You’ve surely heard the stories of a deeply competitive athlete whose drive to win has wreaked havoc on those around them. But can the positive attributes of competitive drive, like  goal setting and persistence be harnessed to achieve something totally different than dominance—even something altruistic? If you’re mountain biker Eliot Jackson, the answer is yes.

Eliot parlayed national championships in motocross into top 10 finishes in downhill mountain bike racing. When he retired at 36 years old, Eliot shifted his drive to confront the racism in cycling, sparked by the national racial justice reckoning that swept the country in the wake of George Floyd’s murder.

In 2020, Eliot founded Grow Cycling,  a foundation to promote access and inclusion in the sport. Under Eliot’s guidance, the foundation turned ideas into real life solutions, starting with a 50-acre bike park in Inglewood, California. It's a shining example of a vibrant, diverse bike scene and how individual competitiveness can create real community.

Recorded live at Trailborn Jackson Hole, presented by Outdoor Collection by Marriott Bonvoy.

What does Jackson Hole look like through the eyes of a big-mountain ski superhero who's just as excited to talk about the town's artists and musicians as its powder? On this special episode of the Outside Podcast, brought to you by Outdoor Collection by Marriott Bonvoy, we sit down with Jim Ryan, recorded live at Trailborn Jackson Hole in Jackson, Wyoming.

Jim is a Vermont ski racer who headed west when his race career ended, and he became a fixture in the Jackson community, and not only in the ways you'd think. He's respected by the town's world-class athletes, but he'll just as happily tell you about its swing dancers, its creatives, and its... LARPers?

Together, it adds up to one big idea: you've been thinking about Jackson all wrong. By the end, you'll be booking your own stay at Trailborn Jackson Hole to see it for yourself.

Plan your stay at Trailborn Jackson Hole, part of Outdoor Collection by Marriott Bonvoy: https://www.marriott.com/brands/outdoor-collection.mi

Most of us, at some point in our lives, will put a goal aside, with every intention of coming back to it later on in life. Maybe it’s that marathon you always thought you should run. Maybe it’s going for that big promotion at work. Or perhaps it’s trying to learn how to play guitar or a new sport or…the list is endless.

The point is, we all have dreams, big, small, audacious, or somewhere in between. But, while the goal setting is endless, the follow through is often nonexistent. Unless you’re pianist, composer, and sailor Anne-Marie Keane, who's currently fulfilling a life-long—and long delayed—goal of sailing the globe. In today's episode, she gives a master class in navigation, not just of the seas, but of a life well lived.

On this week's Long Read, with Outside Magazine's Features Editor Fred Drier, we welcome you to fall—specifically, to Oktoberfest. Thanks to the magic of marketing, the German festival where people don lederhosen, drink beer, and sing songs has spawned a new tradition.

Masskrugstemmen is the German word for competitive steinholding. You heard that right; it's a competition in with competitors hold beer steins full of beer and ... well, that's about it.

In 2025, reporter Martin Fritz Huber traveled to Central Park to check out the Masskrugstemmen National Competition, to soak up the suds and the fun at the event, and then for this story, he took a deep dive into the wacky world of Steinholding.

This past July, host PaddyO checked the box of a bucket list adventure 20 years in the making: boating all 280 miles of the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. And, of course, he couldn’t go without a microphone stuffed into his drybag. PaddyO interviewed a handful of guests, complete strangers to him, and a few dory boat guides tasked with navigating more than 250 rapids over 15 days. Sure, the Grand is known for its beauty and thrills, but there is something else that draws people here. When boaters arrive at the Lee’s Ferry put-in, somehow, the Grand Canyon becomes whatever they need it to be–-a mirror,  a teacher, a therapist, a parent. By the time you hit the Pearce Ferry takeout two weeks later, you’re a different person. Skeptical? Just listen. 

On this week's Long Read, Abby Wise, Brand Director for Outside, takes us into the world of ultra running that has watched in awe as American runner Rachel Entrekin completely dominates the sport's most grueling distances. Known as the Queen of Cocodona for her consecutive wins at the punishing 250 mile race in Arizona, she made history this spring by winning the event outright, beating the entire men's field by over an hour, but her remarkable season was far from over. Just recently, Entrekin made her highly anticipated debut at the legendary UTMB race in Chamonix, France, trading desert heat for the brutal technical climbs of the Alps. 

She proved her versatility against a stacked international field, taking an incredible second place in the women's race with a time of 22 hours and 15 minutes. To find out what drives one of endurance sports rising stars, we turned to writer Rebecca Byerly. Rebecca had a front row seat to Rachel's history making performance this year as she was out on the trails pacing another runner at Cocodona. In this in-depth profile, Rebecca explores Rachel's rise to the top, her unique approach to training, and the joy that fuels her through hundreds and hundreds of miles.

When’s the last time you were lost, as in  “zero connectivity, a map you don’t understand, and tens of miles between you and shelter” lost? If you’ve ever been in that situation you know it awakens a kind of primal panic. It's not pleasant, but it's an amazing classroom, and it's one that Emily Miller has intentionally led people into for over 15 years. Emily's a gifted rally racer, which means she's used to being lost while at speeds near 100 miles an hour. But as interesting as her racing career is (and listen on for just how interesting it was!), it's the race she founded that's really fascinating. The Rebelle Rally is the longest navigation race in the U.S., and it's only open to women. In the past decade, Emily has trained more than 8,000 women to race it, which mean's she's taught them how to get excruciatingly lost, and then find their way home. Turns out, those skills are pretty translatable to the rest of your life.

Today's Long Read with Outside Magazine Features Editor, Fred Drier, reveals the magnitude and devastating impact of the recent tragedy on Broad Peak, in the Karakoram Range between Pakistan and China. The 26,414-foot mountain is considered one of the challenging in the region, and 10 lives lost make it the deadliest high-alpine avalanche in more than a decade. Outside's Mount Everest correspondent, Ben Ayers, spoke to the people central to the recovery effort, and this is their story.

When Peter Heller moved to the Rocky Mountains, he arrived ready to split his time between paddling rivers and penning stories.  What began with a shot-in-the-dark cold call led to a career in adventure journalism. Peter’s award winning body of work saw him on assignment in some of the most dramatic and extreme locales around the globe. And these stories in turn became the foundation for his New York Times bestselling novels, like "The River" and "Burn." Peter’s books are so compelling because of their lyrical depictions of nature and the dramatic circumstances his characters face. And underneath the adventure is a continued examination of manhood and male friendship—a theme that’s been central to his writing since his very first novel, "The Dog Stars," which recently received the full Hollywood treatment from director Ridley Scott, starring Josh Brolin, Jacob Elordi, and Margaret Qualley. Peter sat down with us just after he returned from the film’s London premiere for a conversation filled with wild tales, the ongoing examination of what it means to be a man, and how time outside forms who we are.

Today's Long Read with Outside Magazine Features Editor, Fred Drier, is for anyone who's done battle with snack-hunting seagulls on a beach trip this summer. Writer Andrew Zaleski tells the tale of how one beach community—Ocean City, NJ—got so fed up with the gulls dive bombing its guests, it decided to respond with the big guns: Birds of prey. Come take a walk on the Jersey Shore, with the falconers keeping everyone's pizza safe.

When it comes to the GOATs of outdoorsy heroes, who do you think of first? Chances are it’s not  Grand Canyon rafting legend Georgie White, groundbreaking author and Adirondack wilderness guide Anne LaBastille, and backcountry powder-skiing trailblazer Dolores LaChapelle. And author Heather Hansman wants to change that. Her new book, “Fierce Country: The Untold Story of Three Women Who Ignited America’s Love for the Wild” is a triple biography of the trio’s influence on our understanding of wild places and the odds they faced to earn this influence.  Heather rectifies the sexism that kept their names out of our history in “Fierce Country,” but never pulls a punch when it comes to the grimy parts of life that made these women complicated heroes. In her research and writing, Heather found deep gratitude for the full and messy lives these women led, and a better understanding of why and how to live a life outside.