Push Pops, a jar of pickled green beans and uncooked ramen noodles.
That was breakfast one morning for Erie resident Maggie Livelsberger. The 40-year-old only had so much to choose from at a quick gas station stop during her 487-mile bike-packing race in Arkansas.
The unconventional breakfast didn’t hold her back. She won the race.
Livelsberger, a clinical dietitian at UPMC Hamot, competed in the Arkansas High Country’s South Loop in October. She became the first woman to complete the nearly all-gravel route with 32,000-plus feet of elevation change on a single-speed bike, which she built herself.
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She holds the fastest overall women’s time and fastest known time on a single-speed for women at two days, 22 hours and 24 minutes.
But those are only her latest accolades.Earlier this year, she became the first woman to attempt and finish on a single-speed bike the 213-mile Coast to Coast Gravel Grinder in Michigan. She also finished first in the women’s single-speed and was the third woman overall in the 300-mile Garmin Gravel Worlds in Nebraska.Livelsberger said the wins feel weird sometimes, knowing she only started endurance cycling in 2021."I feel like I have a terrible imposter syndrome and one day people are going to be like, ‘How did you pull this off? There’s no way,’" Livelsberger said. "I never stopped enjoying being on the bike and I was really excited about the races I was doing this year, so I’m doing all right." […]
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