About DNFs: Not Every Abandonment Is a Chance

In ultra bikepacking races and events, a DNF is not the exception, it’s almost the norm. And yet hardly anyone talks honestly about what that actually means.

At Bright Midnight this summer, snow, cold, and rain led to many abandonments. And at the Transcontinental Race too, well-known participants had to give up, for instance due to illness. At BBBR, Trans Balkan Race, Atlas, Silk Road, or Hellenic Mountain Race, scratch rates in good years sit at 40, sometimes 50 percent or more. A DNF at these distances isn’t unusual. It’s the rule rather than the exception.

And yet, afterward, you basically only ever hear one of three things: “I grew from it.” Or genuine despair over the abandonment, which then lingers for a long time. Or it simply isn’t talked about at all, and the DNF quietly disappears into one’s own race history.

I think a closer look would be worthwhile. And the best place to start is with myself, with four of my own DNFs from recent years.

My Own DNF Story

Over the past few years I’ve failed to finish four races or events. Four times, four completely different reasons.

It started in 2023 at the Bohemian Border Bash Race, my first real solo attempt at an ultra. Almost two years of preparation, hundreds of training hours, the setup optimized down to the last detail – and then my backside simply gave out. 80 km of torture to checkpoint 6, then I had to give up in 15th position. I was so disappointed in myself that I moved up my drive home and didn’t take part in the camp afterward. Anyone who doesn’t finish shouldn’t celebrate either, I thought back then. That was completely emotional, not a rational decision. But I knew that even in the moment, and I couldn’t help it anyway.

Then in 2024, the Trans Balkan Race. The route had been made even harder that year than my planning had assumed. And at kilometer 420, at the first checkpoint, it was over for me. Physically and mentally I wasn’t up to this beast, and on top of that an injured hand nerve that still stays with me today. But this time something different happened than at BBBR: I made a virtue out of necessity and turned the race into a tour. So I just kept riding, all the way to Montenegro, just no longer in race mode. Bittersweet, that’s what I called it back then. But still better than riding home angry and disappointed.

Then in 2025, the Grenzsteintrophy. This one was actually my own mistake. I slipped too deep into race mode, underestimated the nutrition side of things, and ate too little. That led to me exploding after 800 km. It wasn’t a mechanical failure, wasn’t the weather, wasn’t anyone else’s fault. It was something I could have avoided, and didn’t.

And in that same year came North2Peak: the resurrection. I had the same underlying problem in my head, but this time I did everything right and finished. The only one of the cases named here where “I grew from it” can not just be claimed, but actually proven.

Then in 2026, the Italy Divide. I would definitely have made it through, but my father had a fall and was in the hospital, and at that point the question of whether you finish your race becomes completely irrelevant, in an instant.

Reasons for a DNF

First a short preliminary remark that matters to me here: at these distances, in my view, the majority of participants are physically absolutely capable of making it. What then still leads to abandonment is much more often the head than actual other reasons, like mechanical failures or illness. And sometimes it’s also a lack of resilience, or how you handle pain and a bad moment.

But an important caveat here, especially for anyone still new to this sport: that doesn’t mean ignoring real warning signs. Hypothermia, a serious injury, fever, or an infection: those aren’t head issues, those are clear stop signals.

What I’m talking about here are the cases where you yourself realize afterward that there was actually more left in the tank. And unfortunately that difference is often hard to recognize in the moment itself.

Even I didn’t know until afterward which category my BBBR abandonment belonged to. And of course there’s always the risk that you rearrange the story afterward in whatever way hurts the least. Which is exactly why it’s worth taking a close look at what was actually going on in my head:

At BBBR, for example, the sore backside was real, no question. But the decision at checkpoint 6 was also a mental one. I had worked myself into a state where I believed I couldn’t take it anymore, and I stopped questioning that. Others might have simply kept riding with similar complaints.

At the Trans Balkan Race, the hand nerve injury was real and hurt a lot. But if I’m honest, I had already mentally said goodbye to the idea that I could finish it well before kilometer 420. I simply wasn’t ready for it.

The Grenzsteintrophy was the case where the head was even the trigger, not just the reaction. I maneuvered myself into a tunnel vision where continuing to ride became more important than eating properly.

And the Italy Divide is the only case where the head is completely out of the equation. That wasn’t a resilience issue, it was simply something bigger than the race.

Why You Shouldn’t Make Decisions at Night

One point that often goes unconsidered in all of this: the more exhausted you are, the worse your own judgment gets. After many hours in the saddle, little sleep, a lot of exertion, and a calorie deficit, you’re simply no longer the person who stood at the start fresh in the morning and can rationally weigh whether an abandonment is really necessary. But it’s exactly in this state that you make the decision that determines everything afterward.

That’s why there’s this one guiding principle: Never Scratch at Night. At night everything feels worse, every pain bigger, every doubt louder. Whoever quits at night often quits for the wrong reason, or from a wrong read of the situation. (Important exception: acute emergencies, hypothermia, or real injuries obviously don’t count here. In those cases I wouldn’t wait, I’d act immediately.)

Just as simple, but similarly important: eat something first, before making any decision. An empty stomach distorts perception more than you’d think. Anyone who’s ever bonked or eaten too little probably knows this.

Both rules are, at their core, nothing other than: wait until you’re a neutral judge of yourself again, before you pass judgment on yourself.

Three Ways to Explain a DNF

After a DNF there are really three possible interpretations: I grow from it. I simply can’t do this. Or: I accept that it didn’t work out.

Except in practice you almost only ever hear the first one. The zeitgeist has a clear preference here, that much has to be said. Failure is being reframed as a growth opportunity in almost every area of life right now, in sport just as much as at work. Sounds good, makes for a good post. But the other two interpretations are just as legitimate, they just rarely show up in the public narrative, even though they’re true just as often.

I grow from it. This only works if there’s actually something you can correct. At the Grenzsteintrophy that’s true, and I know exactly today what I did wrong. And North2Peak proves that the correction worked. At the Italy Divide, on the other hand, “I grow from it” would simply be out of place. There’s nothing about my performance to improve, because it was never about my performance in the first place.

I simply can’t do this. Not “not yet,” not “not this time,” but: this format, this kind of bikepacking, simply isn’t for me. That’s a completely legitimate answer that hardly anyone says out loud, because it sounds like giving up, even though it’s often just honest. At BBBR or Trans Balkan, “I grow from it” would have been a convenient lie, when the more honest statement is actually: my head didn’t cooperate that day, and I don’t even know whether I can change that. Or whether this format simply isn’t a fit for me at all. That’s exactly where the self-deception begins, when you tell yourself the growth story instead.

I accept that it didn’t work out. This is the third possibility, and the one that judges the least. It doesn’t have to decide whether it was growth or a fundamental inability, it just takes the result for what it is. With Trans Balkan or BBBR, that was hard for me to accept for a long time. Acceptance gets dangerous, though, when you apply it to a case like the Grenzsteintrophy and wave away an actually avoidable, self-inflicted mistake with “that’s just how it goes,” without looking closer.

And you’re not a good judge of yourself anyway. Especially when the head was the cause, you tend to either take everything onto yourself or explain everything away. That’s why it helps not to sort this out alone, but to talk it through with your partner, or a good friend. Often it’s enough to have someone who knows you and wasn’t in the middle of it. From the outside, the question can often be posed more clearly than you’d manage to ask yourself: was that physical or mental, controllable or not.

The Honesty Test

I’ve come to have a few questions I ask myself now, before I tell myself any kind of story:

Was the cause within my control – nutrition, pacing, gear, preparation? Or completely external – family, extreme weather, illness, a mechanical failure with no fault of my own? Was it really the body, or was the body just the excuse the head used to stop? If controllable: can I name a concrete next step? Or do I just say “I grow from it,” without knowing what’s actually supposed to change? If not controllable: growth is simply the wrong category here. Can I even honestly answer this for myself, or do I need someone who wasn’t in the middle of it? And the warning sign in both directions: calling something a “growth opportunity” without being able to say what will concretely change is usually comfort, not an insight. But “I simply can’t do this” is sometimes not a sober realization either, just the more comfortable way of not having to work on yourself anymore.

And Now?

What I want to say in the end: no matter how many DNFs pile up, no matter which category they fall into, you should never draw the conclusion that you’re not cut out for bikepacking or cycling in general.

Maybe it’s simply the ultra-racing thing that doesn’t work for you. And it doesn’t have to.

Ultra races are just a small slice of the whole bikepacking universe, one that’s getting an enormous amount of public attention right now, partly because a lot of influencers are trying their hand at it and reporting on it. And because there’s obviously an appeal to riding a bike through wild and remote places and being part of an inspiring community.

But the vast rest of it, relaxed bike travel, overnighters, short and long tours without time pressure or checkpoints, doesn’t know DNFs in this sense at all. There’s only: maybe not so far today, but again tomorrow.

If you fail at an ultra, you may simply have chosen the wrong format for yourself, but not the wrong hobby.