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@tristantakephoto on Racing 800 Miles Across Morocco’s Atlas Mountains & Selling Everything to Start the Life He Wanted

Release Date: 10/04/2023

Ep. 122 - Cameron Jones - Unbound Gravel 2025 Champion

Choose the Hard Way

Cameron Jones won the 2025 edition of the 205-mile Unbound Gravel, the most competitive edition ever of the most prestigious gravel race on the planet. Three months earlier, he showed up in America, walked into a used car dealership in the Bay Area, walked off the lot with a used Honda Odyssey and a dream to make this his best season ever. But these aren’t the most interesting parts of his story. Cameron has done stints in the forestry industry and in his teens back in New Zealand was an elite mutli-sport athlete who knocked the arm warmers off the best athletes in New Zealand in...

One Hour to Train - What do you do? w/ Spencer Martin of Beyond the Peloton / WEDU x Andrew Vontz of Choose the Hard Way

Choose the Hard Way

You've got an hour or less to train, what do you do? Spencer Martin of the Beyond the Peloton newsletter & podcast + WEDU's Outcomes / The Move takes a break from the Tour de France to join Choose the Hard Way creator Andrew Vontz to talk about what they do when life and work are at max stress and you have little time to workout. Is Zone 2 really the right move if you have a few hours a week to train and you're a cyclist, runner or triathlete with a long training history and navigating highly stressful moments in work, family and life? Should you follow a rigid...

Tom Perriello: Congressman, Special Envoy - United States of Sweat

Choose the Hard Way

Welcome back to United States of Sweat presented by Choose the Hard Way where politicians and policymakers join us to share stories about fitness, health and the sports they love playing. In 2008 Tom Perriello won the election to represent Virginia’s 5th Congressional district by fewer than 1,000 votes. He later ran for governor of Virginia and he also served as Special Envoy for Sudan and Special Envoy for the Democratic Republic of the Congo & Great Lakes among many other acts of service. Marathons, 10-day silent retreats, Spartan Races & what happens when you’re...

United States of Sweat with Ambassador Jeff Flake - Desert Island Survival, Long-Distance Swimming & More

Choose the Hard Way

During a divided time in America, our love of sports and fitness cross party lines and can keep us healthy as individuals and bring us together as a nation. The United States of Sweat is a new series from Choose the Hard Way that features the world’s leading political leaders and policy makers sharing stories about what they do to stay healthy, fit and physically active. When we decided to launch the United States of Sweat, we knew the first guest we wanted to land was an endurance athlete of a different kind, Ambassador Jeff Flake. Ambassador Flake recently served as...

From Start up to End up - From The Better Lab to One Real Voice & Beyond - Andrew Vontz x Shannon Jones

Choose the Hard Way

Subscribe to the Choose the Hard Way substack at for a look behind the scenes of this episode and human-generated insights about bikes, zen and life. Walking away from an executive role at a high-growth unicorn to go all-in & start up your own company sounds cool. What happens when a highly promising start up with an awesome product becomes an end up and your funding and life savings are gone? This episode is an inside look at Choose the Hard Way creator Andrew Vontz’s journey as co-founder of the venture-backed sleep tech startup The Better Lab, how that experience spawned...

Pro Cyclist Chase Wark pt. 1 - Mega Mid South FKT

Choose the Hard Way

Pro gravel cyclist Chase Wark joins me today to talk about setting the fastest known time on the 300-mile Mega Mid South gravel loop after wildfires devastated the Stillwater, Oklahoma area and cancelled the Mid South gravel race. Find Chase @chasethebiker on Instagram. I wrote a story with my thoughts and reflections on the interview you’ll hear today on my substack. Find that at . That link is in the show notes & you can also find it in my bio @hardwaypod on Instagram. The #1 thing you can do to support this show is to subscribe to my substack and if you’d like me to...

Harry Sweeny - Pro Cycling & High Performance Living

Choose the Hard Way

The #1 thing you can do to support this podcast is to subscribe to the Choose the Hard Way substack. Just go to substack and search for ‘Choose the Hard Way’ or go to and hit subscribe today. That’s where Andrew Vontz writes about bikes, zen and life + shares his reflections on conversations with guests on the Choose the Hard Way podcast and more. rides for the EF Education-Easy Post World Tour team in the biggest races in pro cycling and his YouTube channel tells the story of his life as a pro cyclist, semi-pro chef and adventurer. Harry also shares about his journey...

Christopher Blevins - the World Champion & Olympian on Mindfulness + the Transformative Power of Community & Bikes

Choose the Hard Way

Christopher Blevins is a mindfulness practitioner who builds community and a more inclusive and healthy world through bikes. He’s one of the best professional mountain bikers America has ever produced and one of the best in the world. He has won the Cape Epic and taken gold in the mountain bike world championships in the short track and cross-country mixed relay disciplines. He has also won UCI World Cups in the short track and cross country disciplines. Outside of bike racing, Christopher has a wide range of interests. He started his own production company, produces and performs music and...

Rewind: Olympic Gold Medalist Kristen Faulkner - The Power of Positive Risk Taking, Why She Walked Away from Her Dream Job & the Path to Pro Cycling Success

Choose the Hard Way

Kristen Faulkner is an American pro cyclist who won the gold medal in the women’s cycling road race at the Paris Olympics in truly stunning fashion, surpassing two of the most dominant racers in the sport with a bold attack that left them looking at each other while she drilled it to victory. It’s one of my favorite bike races I’ve ever watched. If you want to know what it took for Kristen to get to her gold medal moment, this episode is for you. Remember in life and sport, everything changes. No risks, no champagne. This episode is a replay of my 2023 conversation with Kristen and...

Cory Richards pt. 2 - the Legendary Alpinist & Nat Geo Photographer on his new book 'The Color of Everything' - Rising, Falling & Beginning Again

Choose the Hard Way

A student struggling with his practice once asked the zen master Shunryu Suzuki to boil down Buddhism into a single phrase. Suzuki thought for a moment, then he responded: everything changes. This is part two of my conversation with Cory Richards about his memoir, The Color of Everything. Cory is bipolar and at different moments in his life he has been famous, homeless, institutionalized and an addict. He has climbed Mount Everest without supplemental oxygen, he won the National Geographic Adventurer of the Year award and he has traveled the planet adventuring and shooting for Nat Geo....

More Episodes

Tristan Cardew, aka @tristantakephoto, sold everything and moved from Sydney, Australia to Girona, Spain to build a life that revolved around cycling and visual storytelling. Five years later, he’s racing gravel and road at a high level and has built the creative career he dreamed about making happen.

His YouTube channel, TristanTakeVideo, has more than three million views and is built around training with Tour de France stage winners, interviewing the world’s best riders and going behind the scenes with teams at the top level of the sport.

Tristan is also a standout documentary filmmaker and when I saw his self-shot doc about racing the Atlas Mountain Race, one of the toughest bikepacking tests on the planet, I knew I had to have him on Choose the Hard Way. The race is more than 800 miles long with 65,000 feet of climbing across remote and absolutely brutal terrain. Completing it is a feat. Making a compelling self-shot documentary while racing it is a next-level achievement.

I was excited to have this chance to talk to Tristan about his path as a creative, the story behind his Atlas Race doc, explore the question of how much is enough, and to get a preview of his upcoming documentary about racing the 466-mile Badlands gravel race in Spain. Find Tristan on Instagram @tristantakephoto and check out his YouTube channel, TristanTakeVideo.

Choose the Hard Way is a podcast about how doing hard things is fun and builds stronger humans. If you haven’t done this already, now would be a great time to help me help you. To do that, just hit subscribe and rate the show five stars on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and share this episode with someone you care about.

Go to choosethehardway.com to sign up for the newsletter and shoot me a DM @hardwaypod or send an email to [email protected] to let me know what you dig in this conversation with Tristan. I love hearing from you and appreciate everyone who has reached out, keep it coming!

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