after reaching the top, hail swallowed everything. Descending wasn’t an option. I wedged myself between two rocks, wrapped myself in an emergency blanket and waited 30-40 minutes for it to pass.

Weather at altitude was what scared me most coming into this. I’m now grateful I met that fear. When it became real, I stayed calm and made decisions rather than reacting to it. The navigation mistake is harder to make peace with. It was avoidable, and there’s no reframing the fact I didn’t complete the course I came to complete.
But perhaps failure and progress aren’t opposites. This was by far the hardest ride I’ve attempted, yet I’ve left more confident than I arrived. The boundaries I thought were out there have moved a little further away. I didn’t find what I came searching for. Maybe that’s useful too.

For now, some rest, then it’s time to reach a little higher.

Rolling out in a few minutes for quite possibly exactly what I’ve been searching for over the last few years.

I love the endurance side of this sport, but competitively I’ve often felt like the longer events lose some of the technical mountain biking that I enjoy most. It’s a big reason I’ve ended up creating my own routes and challenges instead.

Then the Breck Mega Epic popped onto my radar. 350km. 10,000m of climbing. A low point of 2,900m altitude and the bulk of it on proper alpine singletrack. It ticked every box. I was in.

Now I’m here, the full weight of what’s ahead has properly hit me. I’ve realised that while I I was creating challenges that pushed my boundaries, I was still curating them around myself. Routes that played to my strengths, with a safety net, usually after a focused build where I’d left no stone unturned.

This is different, I showed up yesterday. Slept in a U-Haul and now I’m about to ride 350km through the Colorado mountains 😂. This might be the least prepared and least confident I’ve felt heading into a big ride in a long time. But I’m here, and there’s nothing stopping me from giving it absolutely everything I’ve got.

Time to find out what that gets me 😅

Aug 9-14, 2026

Kona Bikes 🚲
Ergon – Beyond Better. 🍑
MOTOREX Bike 🧼
Schwalbe Tires 🛞
Mons Royale 👕
Ride FOX Bike 🧈
Race Face Performance Products 🛞
RIDE CONCEPTS 👞
Tailfin 🧳
Exposure Lights 💡
Shimano MTB ⚙️
COROS ⌚️
4iiii Innovations Inc. ⚡️
Dr Matt Miller 📊
crankbrothers 🛠️
The Ti Bolt 🔩
Skratch Labs: Fuel + Hydration 💧
CLIF BAR 🍫
Marleen Ltd. 📦 CLIF BARFOOMarleen Ltd.t PrFULLER FOOD | Overnight Protein Oats 🥣d
Shimano Bike New ZealandSkratch NZCLIF BAR

Lining up for my first Downieville Classic this week!

This is one of those races I’ve known about ever since I first got into mountain biking. I’ve watched countless YouTube videos over the years, heard plenty about it and now It feels pretty surreal to now be here, living some of those moments myself.

What I love most about this race is that it epitomises everything I enjoy about mountain bike racing. Saturday is a proper physical test with the XC, Sunday is all about skill on the downhill, and at the end of it all they crown the overall “All Mountain Champ.” It’s a format that rewards being a complete rider, that’s definitely an attractive format to me since I don’t feel like my skill sets lie in one particular area.

Really looking forward to sticking my head down, gritting my teeth on the climbs, and ripping through some Sierra dust this weekend. Excited to see how I stack up!

The more I ride e-bikes, the more of a believer I become 🤫

I was definitely sceptical about e-bike racing at first, but after the Bosch eBike Systems E-Bike Challenge in Whistler, I can safely say it’s well and truly legit.

You’re still pushing just as hard on the pedals, but the speed and momentum change everything. Corners come up faster, mistakes get amplified, and there’s barely a second where you can switch off.

Its honestly some of the most engaging I’ve done, my initial thoughts of it be the much the same were well and truely wrong. It’s just a different kind of hard.

A very fun day, a very full brain, and another step closer to admitting I might actually be a part time e-bike guy 🤷‍♂️

POV: you pack for a 6-week bikepacking trip and somehow the most important gear decision is what you don’t bring.

For this trip, I wasn’t trying to build the lightest or most efficient setup.

The goal was to piece something together that let me move fast, stay flexible, allowed me to see more and say yes to all of the opportunities that came along the way.

No camping gear meant less weight, more distance, more guest houses, more local food, plenty more culture and way more awkward-but-amazing conversations with locals I never would’ve met if I’d disappeared into a tent every night.

The bike had to handle long days, rough roads, random route choices, and the far too often “does this even go” moment.

And then beyond the bike every piece of equipment served a very specific purpose.

Swipe through for the full setup and why it made the cut.