Why now?

Judging by the chatter on cycling Twitter, that was the most common reaction to ESPN’s announcement earlier this month that it would be premiering , a new big-budget, two-part 30 for 30Ìędocumentary on the rise and fall of the world’s most infamous bike racer, on May 24.

It’s a fair question. After all, we’re now seven years removed from Lance Armstrong giving his first . That same year saw the release of The Armstrong Lie, a full-length documentary by an Oscar-winning director that, just like this one, includes Armstrong’s lengthy admissions of guilt and claims of sincere remorse. Since then his reputation has suffered death by a thousand memoirs, with nearly anyone with the slightest connection to the cyclist publishing their own tell-all, while Armstrong himself has launched multiple apology tours to demonstrate his contrition and control the damage. Whatever hunger there once was to reexamine this saga would seem to have been sated. The carcass has been picked clean. So why now?Ìę

The most cynical answer, of course, is ratings. We’ve all endured two months without the distraction of live sports, a cruel fact that has left the world’s biggest sports network with gobs of airtime to fill and nothing new to discuss. Aside from the NFL draft, the network’s lone bright spot has been , the ten-part Michael Jordan documentary that has garnered . The docuseries gave ESPN some elusive momentum, but the final episode aired on May 17, and Lance wasn’t originally scheduled to premiere until the fall. If you want to best understand why it rushed the broadcast debut to this weekend, picture a bunch of executives in Bristol, Connecticut, turning their baseball caps inside out and trying to keep a rally going.Ìę

https://youtube.com/watch?v=YUsakV8RzZo

For a more philosophical explanation as to why Lance exists, we can turn to director Marina Zenovich, who spent 18 months on the project. Zenovich is a big deal in the documentary world, having spent her career churning out portraits of complicated men, including , , and the . One could argue that her skills as a filmmaker are enough on their own to justify the project—few people challenge the Coen Brothers’ —but she’s hardly been immune from the same line of questioning. Back in January, when Lance premiered at the Sundance Film Festival, Zenovich . First question: Why now?

“A lot of time has passed,” she answered. “And I think he was willing to come forward and tell his story. I think. I mean, I tried.” She laughed at that point, realizing that any discussion of Lance telling the truth was fraught. A few minutes later she zeroed in on what is perhaps the whole point of this project. “What I found really interesting is that Lance has processed a lot of what he’s gone through,” she said, “and has come out the other side—for himself. Other people haven’t. And then you get into scorekeeping—Well, has he processed enough?”

And there you have it, the question we—and Lance—can’t stop wrestling with. We all know he cheated, got caught, and said he was sorry. But how do we break down his sorry into discrete units that can be measured on a public-forgiveness scale? Is he sorry enough that we should reevaluate his seven Tour de France victories, stop overlooking his inspiring work as an advocate for cancer patients, and let him back into our lives? Those questions are at the heart of Lance and perhaps provide the only sound rationale for tuning in. If there’s truly been a battle raging these last seven years between Old Lance (defiant, petty, destructive, lying) and New Lance (woke, introspective, apologetic, transparent), let’s check in and see if we can figure out who’s winning.Ìę

Part one of Lance sets the table for this analysis. During a very entertaining hour and a half, Zenovich retells the story of Armstrong’s meandering ascent up Alpe d’Fame. We examine his humble beginnings as the son of a teen mom in Plano, Texas; witness the discovery of his prodigious talent when he was introduced to swimming and triathlon as a teenager; and watch him eventually commit to cycling and use his raw abilities to become an unexpected world champion in 1993.

Early on in the episode, Armstrong promises Zenovich, “I’m not going to lie to you, Marina. I’m going tell you my truth,” but thankfully, his recollections of this era aren’t the only ones we have to rely on. Zenovich seems to have tracked down everybody for this project—coaches, teammates, friends, enemies. The list of surprising talking heads includes Armstrong’s estranged stepfather, who at one point tries to justify his tough love and physical punishment by arguing that teenage Lance wouldn’t have become such a fierce competitor without him. (Let’s just say that adult Lance doesn’t agree.)Ìę

Most viewers will be familiar with this material, but the pacing is stellar. And if nothing else, it’s still interesting to reexamine his rise, this time with none of the players weighed down by the pretense that Armstong was doing it all without performance-enhancing drugs (PEDs). Equally fascinating are all the old interview clips researchers dug up. Some of the Armstrong interview footage will be new to anyone who, like me, didn’t follow cycling between the era of Greg LeMond (who won the Tour de France ) and Armstrong’s first Tour victory in 1999. Watching a twentysomething Armstrong present himself to the world back then is cringeworthy. I don’t want to spoil anything, but boy, was he a dick.Ìę

Whatever you think of the man now, however, the cancer part of his backstory is still moving. We see Armstrong close to death, robbed of all his physical gifts, and humiliated as he tries to find a new team willing to invest in his comeback once he’s in remission. Part one ends with Armstrong’s first Tour win, reminding us why we were all so captivated by his story in the first place. We’re also reminded of how quickly he had to transition, literally overnight, from being virtually unknown to Wheaties-box famous. Consider that in July of 1999, Armstrong’s public profile largely consisted of a modest website for his recently created cancer foundation, housed on a few rickety servers in a friend’s garage. The day he stood atop the podium in Paris, all those servers crashed.

Things get a lot more interesting in part two, which airs May 31, beginning with Zenovich casually lobbing the following from behind the camera: “Do you feel like you want to be relevant again?” All we see is Armstrong, who seems to flinch for a second from the audacity of such a question. “This is gonna sound terrible,” he answers, “but I am relevant. I am.” The exchange may explain Armstrong’s participation in this project and why he’d willingly submit to hours of rigorous on-camera interrogation: He knows his previous efforts have failed. He’s done his time and doesn’t want to be an outcast anymore.Ìę

From there we return to the backstory, but the narrative gets bogged down. There are simply too many feuds and scandals to catalog and too little time to assess their impact on either Lance or his many adversaries, beyond listing the surface-level details of his transgressions. Fortunately, Zenovich’s interviews with Armstrong in part two contain enough drama to keep you watching. As anyone who covered him in his prime will tell you, his ability to intimidate journalists and don his “cancer shield” to diffuse tough questions made deep probing of the athlete’s psyche all but impossible at the time. In Zenovich, Armstrong has met his match. She seems unfazed by his legendary staredown and expertly sits through awkward pauses to force him into filling dead air. And on three occasions, she gets the goods.Ìę

The first happens after a scene filmed at Rice University, where Armstrong’s oldest son, Luke, plays Division I football. After we see Lance give a pep talk to the team, it cuts to him during one of his many sit-downs with Zenovich. She asks what he would tell Luke if he ever wanted to try PEDs himself. “I would say, ‘That’s a bad idea. You’re a freshman in college, that’s… it might be a different conversation if you were in the NFL, but at this point in your career, not worth it.’” So, no to doping now, son, but if you make it to the pros, all bets are off? Fumble!

A few minutes later, the topic turns to Floyd Landis, a former teammate who became the key witness in the government’s whistleblower case, which initially aimed to claw back some $100 million including sponsorship money that the U.S Postal Service hemorrhaged after the widespread news of Armstrong’s doping. This lawsuit once threatened to erase Armstrong’s fortune, but it was settled for $5 million in 2018. One understands why Armstrong and Landis will never be best buds after all that, but the film does a nice job of explaining how Armstrong put Landis in the position of ratting him out in the first place. Still, even though Lance has apologized and tried to make good with many of his other adversaries, it seems that well has run dry. After the film recounts all the money Armstrong lost in canceled endorsement contracts and lawsuits, it cuts to another sit-down.

Armstrong, gesturing to his palatial home in Aspen, Colorado: It could be worse. I could be Floyd Landis.

Zenovich: What, living in Leadville?

Armstrong: Waking up a piece of shit every day.Ìę

Zenovich: Is that what you think?

Armstrong: Yeah. That’s what I know.

Sorry, not sorry!

And then there’s the film’s penultimate exchange, the one certain to supply life-giving fodder to all of the sports-starved hosts working in ESPN’s hot-take industrial complex. The scene comes nearly four hours into this saga and clocks in at only four minutes, but it somehow salvages the entire project. It would be criminal to spoil it here. What I can say is that New Lance gets choked up, seemingly out of nowhere, and for 30 agonizing seconds tries to fight back sobs. Then he composes himself, a switch is flipped, and Old Lance is back. At that point, he delivers an extended, defiant monologue that adds up to his most compelling case yet for our collective forgiveness.Ìę

Should we buy it? I’ve watched the scene four times, and I honestly have no idea.Ìę

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Josh HarrodÌępedals throughÌęhis hometown at a child’s pace, savoring the autumn emptiness and crisp air at 8,200 feet. It’sÌęearly October in Nederland, a last bastion of Front Range freedom located 13 miles west of Boulder, which might as well be New York City as far as localÌęNedheadsÌęlike Harrod are concerned. Theirs is a place where residents go door to door asking if anyone needs firewood, and where locals fought the idea of putting sidewalks on their dirt roads. There’s a co-op grocery and funky boutiquesÌęand the only chain is Ace Hardware. About 1,500 people live in the city limits, but the broader population extends five miles in any direction and totals around 7,500. “The reason I moved up here 20 years ago is because it wasn’t Boulder,” Harrod says. “You could go out and get lost in the woods.”

Harrod, 47, has graying stubble and is wearing a plaid, collared shirt for our mellow weekday jaunt. WeÌęmet that morning at , a local shop where he works as a bike and ski tech. Tin Shed also serves asÌęunofficial headquarters of the , an advocacy group that Harrod cofounded. The organization has no paid membership but counts about 200 people on its e-mail listÌęas well as $2,000 in donations in the bankÌęand $1,000 in tools that Harrod, NATO’s president, stores in his garage.

Five minutes into our ride, Harrod turns onto a trail called Sugar Magnolia. Known as Sugar Mag, or High Fructose Mag to locals, the boulder-strewn singletrack used to be a steep, ripping connector from downtown Nederland to West Magnolia’s broader trail network on the southwest side of town. One day in the spring of 2011, Harrod was riding home from work when he found the trail flagged for a reroute. Two days later, a new trail had been cut adjacent to the original. Some of it had been machine graded into a four-foot-wide path with none of the technical challenge that defined the prior route. Locals soon learned that the work had been completed by, among others,ÌętheÌęÌę(BMA), an advocacy organization that made its name fighting for trails around its home city.ÌęThis struck them as strange and more than mildly infuriating. WhyÌęwould a group headquartered a half-hour east and 3,000 feet lower be messing with their backyard?

The answer was complicated. Despite the seemingly sudden intrusion,ÌęBMA had been working on trails in West Magnolia since 2004, soon after the U.S. Forest Service published a travel management plan that indicated Sugar Mag crossed private property and was too steep in places. ReroutingÌęSugar MagÌęhad been on the docket for years, but almost nobody in Nederland knew about it, which is where the strife began. The 2011 work served as an appetizer of sorts for a broader undertaking that became known as the , a Forest Service–approved overhaul of the entire network.

Turning Social Trails into Legal Ones

Until recently, the Nederland system included more than 60 miles of singletrack, mostlyÌętrails that locals had built ad hocÌęover a period of decades. Only about 16 miles wereÌęconsidered legal by the Forest Service, which is where things got sticky. BMA drafted a master plan in 2014 that inventoried all theÌęunofficialÌętrails,Ìęmany of which were subsequently marked for obliteration, including some that locals had been riding for years. BMA claims its goal isÌęto expand the network—bringing it up to 44 miles of systemÌętrails—and generally make it more rideable, smoothing out technical features and wideningÌęcertain sections of singletrack close to town, for example. Nedheads contend that the organization is overstepping its bounds and should focus on its own backyard. But since the trails are all on federalÌęland and part of Boulder County, they fall under BMA’s purview.

The genesis of the conflict can be traced back a decade, when forest transients were Nederland’s ; they often set up camp in the middle of trails or used the singletrack as their bathroom. There were knife fights, rampant drug use and methamphetamine production andÌędiscarded needles, unattended campfires, burning diapers, and massive amounts of trash and human waste. Regular law-enforcement patrols helped clean that up, as did a proliferation of bike trails, which brought a lot more people than had ridden there before.

Despite their positive impacts, the increase in singletrack and crowds also created problems. Eventually, it boiled into the rarest kind of mountain-bike-access dispute, wherein two groups of riders (as opposed to, say, cyclists clashing with hikers) battled for control of the same trails. The situation included threats of physical harm and cloak-and-dagger tactics to undermine each other’s efforts.

“I don’t know if people are missing this or justÌędon’t want to see it,” says Corey Keizer, 41, a member of BMA and NATOÌęwho lives in Boulder and is close friends with a lot of riders in Ned. “But the crux of the issue is that people in Boulder feel like Nederland is theirs. And it’s not.”

“If I moved to Nederland tomorrow, would my opinion suddenly be more valuable?” counters Jason Vogel, a longtime BMA board member and its former president. “Every time I hear someone from Nederland say, ‘These are our trails, it’s our backyard, so we should have more of a say than you do in what goes on here,’ it just rubs me the wrong way.”

Mountain Bikers Want Somewhere to Ride

There probably wouldn’t be a problem if Boulder didn’t have some of the worst mountain-bike access for a supposed outdoor mecca in America. It was the first U.S. city to , in 1983,Ìęand any local will tell you the allotment of bike-legal trails remains laughably small. BMA was founded in 1991 as the Boulder Offroad Alliance to combat the closure of Boulder’s trails to bikes. It now hasÌęmore than 1,000 members, which is still a fraction of the nearly 40,000 mountain bikers around Boulder who wantÌęsomewhere to ride.

Despite BMA’s influence as the most powerful fat-tire advocate in the region, it still doesn’t trump the established guard in Boulder, which is decidedly hiker first. Time and again through the years, local mountain bikers have encountered a wall of resistance when they’ve tried to expand access anywhere close to their homes.

Nederland, meanwhile, hasÌęlong held tight to a ripping trail system accessible from town, primarily in West Magnolia, a.k.a. West Mag. Locals started building singletrack in the late 1980s, andÌęthey added to it in the early and mid-1990s, often duct-taping rakes to their chainstays and dragging trails into shape. Maintenance happened organically; everyone pitched in. But problems arose when word began to trickle downhill.

An hourly bus between Nederland and Boulder served as a pipeline of sorts for new riders to discover the bounty of singletrack around town. It wasn’t uncommon for Nederland localsÌęwho worked in Boulder to ride two hours of trail to work then take the bus home, as current Nederland mayor Kris Larsen, a research scientist at the University of Colorado, often does. Harrod did that too for a spellÌębefore taking a job at Tin Shed when it opened in 2012. “The trails,” Harrod says, “are the reason this shop happened.”

“There’s a ruggedness to them, a backcountry feel close to good restaurants and bars,” adds Keizer. “That’s been intentional.”

But as anyone with a secret stash knows, once the door opens, it can be hard to close. Awareness of the network spread as Boulder grew. șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűrs poked around West Mag and got to know its nooks and crannies. This included Vogel, a 40-year-old Austin, Texas, transplant who might be public enemy number oneÌęto Nederland riders—a distinction he doesn’t exactly run from. “The only reason why BMA knows about social trailsÌęis because I like to explore in the woods, and I happen to be BMA’s main advocacy guy,” Vogel told me the first time we spoke.

Vogel, who’s been riding West Mag for more than a decade and built the kiosk at the trailhead, also started a bike patrol to crack down on the transients who were shouting at cyclists. He believes that Ned locals’ claims are outdated and driven by NIMBYism. “The West Mag area is discovered. Like, these aren’t your hidden trails anymore,” he says. “They haven’t been hidden since the Forest Service did their first travel-management plan in 2003. That put them on the map.ÌęLatitude 40 had them on their map, all the map companies have these trails on their maps.”

Longtime local John Colton, who has been riding Nederland’s trails since the mid-eighties, has heard that stance before. “Please look at it from our point of view,” he says. “There wasn’t a problem.ÌęYou coming up and building a system is creating a problem for us.”Ìę

Locals Are Not Happy

The Magnolia Non-Motorized Trails Project overcame numerous hurdles on its way to approval. They included a massive 2013 flood and 2014 wildfire, to say nothing of the social dynamics simmering under the surface.

One might think that a forest in distress would coalesce two groups of like-minded recreationists. Instead, with few exceptions, BMA and NATO got along like battering rams. There’s a saying in access disputes: if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu. And as Nederland residents continued to find trails that had been flagged for reroutes without their input, they wondered what was going on behind the scenes. So in 2013, they filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Forest Service and learned that then BMA president Vogel had been sending condescending e-mails about NATO to the grand overseer—Boulder’s district ranger, Sylvia Clark. In one, Vogel wrote: “Will NATO be an effective partner in managing the forest? Once I’ve had a chance to feel them out, I will report back and let you know how I personally see the situation evolving.” He asked Clark to keep their exchanges confidential, but the FOIA request resulted in NATO seeing everything he’d written.

“I didn’t mean it to be some underhanded maneuver to discredit them,” Vogel says now, “but I can totally see how they would be like, That asshole was talking behind our backs the whole time.”

A furious Nederland local sent a threatening Facebook message to BMA’s executive director at the time, Steve Watts. “You fucking losers stay away from the Nederland woods and trails or you are going to have some bigger problems on your back.” Watts reported it to the police. The local apologized two hours later for his “idle threat.”

Still, the bad blood festered. A garage band in Ned wrote a song called “Trail Vultures,” in reference to BMA. Tin Shed installed a large map outside its entry showing “trails to be obliterated” and refuting BMA’s claim that it is helping to build a new 44-mile network.

The Forest Service is stuck playing referee, but the agency doesn’t seem to mind. “We think projects like this benefit from having different opinions,” Boulder Ranger District spokesperson Reid Armstrong says.

Implementation of the Magnolia projectÌębegan in the summer of 2017. That SeptemberÌęa beloved ribbon of singletrack called Aspen Alley and replaced with a much wider, more basicÌętrail. Harrod calls that loss “the biggest blow.” Ironically, BMA had included footage of people charging down the old Aspen Alley in a fundraising video—which ultimately helped to pay for the trail’s destruction.

NATO members believe BMA’s machine-built trails are incompatible with the area’s rugged character. “People come to Nederland because it’s different,” Harrod says. “This has made stuff far easier.” BMA leaders point out that the trails closest to trailheads are designed to be more attainableÌęand that many of the “more desirable” trails in West Mag won’t be completed for a decade.

“Look, we need to be able to take people up to the forest, because we have such capacity issues in Boulder. And we need for them to not get in over their heads,” says BMA PresidentÌęMarcus Popetz. “In a perfect world, if there was a trail that could be built three minutes away from Boulder, yeah, I’d do that, because then I wouldn’t have to drive my car. But since there’s not, your emotional attachment to these trails doesn’t trump the fact that I have tens of thousands of mountain bikers who would like to use a resource that they own.”

Keeping the Secret Trails Secret

We reach the top of High Fructose Mag, and Harrod turns onto SupervĂŒ, a newly built, NATO-named trail with a stunning panorama. We snake down the new Aspen Alley—much wider than the original, with whoop-de-do jumps—and make our way over to Hobbit Two and Three, where BMA’s machines are working to expand and smooth the trail. Harrod harrumphs and decides to turn around before encountering any workers. “I see West Mag as our sacrifice area,” he sighs, adding that he doesn’t tell anyone about his secret trails now.

So far only five miles of trail has been eliminated, with the same amount added or rebuilt. But everyone knows more is coming. People are dealing with that in different ways.

“On one side, I’m trying to tell my guys in Ned, Change is going to happen, so you can sit here and put a stake in the ground andÌętry to fight it for as long as you can, but eventually that stake is going to come up and get moved,” CoreyÌęKeizer, BMA and NATO member,Ìęsays. “Or you can be the force that steers that change.”

Not everyone in Nederland is against BMA. Mayor Larsen, 43, who was born and raised in Boulder, believes itÌęis “doing really good work” and that denying the inevitability of change is “not realistic” due to the Front Range’s growth.

Despite their disagreement over whether an opinion should count more if someone lives three or 30 minutes away, leaders of BMA and NATOÌęmeet and discuss plans now, a prospect that would’ve been laughable two years ago. “It’s not great,” Popetz says, “but we do meet.”

“Shared leadership is the wave of the future, as far as designing and implementing projects like this across our public lands,” says the Forest Service’s Armstrong. “That’s not how we handled these projects historically. We would just make decisions.”

Harrod and I continue to Hobbit One, then Re-Root, a popular legacy trail near West Magnolia Road. For all that has happened since he stumbled upon the Sugar Mag pin flags eight years ago, Harrod seems to have found a balance, albeit uncomfortable, between begrudging and accepting the changes.

That doesn’t mean he forgives the principle, however. We hop onto a newly built section that he calls Bathroom ViewÌęonly half-jokingly. The trail initially was routed within 10 yards of a local residence, allowing riders a clear sight line into the house as they pedaled past. The owner begged the Forest Service and BMA to move it farther away, which they did. ButÌęHarrod still wonders why it was placed so close to a local’s home toÌębegin with, given the less intrusive options nearby. He shakes his head.

“Just because you can,” he says, “doesn’t mean you should.”

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On Tuesday, President-elect Donald Trump Ìę(R) to serve as secretary for the Department of the Interior, a position that manages natural and cultural resources. If Zinke accepts the job, he would oversee about 20 percent of the country’s public land, some 70,000 employees, and agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Geological Survey, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.Ìę

In short, Zinke, 55, would become the most powerful arbiter of outdoor recreation and land-use policies in the country. Given Trump’s other cabinet picks, the second-term Montanan congressman is a better option than many expected. Crucially, he’s voiced support for federal management of public land and renewable energy. But he’s also called climate change an “” and wants to open federal land to more energy extraction. So it could be worse, but he’s certainly not an environmentalist’s ally.Ìę

Here’s how the outdoor industry has responded to Zinke, through blog posts and press releases:

Outdoor Industry Association

“Outdoor Industry Association (OIA) and OIAPAC endorsed Zinke in the 2016 election, citing his understanding of the outdoor recreation economy and his support for investment in and the protection of America’s public lands and waters… Specifically, Zinke was a co-sponsor of the Outdoor REC ActÌęin the House of Representatives, supports reauthorization and full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) and co-sponsored the (WDFA)…ÌęZinke also voted for the and has taken a vote against the state takeover of public lands
 He shares the industry’s values specific to the importance of access to and funding for America’s public lands and waters and the important role they play as the foundation and infrastructure of the $646 billion outdoor recreation economy. We look forward to a collaborative relationship and constructive dialogue with him, but we will also be ready to defend the protection of our shared lands and waters—our American heritage—should they be threatened.”

.

Outdoor Alliance

“We have worked with Zinke on public lands and outdoor issues over the last several years. During his time in Congress, Zinke has become more outspoken about the importance of fighting the public land heist and working to keep public lands public. He has also been a vocal advocate for conservation programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund. Zinke has at times been willing to take positions unpopular with his party to defend public lands…Although his overall voting record on this issue has been mixed, he also deserves credit for taking some tough committee votes in support of keeping public lands public. Earlier this summer, Zinke broke party lines to vote against one of two measures that pave the way for privatizing National Forests. Zinke has been a strong supporter of fossil fuel development on public lands, including coal mining. In addition, he has been inconsistent on the settled science of climate change…To his credit, Zinke has been responsive to the outcry of his constituents in Montana about the importance of public lands.”

.Ìę

The Wilderness Society

“We have serious concerns about the nomination of Congressman Zinke, whose repeated support for logging, drilling and mining on cherished public lands is out of step with most Americans. While he has steered clear of efforts to sell off public lands and supported the Land and Water Conservation Fund, far more often Zinke has advanced policies that favor special interests. His overall record and the backdrop of cabinet nominations with close ties to the fossil fuel industry cause us grave concern. Zinke has refused to acknowledge that climate change is caused by fossil fuel emissions, while vocally opposing the Obama administration’s efforts to reduce harmful methane emissions. In addition, he has fought efforts to reform coal and voted to scrap environmental safeguards related to logging efforts on national forests.”

.Ìę

National Parks Conservation Association

“It is up to all of us to protect our national parks, including the President-elect and his new Interior Secretary. Mr. Zinke has expressed support for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, opposes the sale of public lands and has expressed concern over proposed mine development adjacent to Yellowstone. In contrast, Mr. Zinke has advocated for state control of energy development on federal lands, a move that threatens our national parks. Mr. Zinke has also repeatedly voted to block efforts to designate new national parks that would diversify the National Park System.”

.Ìę

Backcountry Hunters and Anglers

“Congressman Zinke understands the importance of public lands and balancing management of these important resources with energy development and other uses. As Montana’s lone representative in the House of Representatives, Mr. Zinke has showed himself to be receptive to the interests of a wide range of constituents and a potential ally of sportsmen and other outdoor recreationists… We appreciate his efforts to keep public lands public and to strongly fund cornerstone natural resources programs like the Land and Water Conservation Fund; at the same time, we are committed to ensuring that fish and wildlife and their habitats are considered priorities with competing uses of our public lands. We look forward to continuing to work closely with Mr. Zinke as Interior secretary.”

.Ìę

Center for Biological Diversity

“Ryan Zinke has a dismal 3 percent lifetime environmental voting record. His brief political career has been substantially devoted to attacking endangered species and the Endangered Species Act. He led efforts to strip federal protections for endangered wolves, lynx, and sage grouse;Ìęvoted to exempt massive agribusiness and water developers from Endangered Species Act limitations;Ìęand opposed efforts to crack down on the international black market ivory trade. Zinke consistently votes for the interests of oil and gas companies, which is not surprising since Oasis Petroleum is his largest campaign contributor and the oil and gas industry is his third-largest sector contributor. He has also voted against and attacked the establishment of protective national monuments on public lands. On the bright side, Zinke has spoken and voted against the outright transfer of federal public lands to states and corporations. This is in keeping with positions taken by Donald Trump and his son Donald, Jr. Unfortunately Zinke has championed the same result—greatly increased logging, mining and oil drilling, greatly reduced environmental protections, elimination of federal control, and weakening of environmental standards—by turning over public land management to industry-dominated panels appointed by state governors… During confirmation hearings, the Senate needs to grill Zinke on this contradiction and ensure he truly supports keeping public lands in public hands.”

—Kierán Suckling, executive director of the CBD

Trust for Public Lands

“President Theodore Roosevelt rightly recognized that saving our outdoor heritage for future generations was important, and if President-elect Trump intends to follow in Roosevelt’s footsteps, he will make sure these special places are protected forever, not sold to the highest bidder. As a member of Congress, Zinke was a strong supporter of the Land and Water Conservation Fund and worked with us to support community-based land conservation in Montana. We hope that as Secretary of the Interior, he will staunchly defend our public lands from harmful attacks, oppose the proposed sale and transfer of those lands and work to ensure permanent access to the outdoors for all Americans.”

.Ìę

Center for American Progress

“Congressman Zinke is a coal executive’s dream nominee. Congressman Zinke has been on a one-man crusade to preserve a massive loophole that allowed coal companies to dodge royalty payments to Montana communities and U.S. taxpayers…The coal and oil industry’s contributions to Congressman Zinke also seem to have transformed him into a denier of basic climate science. His flip-flop on the science of climate change will raise questions about which of his other positions—such as his promise not to sell off parks and public lands—can be sold to the highest bidder…In 2010, then-state senator Zinke signed a letter of 1,200 state legislators calling on President Obama and the Congress to pass legislation on clean energy and climate change. Running for Congress in 2014, Congressman Zinke flipped his position, challenging the scientific consensus behind climate change. Since 2014, Zinke has taken at least $345,000 in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry.”

.Ìę

Current Secretary of the Interior Salley Jewell

Last month, șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍűÌęeditor-in-chief Chris KeyesÌęchatted with Jewell about her potential replacement. When asked about what she thought about a climate change denier filling the role, she said: “You cannot be the Secretary of the Interior and deal with the wildfires and the droughts and the invasive species and coastal erosion without recognizing that climate change is real
.No matter what beliefs a person comes into this position with, the job has a way of showing you what’s really going on.”

Hear the full interview.Ìę

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About 12 hours after ultrarunner Karl Meltzer summited Springer Mountain on September 18, smashing the record for the Appalachian Trail’s Fastest Known Time (FKT), a 31-year-old ÌęnamedÌęKaiha Bertollini arrived at that same terminus. She didn’t come with a crew, and there were no reporters or fans waiting for her. The only other person around was a fellow thru-hiker and friend. He snapped a —one of her signature moves for photo ops on the trail—and raising her arms in victory. A day later, she made an : Bertollini, who goes by the trail name Wild Card Ninja, claimed she had completed the trail in 45 days, 6 hours, 28 minutes and 16 seconds–16 hours faster than Meltzer.

Trail forums and social media erupted in a firestorm of : Bertollini’s claim was impossible, hikers said, particularly given that she didn’t have a support crew. (The standing self-supported hiking record—54 days and some change—was set by Heather Anderson last year.)ÌęCritics on web forumsÌęand , pointed out Bertollini’s lack of battle scars, the cellulite on her thighs, the fact that she drank and smoked cigarettes on the trail. All evidence, they argued, indicatedÌęthat Wild Card Ninja is a fraud. “Your story doesn’t ring true,” wrote one of the more polite detractors. “Claim whatever you want, but know that most people won’t believe it as credible unless you can prove and document each day.”

In the days following, Bertollini, who lives in Atlanta, has remained steadfast–defiant, even. She’s been inundated by messages and emails suggesting that she admit the hike was a hoax, that she should retract the claim and try again next year. “I kind of want to say, 'Go fuck yourselves,” Bertollini told me on a video call Thursday. “They’re trying to get me to admit I lied, to something I didn’t do. Where’s the integrity in that?”

Bertollini hasÌęchallenged doubters to complete a 50-mile day with her as proof. She’s said she’ll do the whole trail again if need be. Still, few in the hiking world believe her. Their brazen skepticism raises some important questions about how and why FKTs are established or proven in the first place.

No governing body or oversight committee sanctions Fastest Known Time records.Ìę Historically, announcing that you broke one was proof enough. That’s what David Horton did in 1991, when he completed the first fully-supported competitive hike of the Appalachian Trail (he finished in 52 days and some change). The same was true more recently, when Andrew Thompson set the supported record in 2005, and again when Liz Thomas set the unsupported record in 2011. In both cases, the hikers sent their times to Peter Bakwin, a well-known figure in the world of FKTs and the creator of . Bakwin added their names to the growing narrative of record holders, and their accomplishments became as official among the trail community as unofficial records can be.

This kind of laissez faire approach used to work, says Bakwin, becauseÌęfew people evenÌęattempted FKTs. Warren Doyle announced the first Appalachian Trail FKT in 1973 and, for the most part, the same handful of hikers—who all knew each other—made attempts on the nation’s long trails, until the past seven or so years. Recent high-profile attempts like Meltzer’s and ultrarunner Scott Jurek’s, last year—which have shaved the margins down to hours and minutes—have necessitated more precise tools of measurement. And the increased number of attemptsÌęhas madeÌęthe honor-system approach seem antiquated.

“Now we have these instances where someone unknown pops up,” BakwinÌęsays. “Without any sort of background in racing ultras or hiking long trails, that person has no established credibility. That means we have to put more emphasis on details,” like daily mileage counts, resupply logs, and detailed sleep schedules.

The problem first came to a head in 2009, when Brett Maune–another unknown in the world of speed hiking–announced he had broken the FKT on the 210-mile John Muir Trail through California's Sierra Nevada range. The hiking community responded in much the same way it has to Bertollini, calling Maune a cheat and a liar. Bakwin was one of those skeptics. He refused to post Maune’s record without a detailed narrative of the attempt, complete with date-stamped evidence. Maune sent a flashdrive containing both, along with videos corroborating his story.

“Turned out, Maune wasn’t a fraud,” says Bakwin. “He was just too busy getting a Ph.D. in physics to hang out with the FKT crowd.” Still, says Bakwin, it wasn’t until two years later, when Maune won the 100-mile Barkley Marathons in Tennessee–arguably the most punishing race on the continent–that naysayers quieted down about his Muir trail record.

A similar situation occurred this summer, when Belgian dentist Karel Sabbe claimed he had set the FKT on the Pacific Crest Trail. In that case, it was David Horton who adjudicated the claim: when criticism over Sabbe’s route erupted, the ultrarunner agreed to send all of his Strava data to Horton. In the end, the latter decided Sabbe’s record was probably legit. Horton neither represents nor reports to any organization. Instead, he and Warren Doyle have what Horton calls a “gentlemen’s agreement” that they will serve as the unofficial record keepers of FKTs.

The two juries–Doyle and Horton, and Bakwin–also have no articulated relationship with one another, but both acknowledge the records the other has authenticated. And they’re both equally skeptical of Bertollini. She didn’t adhere to best practices that have become commonplace among people making FKT attempts, they say. That begins with an announcement that such an attempt is underway. The three men say that someone making a legitimate FKT attemptÌęwill invite people to come out and participate or observe, and that the person’s journey will include some kind of publicly accessible trail journal or photo diary.

Here’s the rub: Bertollini more or less did all that.ÌęShe announced her attempt onÌę; she with location stamps; she invited people to join her on the trail.ÌęSoÌęwhat’s the problem?

For starters, Wild Card Ninja is about as much of an outsider in the hiking community as Maune was in 2009. She did her first section hike—a 500-mile stretch from Virginia to Springer Mountain—the beginning of this year, then decided to thru-hike the whole trail shortly thereafter. She’s brash and emotional. She doesn’t look the part—she wears eyeliner and short-shorts on the trail. It’s been easy for hardcore hikers to dismiss her.

But Bertollini also served in the Army for nearly four years, and there’s something to that kind of training.

“They basically taught us how to go for a 15-mile run after you’ve eaten a burger and smoked a couple of cigarettes. And then they made us do it all over again,” Bertollini says. She also says she was honorably discharged only after she was the victim of aÌębrutal sexual assault perpetrated (and videotaped) by men in her unit.

Of course, this background doesn’t prove her FKT claim. For that kind of confirmation, Bakwin says he’d need to see the detailed log of her days as well as date-stamped photos. (Bertollini says she’s willing to compile both as soon as her waterlogged phone is repaired.) For his part, Horton wants definitive GPS data. Even then, he says, he’ll remain skeptical. He says he’ll want evidence of the physical effects of the hike, too.

“That kind of thing eats you alive,” says Horton. “She looked like the same person before and after. The average hiker loses 20 or 30 pounds. That may not be a valid tool, but it’s as valid as anything else.”

Former record holder Liz Thomas disagrees. She says she lost just four pounds during her FKT, andÌęthat such an attempt is nowhere near as punishing on the body as a typical thru-hike. She’s also uncomfortable with the idea of having to use technology to document every step—something that wasn’t required of her when she claimed and was awarded the FKT. Her reputation, admits Bakwin, was all the confirmation he needed before adding her to the board. That was true of other FKT holders, including Jennifer Pharr Davis, who set the supported record in 2011.ÌęHeather Anderson carried a SPOT GPS tracker last year, but Bakwin didn’t ask for the data when verifying her record.

However, times have changed, Bakwin says. Today, if you want a place on his website, youÌęshould considerÌęprovidingÌęhim with data from a SPOT or other live-time tracker—likeÌęthe onesÌęJurek andÌęMeltzerÌęlive-streamed on their websites.ÌęWithout that, BakwinÌęsays, there's a whole lot of data crunching that's going to need to happen.

Since Bertollini made her claim, a video has emerged showing her hitching a ride to a Virginia hostel during the period she says she was working on her record attempt. That evidence certainly doesn’t help her case, but it doesn’t entirely discredit it, either. A “self-supported” attempt is simply defined as one that doesn’t include a dedicated, pre-arranged crew. In other words, you can get off the trail and resupply whenever and however you need to, so long as you hike every step of the trail. During her attempt last year, Heather Anderson decided not to accept rides into resupply stops, but that was because of rules she set for herself, not because of any clear external stipulation.

For Bertollini’s FKT claim to be taken seriously, she’s going to have to prove she returned to the exact spot where she hitched that ride, among several other hurdles: Horton wants her to demonstrate that she hiked every other inch of the trail. It’s a stringent standard—quite possibly the strictest one any hiker has been held to in FKT history. In fact, it might be impossible for any hiker, even with all the available technology.

No doubt, the case of Kaiha Bertollini, however it shakes out, is going to change the way hikers are awarded FKTs. Increased scrutiny of devices and reporting will almost certainly follow. But even the most precise GPS trackers can never guarantee that every single inch of the trail was covered in record time. Until the technology advances, these records come down to the assessment of three men and the general good will of the hiking community.

“We’re never going to verify every step any person has taken,” says Horton. “In the end, it really just comes down to what seems possible.”

If there's one thing we've seen in recent years, the record of what's possible will continueÌęto be broken.

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