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It is hard to find good memoir written by and about people who are not famous. And yet, these are some of the best memoirs to read. They are so much more relatable than celebrity memoirs. This is what inspired me to create Definitely Not Famous, a podcast where I interview memoirists about their stories. My goal with this podcast is to elevate the stories of everyday people who truly are More Extra than Ordinary.
Rebecca
Her first long-distance cycling trip began with riding a portion of the Highway of Tears alone, as a 24-year old female.
Almost a decade later, she made an unusual transition into ultra-distance cycling, where you ride long distances over short periods of time, completely self-supported. Definitely not a sport that attracts many women.
What will she do next?
Rebecca
My guest today is Meaghan Hackinen—a more extra than ordinary ultra-distance cyclist and author of two memoirs – South Away where she and her sister discover the joys of cycle touring, and Shifting Gears where she introduces us to a crazy bike race across the United States. Her writing takes you along with her, not just pedalling but experiencing these adventures from a women’s perspective.
Travelling with her sister, two women in their early 20s, Meaghan felt both out of place, and sometimes scared, but the vulnerability of two women also allowed for more invitations from complete strangers. She reflects on how woman’s stories of adventure are often different than men’s stories. Just as cycle touring as a woman is different, so is the experience of competing in ultra-distance cycling. There are lots of stories out there written by men, she explains how we need more stories from women.
Meaghan
At the beginning when I first started adventure cycling, I was riding with my sister and keenly aware that we were in spaces where it seemed like women maybe shouldn't be. We were cycling the Pacific Coast by ourselves. We were camping in parks and we were constantly being asked if we had a gun, and, and we seemed like we, stuck out sometimes, but.
The flip side of that is people are very welcoming and generous to two women traveling by themselves because you can see how vulnerable we are and that we're not a threat. And if you invite us into your house, we might raid your cupboards and have all your peanut butter, but we're not gonna steal your TV or something.
So there was that, that vulnerability, but then that generosity we experience from people for being out there. As I've continued into cycling and traveling on the bike and gotten more competitive I've experienced my womanness even more the difference of it and competitive ultra cycling.
About 10% of the field is, female, which is pretty low. And there's a whole bunch of reasons and stuff for that. That would be a whole other podcast to get into. But I'm very aware that I'm a woman in a male dominated field, and most of my early mentors were men because that's who is doing this sport.
That being said, I, really value all of the. Female inspiration and friends I've made along the way. I think. For a long time, adventure stories were more centered on men, hero and the sufferer fest of it all and, the record chaser and women's stories. And I don't like to make sweeping generalizations about genders, but I do feel that women often experience and tell and adventure differently.
We talk more about safety. We talk about community, we talk about our bodies and aging and balancing ambition with real life. And I think that can make. Some of these adventure stories more accessible and relatable and when, women and other people hear these stories it expands the imagination.
Expands, who sees themselves an adventure and, who shows up at the start lines and in the larger world. So I think that's why representation in all forms is really important. And I think one of the things I can do is be one of those people out there, one of those women out there having these adventures and, sharing the experience.
Rebecca
Meaghan began her first adventure, cycling alone on a section of ‘the highway of tears’ between Terrace and Prince Rupert, part of highway 16 where many Indigenous woman have gone missing or been murdered – but she didn’t feel that vulnerable because she wasn’t in the target demographic – she wasn’t a young Indigenous women. Still she was a young women travelling alone along a stretch of highway that was known to be risky.
Meaghan
I was living in Terrace in the summer of 2009 after I graduated and I was working at a museum for the summer and kind of dipping my feet into longer rides and preparing for this big trip. So I was riding with a women's road cycling club And I think the living in Terrace on the Highway of Tears, there's a couple of billboards, and I'm not sure if they're still there, but coming into and out of town.
And one of them said, something like, girls don't, hitch alone or don't hitchhike. And, it showed the back of a, woman's head with all of these crosses down the highway. And I was like, what does this mean? I, wasn't really familiar with it. then, working at the museum and talking to people, I learned more about all of these horrific disappearances of mostly indigenous women, that had taken place along the stretch of highway as it as Highway 16 and in British Columbia, north.
And it was scary, but it was, really angering for me, I think. And I. Didn't feel that vulnerable. I felt a bit, but knowing that I, wasn't part of the demographic that was being targeted emboldened me. It didn't help my mom though. She was pretty, she was pretty scared of my behalf.
As you, are as a mother for sure. But I felt that, when I started my first big bike trip, the first segment was cycling from Terrace to Prince Rupert on the Highway of Tears. And I felt like in some ways I was doing it as the, act of resistance or refusal to be afraid. And I think that is somewhat misguided because I, I'm, not being targeted for these acts of, violence.
But I was, maybe there's some intersectionality there and I. Saw myself as a woman. But I'm also not an indigenous woman. So, things are different for me and I have that privilege. But there was moments when I was cycling along there where I thought I wouldn't get to Prince Rupert in time and it's gonna, get dark and I'm gonna be stuck on this highway and miss my ferry and have to find a place to camp in the woods.
And, that, definitely scared me a bit. My journey in, South Away, in my first book, I, reflect a lot on what it means to be a woman traveler and what it means to be a white woman and how that's different than a woman from different, backgrounds who face more challenges.
Rebecca
After her first adventure cycling tour, Meaghan eventually made the transition into ultra-distance cycling. Ultra-distance cycling involves bike-packing, that is bringing gear and tools, self-supported over large distances, typically 100s if not 1000s of kilometers over multiple days or weeks. It is quite different from the slow pace of cycle touring, what lessons from her first trip help her on her new cycling adventures?
Meaghan
I learned the basics of self-supported adventure and human powered, self-supported adventure is a better way to put that because I'd done a lot of hitchhiking and bus travel and moving around more reliant on other people. But I learned about what it's like to actually live on the road in cycle touring, you're spending a lot of time in the places in between and making those places you're home for 12 hours and feeling comfortable. Is something that, something that takes a little while, I think. Bike pack racing, which I've gotten into in the last, nine or 10 years is by touring, intensified.
The days are longer, the speed is faster. The resupply stops are huge. You're just buying so much food to make up for this calorie deficit, and with the time pressure and competition and rankings, there's a lot more at stake. But in essence, it's. really similar to bike touring in that you're, moving along the road based on your own steam and stamina.
When I was racing the Trans Am later on and I needed a confidence boost, I would often reflect on that earlier trip I took with my sister cycle touring the Pacific Coast and all the things I did well, all the things we did, that got us into Mexico safely. And, that continues to give me confidence because we were such rookie and didn't know what we were doing.
And that, just the lesson that you can figure things out a lot of the time if you're forced to or if you, have to, so that, Other lessons from the first trip were just the kindness of strangers that most people you encounter of good hearts and they're, big hearts and they, want to help you.
They want to see you succeed even if they don't understand what you're doing and would never do it themselves. So that was really reaffirming to me. I think I also, I learned a lot about different life paths and that has continued to impact me because when I was younger, I never knew what I wanted to do with my life.
And I still don't quite know when people ask me, how do you see yourself in five years? I'm like, I don't have a clue. Why would I know that? But being able to, being able to see alternate ways of, Living, which there's a lot of funky folks down the Pacific Coast, living off the grid or working as artists and just not taking traditional life paths.
That, been a big thing in, shaping my own future in bike pack racing and in, riding in life. And just that you don't need to follow a, mold or a, grid to find happiness.
Rebecca
The transition from bike touring into ultra-distance cycling isn’t one that most people make.
In Megan’s case, she first took up competative roller derby – Schwarzemegger was her derby name.
After having to put away her skates due to injury, she met her cravings for competition and adventure in ultra-distance cycling.
Meaghan
This is an interesting one. A lot of people get into racing because they've come from a competitive road cycling background or are seeking adventure, which I fall into that category. But there was an eight year gap between when I started. Touring and when I started racing, and I lived in Vancouver for a while and did some bigger bike trips across Canada and down the Pacific coast with, a guy I met cycle touring across Canada and we fell in love, moved in together, and.
Living in Vancouver, I fell in love again this time with competitive roller derby and I was playing on a travel team, getting to go all over North America and performing at a really high level in the sport. And then I had a couple knee injuries and decided to move to Saskatoon to do my MFA and writing.
Me and my partner broke up. I had another low point when I was. Post-surgery and trying to trying to figure out what I was gonna do next because contact sports were obviously out and I learned about this strange sport called randonneur cycling, where people do long distances between two and 1200 kilometers in a single ride.
And I thought. You know, that could be something I could get into. It sounds gentle in the knees. It sounds challenging. And living in Saskatoon and not having a vehicle, I hadn't really been outside the city very much so I was excited to explore my new Prairie hometown. I also didn't have the time or the finances to set out on these month long journeys.
So it seemed like something I could do on the weekend. And I was writing south away and then getting into this, non-competitive ultra cycling. In 2016 that year, a woman named Lael Wilcox from Alaska won this big event called the Trans Am Bike Race, and it's the premier self-supported road race across the US from as Astoria Oregon to Yorktown, Virginia. It was in mainstream media as well as cycling literature and seeing a woman win such a hope high profile event, just really hit home and inspired me to want to take on a challenge like that. I was hungry for something competitive After leaving roller derby.
I wanted to find my limits again. I wanted to push my body. I love the process of training and having some structure and routine and I felt like I was missing that when I was doing my MFA. So I decided to throw my hat in the ring for the 2017 TransAm bike race and started researching ultra racing and what it would take to make that transition.
As it turns out there's a lot of little nuances using arrow bars and, making your gear very aerodynamic and packing quite light. But my base and cycle touring, I think gave me a huge leg up because I already felt comfortable, on the road and I didn't need to I didn't need to relearn those things.
Camping in parks and fixing flats, which I had become very proficient at.
Rebecca
In 2024 Maeghan did the Tour Divide, a bikepacking race that starts in Banff, Alberta and goes all the way to Antelope Wells New Mexico, crossing the continental divide 30 times. She recounted racing through storms, pushing through exhaustion, and navigating the infamous peanut butter mud of the Great Basin.
She not only completed the race, she won it!
Meaghan
It's really beautiful. It's so amazing. Actually, I'm going back to race it again this year to try and better my time it's a 4,400 kilometer race. There's a lot of highs and lows. Generalizing the mountain peaks, geographic highs were often my highs. I loved getting to the top of a summit after, effort of, getting up there and just,Feeling that click of finally the terrain flattening out and the views opening up. one of my, one of my highlights from that race was doing a section called The Great Basin. This is an area in Wyoming that, is on the Continental divide where the water flows, East to the Atlantic, west to the Pacific, but it's this flat area.
The water, the water doesn't go anywhere and it's this high altitude desert, very remote, and the weather comes rolling in and there's always a headwind and there's no water. And so it's this maybe like 150, 200 kilometers stretch that is pretty foreboding and I'd heard horror stories about it. I was riding into it in the morning and feeling really hot excited about hopefully getting a good weather window and then a storm rolled in as I reached the last resupply town, Atlantic City, there's maybe 150 people there.
And I was, stopped in my tracks by this terrible weather system. Thunder, lightning, worse than that, the road turns to peanut butter mud. So it becomes impassable at that point. So I had to hunker down in the restaurant for a bit and kind of reevaluate my plans and I was really frustrated at first and kind of pivoted to what's the next best thing I can do.
And that was finding a place to sleep for a bit, because you're always sleep deprived in these ultras. So I headed out again after the rain stopped around seven, 8:00 PM and I, I rode the entire basin at night under a full moon with lightning striking in the distance. And it was just really beautiful and memorable because I, I felt like I was, flying on the grace of the universe that, the storm clouds could roll back in at any moment.
I could see storms in the distance and here I was floating through things and it was just whimsical and. Magical. I could only see what was ahead of me in my bike light. Didn't see many other people out there. A couple of cycle tourists camped off in the distance here and there, and I felt, yeah, I felt like it was a real high for me being able to to navigate this.
challenging stretch and under, I, I guess it wasn't challenging conditions at the time, but to kind of mentally get over the, the frustration of not getting what I wanted and then being able to do it under the full moon was pretty exciting. Around 3:00 AM I, I saw another cyclist sleeping next to the road, and I got really excited about passing him because it pushed me into fourth place overall, which was almost a podium position, and I was reinvigorated and ready to go all night.
And then my tires just skidded to a stop, and I realized that I had hit the peanut butter, mud, some road that didn't harden after the rainfall. That's why he was sleeping next to the road because he had hit that. and so again, I was like, okay, things aren't, going quite according to plan here. And I tried to walk in it.
My shoes got gunked up. I could see my derailer was at risk, because of all the tires collecting in my, or all the mud collecting in my tires. And I just pulled over and bivied down. Slept for, yeah, a few hours and the sun came out hard in the road again and I got back up and moving. But yeah, that, that section felt like a, I was just really living my dream and sometimes, sometimes things don't go according to your plans, but it's still my dream to have, this adventure.
And, I guess that's exactly what makes it an adventure is not knowing what the next turn holds and just absolutely like. In my elements the whole time.
Rebecca
When going on a long bike tour, people often tell you that you should write I book. Megan’s writing life began almost by accident—typing blog posts from public library computers as she cycle toured across Canada.
Community college courses, an MFA program, and a supportive writing mentor helped her transform raw travel narratives into meaningful memoir.
Meaghan
.
I enjoyed writing, I enjoyed writing in school essays or any sort of projects. I, felt like I did well in that. And when I did my first big bike trip, I just finished my undergrad in anthropology and archeology and I was way more interested in people and figuring out my own direction in life. I backpacked in New Zealand and Southeast Asia and I loved it. And I had some pretty wild experiences already, and I didn't consider making those into a book. I just considered them part of travel. And travel was something you did and I loved it, but I had no desire to turn these experiences into something larger until much later when I was doing my MFA.
I think it came from cycling more and wanting to share the experiences I was having more, there was something in me that felt like these stories really needed to be told. And I created a blog when I was cycling across Canada. I didn't have a smartphone or a device, so I was ducking into libraries and using other people's computers to update it.
But it didn't have a huge following, but, people gave me really good feedback on it and said it was cool to see my journey and where I was going, and I found that early encouragement really, helpful. After I finished cycling across Canada, I enrolled in a distance ed course at a community college, and for the next few years, I just would take one or two courses here or there.
Despite swearing I would never go back to school, but I really enjoyed learning about the craft of writing and doing it on my own time in my own terms, I wasn't doing it for the credits, I was just doing it to learn and to be a better writer because reading my blog, it wasn't great writing. I, joke that I was like Elaine Benes, queen of the exclamation point.
It was very much excitement and, excitement and what was happening to me, but not so much reflection. Studying the craft of writing. I learned a lot about, taking my story and, using it to help share some universals and, add some more nuance and depth to the writing.
It was one of my professors at Kwantlen Polytechnic University, who suggested that I do an MFA. I was working at a coffee shop in Vancouver and playing competitive roller derby and really satisfied with that life. But I, I had just suffered a knee injury and had to take some time off roller derby and realizing that I didn't necessarily want to be, mixing up cappuccinos for people for the rest of my life.
And, so I thought about it a bit more and decided to, take her offer up on writing me a reference letter and applied to a few schools in Canada and I was accepted into the U of S in Saskatoon and decided to move there and just study writing for two years. I loved doing an MFA, it was so much different than the undergrad program where I didn't really connect with my, my university cohort so much.
I commuted from my parents' home to SFU and it was all really draining and exhausting, but moving to a different city, I felt like I finally got that college or university experience that people wasn't living in a dorm, but I was living in a house with two of my MFA cohort people.
And I just really loved getting to, spend time with the words and always be reading and writing and going to writing related events and, be living with people who could, could talk about writing with. At all times and we'd share our work with each other. And when I was trying to decide what to do for my master's thesis project, I was working with a writing mentor, Candace Savage, and she was really integral to helping me figure out what I wanted to write about and find my voice and.
just grow as a writer. It was, I presented her with a few different ideas about projects and she suggested I write about my first bike trip because it seemed like my memories of that were so vivid still, even though it was five or six years ago at that time, everything just was ingrained into my brain, and I think that's because it was a first, the first time we do anything, it really sticks with us.
So I, I decided to write about that first trip. And, working with a, mentor really helped me figure out how to take that, three or four months on the road and shape it into, a book length project instead of a massive sprawl of thoughts and ruminations.
Rebecca
For her second book, Maeghan wrote about her experience riding the trans-am bike race –an ultra-distance cycling race across the Northern United States.
How did she take notes or capture details from the trip when her focus is on getting to the destination as fast as possible? What strategies did she use to recall the experience to allow her to write about it?
Meaghan
The challenging part about ultra cycling is that all of your energy goes into forward progress as fast as possible. So there's not really time to do a lot of note taking or documentation. I try and snap a few photos here and there and I, use voice memos and I send voice notes to people and that becomes a really useful resource.
And I think hearing the own emotion in my voice can be helpful in, viscerally bringing me back there. I also use Google Maps to look at some of the roads if they're on Google Maps, and that can help jog memories. And looking at my own images as well as other people's photos on, social media and YouTube, that can be really useful as well to bringing me back there.
It's definitely a, challenge. I just got back from a seven week bike packing trip in the southern state. California and Baja, California and Mexico, and I journaled every night before bed for about a half hour. And I feel like that was useful for me just to process what was happening and, have everything sink in.
But it will be really useful for any writing projects that come out of it because I have, the, in the moment thoughts that, come out. I don't document racing as well as I could, but I trust that the experiences that I feel are important will stay with me. And as we were talking earlier, a book is pretty short actually, so being able to really know where to hone in can be useful.
The other thing that's useful for me is talking to people after the fact. So the first trip I did with my sister and we had a lot of conversations that helped jog my memory and not necessarily things that we disagreed about where, she corrected me, but little details that I maybe just forgot about, there was one guy we stayed with who wore nineties dad sweaters, from full house.
And I completely forgot that detail and she just brought it up and I was like, oh my gosh, he totally did. I'm gonna include that in my book. So being in touch with some of the other cyclists that do these events has been, really useful to me to just talk with 'em about what it's like being out there and, either my experience aligns with theirs or contrast, and I think both of those things can be interesting because they're, places where there's probably a story to tell.
Rebecca
Maeghan wrote her first book as part of an MFA program, with all the support that comes with it. She found her second book more challenging, as she had to create her own network of support. Fortunately, she had a group of dedicated readers she called her Beta-Babes that provided her with feedback along the way. She was fortunate enough to get a BC Arts Grant to help edit and revise the manuscript before it was picked up by NeWest who also published her first book.
Meaghan
So the first book I wrote as part of the MFA and Writing program and I had a lot of support around me. I had my MFA and writing peers, my thesis supervisor, my thesis committee, as well as my writing mentor, Candace. And they all helped. They all helped me get through this in a, a very timely matter. It was only a two year program.
And after that I basically had a book that was publishable. So the second book took me a bit longer and I really struggled with confidence at first. I started writing in the winter of 2019 when I was unemployed and moved back to live with my parents in Kelowna, BC and the book grew out of, a collection of vivid memories I had about doing the Trans Am bike race.
So these were kind of like meaningful anecdotes that I hoped I might be able to turn into a short project, like a chat book. And then I gave it to my mom to read and she said I want more. I think you have a bigger story here to tell. And, so I went back to the beginning and started filling everything in.
The initial collection consisted of about 30 stories, and those really formed the backbone of Shifting Gears. I painted the rest in, I fleshed out a narrative arc for my own character and there we go. But I was, really afraid to write the book because I felt isolated from my writing community, being back in BC where I didn't know too many other writers and my solution was to create that community.
So I found a group of dedicated readers. I called them my beta babes and I sent them a chunk to read every two weeks. And some people might say, this is not how you actually use beta readers. You're supposed to have a finished product first. But it really worked for me and I found that in working with my writing mentor previously, I sent her something every two weeks.
And having that accountability component, having some people to help keep me on track and give feedback to the work in progress was really useful. And these were people I trusted. They weren't writers. They were friends of my mom mostly. They were retired, they were intelligent, they were readers, and they had time to spend with my work, especially since we're coming into 2020 and all of their travel plans and life things were wiped out so they could live vicariously through me.
I gave them some questions and things to consider when reading my work and I, said they could give me feedback in whatever way worked for them. So someone called me up and have a little chat with me. Other people used track changes. Some gave me very minimal feedback, but it was useful. They would text me and say, I love this.
Like, you gotta do more of this, or, I don't like the inclusion of Ronald Schwartzenegger at all. I think it's really cheesy, and I'd be like, okay. Point noted. He's staying. But as I wrote, I really felt like a rhythm starting to develop and my confidence came back to me. And that was, really reassuring to feel.
After I had finished writing, or I guess when I was close to finishing my first draft, I applied for and received a BC Arts grant to edit and revise the manuscript. And that was a huge blessing. it allowed me to spend the summer working on the project in 2021 before sending it off to NuWest Press, who published my first book to see if they'd be interested in it.
The editor who I'd worked with previously Anne Kothof was still there and she basically told the managing editor that they better pick up this book before someone else did and God bless her. They did, and that's how things came to be.
Rebecca
Like many writers out there, Meagan struggled with confidence and finding her voice. When giving advice to aspiring writers, she emphasizes the importance of finding your community of supporters and sharing your work with them.
Meaghan
I would say first of all, I've struggled a lot with confidence in finding my voice, and when I'm in regular communication with the page, those things start to feel natural and the story almost tells itself. Having people in your life to encourage support and review your work has been a huge asset for me as well.
So, whether that's through, formal education program or your writing community or people in your life who support you, I know that there's, there's drawbacks to having folks really close to you read your work. But in many ways, my mom has been one of my biggest advocates my biggest in showing what I've worked on to her has really helped me move my projects forward.
I think that, write and share your story. So part of writing is being in community. We're no longer just people sitting in our basements writing the next great novel. We are people out in the world doing other things as well. And even if you don't have a polished piece, sharing your story among friends and at open mics and in writing groups
is important. It's a chance to hear your words out loud, and it has the potential to impact others. I feel sometimes the goal of getting published can overshadow some of the other really important meaningful parts of writing and stories are how we connect with each other. And if you've thought deeply, about something and you've written it down, I really encourage people to share it and feel the magic that it can bring to your community.
And obviously we need to protect our creative assets and publishers often look for unpublished writing, especially literary journals, but I think there's always a way to give others a taste of what we're working on if we're ready to, and, that can be such a beautiful thing in and of itself.
Rebecca
Thank you Meagan for taking the time to talk to me. I’m sure listeners will agree, she is more extra than ordinary! She has two books available South Away and Shifting Gears. You can support both her and this podcast by purchasing her books using the affiliate links in the show notes.