Jenna Rinehart Chasing Back

Sea Otter is done. The standings are real.

This is the first in a series of dispatches from athletes who showed up in Monterey with something to prove — two wildcard hopefuls and a U23 newcomer, each navigating the Life Time Grand Prix on their own terms. Unbound is still to come.

Follow along as these athletes navigate the edge of the Life Time Grand Prix, where ambition, risk, and real-life constraints collide — more at MeanderingVisuals.com.

The start line at Sea Otter doesn't care what you've done before. It doesn't care about seven Chequamegon wins or a pro license earned at 21 or three consecutive years surviving the Life Time Grand Prix. It doesn't care that six weeks ago you were racing MTB stages through South Africa with your Wolf Tooth Components teammate. The gun goes off and you either have it or you don't.

Jenna Rinehart had it. She just had to keep finding it — three times, on the same climb, across 90 miles of California coast range dirt.

Rinehart grew up on mountain bikes in Mankato, Minnesota. Started racing at 15 at Mount Kato, went pro at 21. Seven Chequamegon wins. A rider with genuine range.

Then life asked a different question. She and her husband Justin bought what is now Nicollet Bike & Ski, and full-time professional racing got set aside for something harder and more permanent — building a business, building a community, building a life that didn't run on race results. For nearly a decade, that was the answer.

The return didn't start small. In 2023 Rinehart came back to top-level racing and was accepted directly into the Life Time Grand Prix — one of 35 women invited into the most competitive off-road endurance series in North America. She finished sixth overall. She stayed in the series through 2024 and 2025.

For 2026 the path ran through the wildcard — Sea Otter and Unbound, earn a spot, get in. Four spots available. She saw the opportunity and took it.

Before Sea Otter, Rinehart went to South Africa. Cape Epic — eight stages, 375 miles, roughly 27,600 feet of climbing across some of the most technically demanding mountain bike terrain on the planet. She raced it with Leah Van der Linden under Wolf Tooth Components and finished 7th overall in the Elite Women's field.

It wasn't a warmup. It was a reminder that she's not only an off-road racer who competes in gravel. She came to Monterey for the wildcard. Logistics, not identity.

2025 was a year she'd rather set down. A sensation she'd been chasing all of last season — her words after Sea Otter, referring to feeling strong and in control. The implication plain: last season she didn't have it.

She knows what a bad day at a big race feels like from the other direction too. The 2023 Unbound was the mud year. Rinehart made it to mile 90 before her body stopped cooperating — nutrition failure, not the conditions. She pulled out with clear eyes and ten miles left.

Nicollet Bike & Ski is not a side project. It's a full business, a community anchor in Mankato that she and Justin built over more than a decade. She organizes the River Valley 100. She's on the other side of the timing mat as often as she's racing.

The altitude question lives here too. Minnesota is flat. She figured out two weeks at elevation before Leadville works. She tried just showing up for Crusher in the Tushar and was hurting at 11,000 feet. That's not a complaint — it's problem-solving. It shapes a calendar that a privateer with a shop to run has to account for carefully.

Sea Otter delivered. Three loops, 90 miles, roughly 8,700 feet of climbing, one of the most stacked wildcard fields in the event's history. Rinehart was in the lead group most of the day — strong, in control, the version of herself she'd been looking for. On the long climb back to the track she got popped. Chased back. Got popped again. Chased back again. Three times across three laps she made that calculation and made it stick.

On the final climb she bobbled in the ruts at the bottom. Hung on anyway. Top 20 overall. First in the wildcard standings.

Now everything points to Emporia. Unbound Gravel — 200 miles of Kansas flint roads, the race she DNF'd in the mud three years ago. She arrives as the woman to catch, which is a different kind of pressure than arriving as a hopeful.

Somewhere outside Mankato there's a shop full of bikes that belong to other people. Jenna Rinehart helps keep them moving. In June she'll be 200 miles into Kansas, moving herself — chasing something the standings can't fully measure.

Dispatches is where I put what I notice.

Field notes from rides, races, and the long quiet miles in between. Reflections that don't fit in a caption. Photos that need more than a hashtag.

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Field notes from the edge between endurance and reflection.

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— Michael
Chief Adventure Officer
Meandering Visuals