Adirondack Sports April 2024

ATHLETE
PROFILE
APRIL 2024 21
ON TANK TOP
WITH MONTANA.
PEOPLES PERCH
WATER TOWER.
Ian Klepetar
By Dave Kraus
“I understand that I’m not the traditional
athlete,” says Ian Klepetar in an
email about his interview for this story.
And he’s right. Ian’s upbringing near
Saratoga Springs included some kids team
sports including Little League baseball
and youth soccer. But by his senior year
in high school his outdoor upbringing and
pursuits had turned him on to mountain
biking, skiing, and the outdoors.
His father took Ian and his three siblings
on hikes and multiday canoe trips
in the Adirondacks. But the local turf
near his family’s home north of Saratoga
also offered the perfect playground for a
youngster loving the outdoors.
“We grew up in a rural area, so we
always had the benefits of natural space
right out the front door,” he remembers.
“We used to live on a mountainside, so in
our early teens we were already jumping
off cliffs with our skis on. It’s rocky back
there and there’s a lot to play on and lots
to get hurt on and we liked that. Any way I
could move through space outside was my
mental therapy.”
Other circumstances helped shape
the course of his outdoor future. In high
school he worked at a local alpine sports
shop three days a week where free skiing
was part of the pay and another chance to
fuel his love of the outdoors.
Today Ian calls himself an “athlete by
default,” continuing his outdoor athletic
life. “I’ve chosen to live a car-free lifestyle,
so I try to engage and interact with
the surroundings I have available to me
nearby. My ability to run a marathon or
AGE: 45
HOMETOWN: Saratoga Springs
FAMILY: Parents; three siblings;
partner, Montana
SPORTS: Backcountry/Free Skiing,
Climbing, Running, Road/
Mountain Biking, Triathlons
OCCUPATIONS: Full-time Bicycle
Advocate with Bicycle Benefits
HOBBIES: Assembling jigsaw
puzzles on top of mountains
ride a century is not through training, it’s
though my commitment not to drive a
motorized vehicle.”
Ian is also an avid short and long-distance
runner whose endurance achievements
have included running from Boston
to Portland, Maine, across Vermont, and
from Seattle to Portland, Ore. He’s also
gotten into competitive cycling at different
times, doing mountain and road bike
races, a few triathlons, and riding whenever
he can on “whatever bike I can get
my hands on.”
The hiking bug has also continued to
bite him long after those childhood outings
with his dad. Today he combines
hiking with what he calls “adventure
puzzling” to indulge in his jigsaw puzzle
hobby. He carries a table and puzzle with
him to a mountain top and tries to complete
the puzzle before it gets dark. He
admits he gets a kick out of encountering
other hikers who aren’t quite sure what to
make of him. “They get on top and you’re
casually sitting up there with a cup of coffee
working on a puzzle and you invite
FREE SKIING.
them to put a few pieces in. It’s my kind
of summit!”
His bicycle and his feet take him
almost everywhere he wants to go, and
he also loves climbing, claiming “I climb
anything.” That includes the old water
tower he purchased in Baldwin, Maine,
in the fall of 2020 where he goes to practice
his climbing skills. He and his partner
Montana and their friends have dubbed
it the “People’s Perch” and are working to
turn the 120-foot landmark near Portland
into a community hub with a garden, payit-forward
cafe, seasonal farm stand, and
the largest jigsaw puzzle collection in the
world: peoplesperch.org.
Ian’s quest for education and the
outdoors led him to attend college in
Montana, then “bounce around for a little
while” as he calls it. During his travels, he
witnessed both a cyclist and a pedestrian
being hit by drivers. The young cyclist was
killed, and the severely injured pedestrian
was in a crosswalk. The two incidents left a
lasting mark on him and ended up shaping
his professional life as well.
“It still makes me emotional thinking
about it,” he remembers. “I couldn’t grasp
how we can just get in our vehicles and
carelessly take another life. When you
have that experience, the way you start
looking at vehicles changes dramatically.”
His voice breaks as he finishes speaking.
He pauses for a moment, then continues.
“From that day on my path was kind of
set for me. I started working to do what I
could to change that. Maybe it was being
in the wrong place at the right time. Once
you experience that… For me it changed
everything. I knew I had to do something.”
In 2005 he got the opportunity to act on
See ATHLETE PROFILE 23