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High Attrition in the High Country: 2025 Arkansas High Country Race
Aaron Arnzen wraps up our 2025 Arkansas High Country Race coverage with a closer look at those who finished and those who didn’t—and why this year’s event saw the highest scratch rate in the event’s history. Find that, and our final gallery of photos from the event here…
PUBLISHED Oct 25, 2025
Photos by Aaron Arnzen, Kai Caddy, and Monica Foltz
In its seventh iteration, the 2025 Arkansas High Country Race saw the highest attrition rate to date. These numbers are specifically valid for the full 1,015-mile race loop, although there are a few major overlapping themes to acknowledge across each of this year’s races. Follow me for a couple of minutes as we wipe the dust off of this year’s ARHC clipboard and have a closer look at Chuck’s almost-famous DNF list.
LAND SURVEY
Despite an incredibly hot first couple of days, the 2024 race saw the highest finish rates to date. Moving to this year, 2025 offered up the best week-long forecast the race has ever seen. While varying slightly in certain pockets of the route, the overall temperature swing was small, with average daily highs in the mid-80s and lows around 60°F, with little to no precipitation. Is it safe to remove weather-related reasoning from the ‘Scratch List’? We’d better not; let’s earmark that and circle back, just to be safe.
This was the second year with the race host city being the centrally-located Russellville. From a riders perspective, the logistics were fairly straightforward with no significant route changes or surprises from last year. You’d imagine that adding all these pieces up would lead to another high finishers rate, but that’s not how things played out this year.
SIMPLE SUCCESS
Before we double click into any of this year’s scratches or DNF similarities, there’s an elephant in the room we need to acknowledge right off the bat. Again. It’s the singlespeeders alright. In April, I shared some post-race thoughts on the singlespeed presence at DOOM, and here we are back in Arkansas six months later acknowledging the same singlespeed presence and success. For riders across all three race distances, there was a 100% finish rate for single speeders this year. 100%! To add to the perfect finish rate, the rankings were notably high across all three races.
Of this year’s only six full route finishers, three of them were singlespeed riders, and each of them were repeat offenders at that. In case you missed it, Tanner Frady nabbed an impressive 2nd place overall with Preston Williams and Andy Phillips rounding out 5th and 6th in this year’s 1,015-mile race. Make no mistake about it, on a route this long and engaging, problem solving is a necessary skill and they too endured their share of obstacles along the way.
Tanner got bit by a dog late on the first night, while Preston encountered a plethora of downed trees after opting for the alternate ‘singletrack course offering’ in the Ouachita Mountains. Andy had an Atlas pedal go out on day two and had to ride over a century on plastic Walmart pedals before finding replacements in Hot Springs. There were also over 20 tire punctures between Andy and Preston alone, yet the simple singlespeeders prevailed.
In the 430-mile Central Loop of the ARHC, singlespeeders filled four of the top six spots. Joe Fox established a new SS FKT in 2nd overall, followed by Chris Farney in 3rd, Randy Windle in 5th and Earl Evans in 6th. The post-ride camaraderie within this motley gang of gearless riders was inspiring to witness, full of non-stop laughter, hugs, and stories.
Singlespeed riders made up three of the top four finishers of this year’s 250-mile Ozark Odyssey race with Dave Easley setting a new singlespeed FKT in 2nd overall followed by George Raines and Patrick Worthley.
The frequency of these one-gear occurrences in this region is all too high to dismiss as a fluke. Being an avid singlespeeder myself, and inevitably a bit biased, it’s easy for me to connect these dots between technical reasoning and the lure of the cultural embrace. The Natural State bikepacking scene is growing in lots of directions and the lack of derailleurs across the board is a sign of the fun culture within it. It’s approachable, it’s simple, and in this case it led to a perfect finish rate across three totally different race distances. When navigating to Trackleaders and choosing the singlespeed rider layer, it’s a satisfying sight to see that perfect finisher’s sheet. Look at it. Would you just look at it!
RETURN OF THE VETERANS
While this year’s race had its fair share of new riders, the finisher’s sheets were full of folks with some kind of previous ARHC experience. Of the six full route finishers, Jacob Waterman had completed both the South and Central Loops previous to this years overall race win. The three singlespeeders were each back for their second year in a row. Katherine Anderson was this year’s only female rider on the full route, returning after riding the Central Loop last year. This leaves Craig Schulz as this year’s only ARHC rookie finisher. For folks that are early into their bikepacking event journey, this serves as a great reminder to take advantage of events like this that offer more approachable distances first, before diving into the deep end of ultra-endurance cycling. There’s space for us all!
SCRATCH THAT
Looking into the numbers a bit further down Chuck’s clipboard, this year’s full route saw a 66.6% scratch rate—the highest ever. As the scratch list reads, day one saw a broken rear hub from Justinas Leveika as well as a crash from Logan Meyer. Day two brought on four more ranging from the “wrong bike” to “lung sickness.” As the race grew longer, the scratches became much more physical with one achilles injury and three undercarriage issues described as a “shattered taint”, a “Shredded Taint”, and a “taint in tatters.” For those unfamiliar with that parlance, taint a slang term for one’s undercarriage or the perineum, the area that sees lots of friction with the saddle over the course of these longer races. Circling back to the weather induced scratch theories, we could argue that the high Arkansas humidity levels contributed to these specific issues. Despite no rain, it can be plum wet riding through low lying valleys in the night, which adds to the complexity of self-care needed to sustain oneself for over a thousand miles.
All to say, this race is hard—plain and simple. The majority of these riders that scratched are experienced bikepackers and distance cyclists, and this acknowledgement isn’t to downplay their efforts in any way, but to help us better understand the depths of the Arkansas High Country Race and the toll it takes on each rider and their equipment. Quoting race director Chuck Campbell several years back, “this race is 100% physical and 100% mental.” This Arkansas corridor of riding demands respect and requires patience, and this year’s race results echo that loud and clear.
OKAY NOW LADIES
The final takeaway from this year’s race clipboard highlights a consistent lack of presence from the women’s field across all three race distances. Before double clicking into this topic, a quick acknowledgement of the handful that showed up and showed out! Katherine Anderson of Tulsa Oklahoma was again this year’s only woman who tackled the full route, finishing with a handful of thoughts about the future of women in the high country—we’ll circle back to that shortly. In the Central Loop, Andy Zolyak of Brooklyn, New York, was the sole finisher with Tiphane Want of Texas bowing out after succumbing to a nagging knee injury. In the Ozark Odyssey, premier gravel racer Gabrielle Henry was on her way to becoming the first ever woman to complete the route solo before crashing out just over 40 miles from the finish. This left Chloe Moore to become the only woman Odyssey finisher, completing the route in the pairs category with Jeremy Houchin.
For those who are familiar with the ultra-endurance cycling scene, it comes as no surprise that women riders have their own set of challenges to overcome when tacking self-supported rides in the backcountry. This hurdle isn’t unique to Arkansas, but the world as a whole, and Katherine shared some thoughts on the matter shortly after finishing her race.
“I think some of the barriers to women are physical fitness, the remoteness, whether it’s being afraid of being alone or being afraid of the dark, or not having adequate bike mechanic skills. Maybe they don’t feel like they can take off as easily with additional responsibilities like taking care of kids etc.” She followed up these hurdles with some actionable ideas she had while out on route. “Something I thought would be really cool, that I would love to do is partner up a more experienced female with a less experienced female, signing up together as a tandem entry. Basically the more experienced female is saying, we’re going to train together even if we live in different places. I’m going to get you the intel, give you the know-how, and then do the event together. This approach is still women supporting women, helping to knock down a few of those barriers.”
Between this conversation that I had with Katherine and previous remarks from Meaghan Hackinen’s time spent around the ARHC, this a growing conversation and it excites me about the potential for making these concepts actionable in the future. For anyone interested in following up with either of these two ladies on the conversation at hand, I’d recommend reaching out to either of them directly—you can find Katherine on Instagram here, and Meaghan on Instagram @meaghanhackinen. Also, please share your thoughts in the conversation below!
With this being the first year for the pairs race option at the Arkansas High Country Race, I’m optimistic that the category will grow in the coming years, with riders of all types. Will that affect the attrition rate? Time will tell.
Check out the 2025 Arkansas High Country Race Tracker page for updates, where you can see all of our updates and coverage from this year’s event. Find it here.Please keep the conversation civil, constructive, and inclusive, or your comment will be removed.
