Bike Racers Try Bike Packing (Impossible Route Cycling Documentary ep.2)

foreign [Music] it's real now we're getting dropped off in a single prop plane after flying over the mountains in west virginia and we're gonna have to ride back pretty much from the ohio river from port to port so ohio river all the way to the port of richmond well honestly the thing i'm most worried about [Music] to be honest this guy despite him being massive he's uh 19. so can't wait until i prove you wrong well this is your first bike packing trip right we good is this your first bike pack yes right it's just hitting there's moments in adventures where all the planning goes on and everything and it's always just okay we're gonna handle it in the future and you're all optimistic but there's always this one moment where you're like this is it staring at this plane [Music] is this is it this is the moment this is unreal [Music] [Applause] [Music] in this impossible route expedition the vegan cyclist his 19 year old protege travis longfellow and myself jeremiah bishop attempt to traverse the appalachian mountains on a route filled with legend beginning in parkersburg west virginia our route heads east traversing the appalachian mountains towards virginia's blue ridge spanning 462 miles with 38 000 feet of climbing are out follows in reverse the once vital lifeline for commerce mail and supplies for the american frontier between the ohio river valley and the james river in richmond virginia now overgrown and often abandoned these roads were once the first and only major route through the region's rugged appalachian wilderness so many of the legends behind this route intrigued me for years riding and exploring the region i knew that certain sections of these routes still existed i also knew some have been lost reclaimed by the forest tyler travis and i will attempt the trans appalachian lost roads route backpacking style riding gravel bikes over the course of three days as an additional challenge we'll just be bringing forty dollars each and the only additional supplies available to us will be with fans mail to us at three different post offices along the route rugged terrain great unknowns await us begging the question will this route be possible [Music] appalachia appalachia the goal here is to get from parkersburg to richmond in however long it's going to take us but we only have 40 dollars each we only have so many supplies so can we get from point a to point b basically as quickly as possible and so when we set that course out 150 miles a day for three days is a lot but is attainable and i think this one the difficulty of the rule set and the fact that travis longfellow our young protege that helped us out at death valley was invited to come along 19 year old trying to do his first ever bike packing ride and do an impossible route i didn't think it's a good idea i don't know what i'm doing i don't ever know what i'm doing but if we just keep pedaling in a direction that is somewhat towards home in a few days we'll be done uh what are we doing we got 100 miles to go [Music] [Applause] and i was really pleasantly surprised with how amazing the route was like we were riding in the middle of this beautiful country road with no cars and then we went through coal country so the coal and oil the two big reasons this road was built you know there's billions of dollars worth of resources out there and you got to get them to port to sell them of course without the big coal trucks the road's amazing it's phenomenal um and so we patched together pavement dirt roads some really rubbly uh steep downhills and one section we went across this river it was just so cool like this road just i mean just goes underwater for like 20 feet but there's this awesome bridge that i wanted to go across and i went up there and it was like lopsided and falling apart so oh dude no yeah i know tyler no i'm telling you no bro look at that [Music] there's holes in it and that that's like not even a plank is half i didn't pull the trigger on it because you know i don't want to die out there uh but that was really cool what was really amazing that was taking me by surprise is the old the oldness the history look where i'm from in california everything's new even the old stuff is new out here on the east coast everything's haunted because everything's 500 years old we're having a good time but we're going through some of these back country roads where there's a house every two miles and obviously there's not a lot of people on these roads so they let their dogs just run about and we start hitting a few of these dogs this dog runs out and is trying to get jeremiah i mean just like nipping at his heels jeremiah is like sprinting away from him i'm going downhill i see a dog coming out of the house so i want to film you know try to get this dog like yapping i pull my camera out and this dog is coming straight at me and i lock up the rear wheel i'm skidding into this dog man and the adrenaline that that surged through me at that moment because how dumb is it if i break my leg three hours into the first day because this dog wanted to come and give me a hug [Music] my [Music] so we walk up to this gas station and the guy's got a gun did show him with a rifle sitting on the front of the gas station just kicking back drinking a soda but friendly as can be all right we are in the store we only have forty dollars on this for the whole trip i'm ready to just blow it all here but so i wanna i need to try to be a little frugal right uh so sugar [Music] it's getting hot out there it's getting hot it's like humid everything is like sticking to you and just sort of took a little like bath basically in there it was uh so good [Music] i'll wear anything by the jersey it adds 20 watts for sure sun's out guns out where's the guns so we had posted out and said people can send packages to the post offices there's three post offices uh one each day we got to looking at the time and they're like cool well you know we're about 30 miles away oh no post office closes at 4 30. we pushed hard we were doing a time trial a team time trial to try to make the 4 30 cut off and just you know that's not what you're supposed to be doing on these trips but we are hammering we're doing 20 25 mile an hour you know pace line type things and we really need that nutrition uh to save on money we roll into town pull on the door it's locked so we sit there on the curb despondent travis furious i mean tyler's disappointed i'm disappointed but you know travis is definitely like it's kind of unraveling him a bit it's not like we didn't try to make it here on time um you know we just every little thing just compounded but i was really looking forward to like that little unboxing session and uh that's what drove me to get here and so now i got to find a new will to ride so that took our morale and just tanked it because we were all expecting gummy worms and muffins and whatever and that we didn't get that it's been neat to see tyler's progression you know impossible route mauna kea impossible route death valley i mean he was unraveling the first two days but then something clicked like it's that you know do or die type instinct and i think he realized that there's no point in complaining he's actually getting tougher he's getting more resilient and a 10 hour day is like i mean it has to be at least 10 hours long to be an impossible ride [Music] [Music] [Music] so it starts to get dark we go up this crazy gravel climb it's like foggy it's misty long and it's hard and at this point i'm really having that moment of like i can't see the top of this climb i don't want to ride anymore i i'm hungry i'm thirsty all those things all those doubts are coming into your mind travis is being all 19 years old and feeling good and so going hard and like come on guys let's go so he's like up the road and so he's forcing me to go a little harder than i want to go and so i'm just uncomfortable in every capacity and so then we get to the top of this this dirt climb and now we gotta descend kind of in the dark on gravel where your mind is not right so you're trying to be safe but you also want to go fast because you we need to get to this camp spot we get into this little town and like nothing's open we need to get some sort of dinner because we don't have a chef we have nothing how do you eat there is no food around here there's no restaurants and we find this little dollar general store that's open and that was like the miracle oasis on the horizon where are we dude where are we we are in beverly former bustling town along stanton parkersburg turnpike crazy that you're just going through town with nothing and nothing and nothing and then i mean we're in a full-on grocery store i'm like overloaded with options and i don't know what to get and i'm just walking around i haven't gotten anything yet and i am completely drained mentally so i'm just wandering around this store i ended up like in the bleach aisle like what am i doing in this aisle like there's no food here uh and for travis and jeremiah they're going gangbusters they're getting you know these pastries and in my situation i'm trying to now find what is the highest calorie food i can get that is plant-based but then i also fall back on i'm plant-based for health so am i gonna just eat just the bottom of the barrel you know potato chips true bike packers are gonna have this dialed and they're gonna be like oh you should have got olive oil and some tortillas and and some peanut butter and that would have been that i could not think straight and so i i don't know really what i bought i think i got some gatorade i got some like pringles going down to look for the camp and for some reason google maps takes us to like the owner's house so that's okay we're gonna find it we're gonna find whatever we're gonna find it's starting to get a little dire so we added an extra 10 miles to last day riding in the dark you know head you know just see like the red light on her face of like the other guy's tail light and it's just it's dire man we get there 10 30 at night right when we rolled in it started raining and i'm like you know we've got to find a pavilion we didn't bring tents like a bunch of dumbasses but we wanted to go with less weight and the bikes were already like super heavy you know i mean talk about lucky there's been a lot of rain all day and we've just always missed it and i'm just like yes yes we're under here it's dry i've never been so happy to be at a pavilion with some dusty old bird poop covered like picnic tables it's all good you know we have a little bit of food to eat you know some kind of snacks and we reflect on the day and uh you know they get their hammocks strung up i get my sleeping mat out i get you know on top of the picnic table i set up my sleep setup i start pulling out my you know my food and i'm trying to eat as much as i can i i crush this can of pringles i have all this vegan jerky that was supposed to last me the trip and i just waxed it i mean all of it i i kind of lost self-control and i ate not only the food i got from the grocery store but almost all my food for the next day since we're on east coast time it's 10 45 i'm gonna call my wifey hey babe what you doing just living life ma'am how is it going it's going great we did 153 miles will you send me a picture oh i'll send you a picture all right uh i'm gonna get into my hammock here in a second i just wanted to call you on uh on film and show everyone that i'm a good husband all right [Music] [Applause] [Music] all righty so we accepted a hammock really pretty little place here i've pretty much had a ton of anxiety that this hammock was going to fall and then i was going to just end up whacking my head on this table underneath me it just seems like there's so much trust in such a little strength but you know we're good we're good man [Music] it's crazy just how fast you come back to life right when i get another hammock it's just i i mean if there was that little plane right here and he said hop in let's go look at ufos i'm out i'm in his plane i'm gone that coffee and then a little bit of oatmeal and it's like all of a sudden you're just eager and ready to go hit the ride [Music] here's one thing though is there's a water pump at this park and so the night before he tried to turn on this pump and he got shocked it's the forbidden water pump you can you can't get it so we are starting day two with no water how long are we gonna ride before we get water and that's one of the things that this trip has a new set of challenges you know the terrain isn't very difficult yeah it is a lot of miles but for the most part if you had sag this wouldn't be that big of a deal but starting on ultimately no breakfast no water no sleep so we start climbing this crazy beautiful gravel overly green climb like in the mist in the fog it's just beautiful and jeremiah sees a little stream that is easily accessible so that was one thing we got to find water so we pull out this water filter and he starts filtering you know from this stream so we fill up our bottles and we start climbing through just this epic scenery about halfway through this climb i start to seem to just find myself i really my legs start waking back up there's moments where you just transcend into we're getting it done and we just got it done i mean we just started crushing this climb [Music] yeah we rolling the durbin we got some snacks the gas station got a cold coke so the money was getting tight you know we had spent a lot of our money the first day no packages showed up this gas station we we got some candy like some red hots and like some like you know complete junk food we've been eating like the whole time these little gas stations in the middle of nowhere absolutely rip it's crazy how many calories you can get i mean i got so many calories for six bucks but this freaking kid he just gets candy on candy on candy he has some like red things that were 900 calories this bag was one dollar 900 calories 29 grams of sugar oh first uh first serving there's six servings bro i'm good to go wow yeah we ride past the lumber mill and then back into the wilderness on a key section of the lost road the stanton and parkersburg turnpike that is now abandoned and in the woods for 14 miles of sinewy turny perfect grippy packed gravel dirt like dirt like it was just money so a big component of this is that yeah we only have 40 dollars but we have post offices so we missed the first one so now the second one we got to try to get there but we have plenty of time i know that it closes at 4 30 but then we got to looking at the time and we're like oh boy not only does the post office close at 4 30 but they also are closed for lunch between one to two which means if we get there at 101 we need to sit around and wait and wait and wait wait [Music] drop down into monterey and we're like yes we got here in time we got here in time it's time to open some packages and i go into the post office and we ask you know is there anything here and there might not be right people might have just not sent anything but there's two boxes one for me and one for jeremiah travis's mom spent a good amount of money to get this package there at this one so travis is he's struggling right on this day i mean he went way too hard on day one all right so we're 15 hours into this trip of ride time uh i'm cracking he says his knee is hurting and in his mind there is a package of bagels waiting for him in this town and i know this feeling when you have that thing that you're thinking about and you're that that's your that's your rock like i can make it to the bagels thanks travis and so we get there and i go hey there should be one for travis and the lady goes well yeah it came but we don't know no travis around here so we sent it away and it was like why'd you do that so he loses it and he walks out the door and we don't see him for a little while so then me and jeremiah sit down and unbox these two boxes i can't wait to see what's in it i've been really looking forward to this so do have two packages one from my boy bryant hughes he actually came to one of my cycling camps came to my first cycling camp first up oh my goodness he sent a battery for a heart rate monitor or or a power meter like no joke my heart rate i was worrying that he was going to go dead and he sent the little like button battery perfect oh some smart sweets butter protein bar lots of protein ryan thank you man all right so this is heavy which is a good sign because travis has nothing oh look at this you guys inspire and motivate more than you can imagine john acosta awesome yes off the farm bar yes i'm thinking this might be close enough to make it to shranda i think we got it i think we got it because we have to have enough also for travis so travis he wouldn't even let me put the camera in his face like uh my stoke level is through the roof right now uh the love that we've gotten on on this stop you know is phenomenal i think a lot there's gonna be a lot more at the third stop but right now we need anything we can to to lift the spirits because it's a long day today but we've got we're dialed so jeremiah and i go from a pretty low mental space to just through the roof we're high-fiving i mean i've got vegan food galore travis is like in a bush crying about his bagels now we've got to somehow get travis to continue because he doesn't want to continue but travis still has the bike racer mentality and the bike racer mentality is get to the finish line quick as possible period end of story there was a little store there that had like bacon cheeseburgers on this grill like just the grossest burger ever but travis did get that so he had to buy it though right so we're working down the money all right so travis is he rode so strong yesterday i mean he was just like leagues ahead of anyone but this is uncharted territory for him you know you just don't know what your body's gonna do 30 hours into a ride with no sleep and crap nutrition so he's having that moment travis is having that moment where in any great adventure you want to quit the demons were in your head they say stop he's having a he's having that battle right now he's having that battle [Music] [Music] [Applause] so [Music] [Music] so later on in that stage life is going good he's pushing the pace around height hollow he started to have some knee pain and sure enough his knee just like it like goes out like a light i mean i think he'd been kind of hiding it from us for a while i was just like dude i can't do this like this is stupid every little bump is dumb every little hill is too long 13 000 feet of climbing in and my knee is just getting to a point of no return i guess we are kind of rallying around travis we're trying to help him uh i think a little bit of ego and pride is just he doesn't want help he doesn't want to be babied you know we're offering him food he's not taking it uh we're offering him pushing uh he's adamantly against us pushing him on that downhill got to a flat part started giving out um had to unclip it just peddled one leg i can push you dude and you can just stop pedaling and just let's get to the base i mean it's all good just let me push i look back and travis is being pushed by tyler and one leg is clipped out and travis's left leg is hanging like a dog with a broken leg down by the crank and his leg is just dangling and he's pedaling with one leg and tyler's pushing him and i'm like oh no not good and so then we hit a pretty good i would say 10 minute climb that's really steep and now we have a 185 pound kid that we're having to push up this climb who can't pedal so travis is like crying under sunglasses because he doesn't want to be that guy no one wants to be the weak guy i'm feeling great because i'm not the weak guy jeremiah is pushing him i'm pushing him we're trading off then we get into the belgian push so jeremiah's pushing travis and i'm pushing uh jeremiah and so we're trying to get up over this climb we finally crest i'm actually wildly impressed that travis was able to just mentally endure that not only physically mentally but i know he's embarrassed like he's just he's just embarrassed and i get it but he pushed through it and then they are pushing me for a while we got over this hill descended into a gas station and we were just like it's already 7 30 at night and we still have masuvius there is absolutely no way that travis could have made it up the final climb up vesuvius so we had this conundrum do we cut the cord and leave travis put him in put him in a car send him home figure it out because we can't go another 20 miles it's we're already 10 hours into this ride and technically we have another 45 minute climb with a big descent i mean it's going to be another three or four hours to get to our campsite i look at him i'm like he's done i texted kyle who is our sag driver photographer who's going to meet us at the finish i'm like hey you got to get down here you got to pick up travis tell you what this is what we can do we can change the plan we'll cut a little bit out of today get you a good night's sleep and then we'll ride again tomorrow so we look at an abandoned church we look at a park we're on google maps we're trying to find where are we going to stay it's like an abandoned church i looked at the street view there's like one window missing perfect you know that's a great place to hide overnight and i felt like it's not my call to say you're out i need him to say he's out so i'm going to do everything i can to give him the opportunity give him the opportunity if he if he wants to pull out then he can but it shouldn't be my decision all right so i'm going to try something wild man i'm going to try to get comfort ins and suites to compass a room i don't know how i'm going to do that because we're in pretty dire straits about where we're gonna stay tonight travis's knee is really you know messes up but dude i don't i don't want him to quit uh do one do you have rooms yes are you the manager so me and two others are on a massive bike packing trip one of our riders injured his knee he can't continue our campsite where we were going to go is 20 miles over this mountain is there any way that you could potentially just compass a room for one night and i'll talk so good about comfort suites comfort in suites so i will have to call my manager to get that one approved however what i would be able to do for you is i would be able to give you a room with two queen sites or two double beds and a pullout couch can you call your manager and just see if there's if she's willing to comp anything yep i can certainly do that i shoot my shot uh and so she's like well i'd have to call my manager and my manager is gonna say no eventually she called her manager and look i did i used my youtube swag and so if that's a gray area but i pitched it anyway it's what i had to use other people have stronger legs stronger hearts you know better preparation the one thing i have on my side is a subscriber count so that's what i pitched they got the approval they said they'd comp it was my manager and we were able to approve the concrete you're so amazing so let me ask you this do you guys have ice packs no okay so i have some leave and some ice packs if your buddy would benefit from that oh my goodness that would be amazing yeah you're amazing 365 is that the first floor or second floor dude not only not only did they compass a room but they gave us a ice pack for travis and some elite bro just what do you think the boys are gonna say two minutes turns to five minutes turns to ten minutes and finally he comes back with this shitty grin like spinning into the gas station and i'm like there's a hotel right there maybe he just went and bought me a room because he's just going like hey you're done your ride's over he comes back with an ice pack and some medicine and my all right close at least i can recover a little bit i guess because i wanted to finish i just wanted to finish the ride then he comes back gives him the mess and everything what is that ice pack for your knee elise oh man and a cop's room dude a comft room two beds with a pull out couch we got it comp i gotta put in comfort suites is awesome you don't have to use points or anything no i don't have points no but that's definitely going to get us some serious flack dang it's normal i'm just i'm abundantly aware of the flack that will catch because you're using you're leveraging your notoriety in a way to get the room is what i'm saying yeah my thought you stay in the room you and i go sleep on a park bench because then we'll have maximum suckage and no one can give a i want to be able to get one youtube where no one gives us any about that's not possible that's not canton eyes is definitely uh interesting twist i'm not going to turn down a free hotel room i have salt shammy like brine i am covered with dirt that was awesome because then i was like we can go shower sleep for six hours in a bed um warm and i was like if i get that i can make it the next day [Music] it's so good i mean here's what's so amazing about riding bikes like this is that calories have a whole new meaning beds have a whole new meaning water has a whole new meaning everything is just has a whole new meaning and this pillow is the greatest pillow that has ever existed i mean objectively it sucks but like right now this is the greatest thing ever [Applause] [Music] [Applause] we get a shower we get a good night's sleep it's tough waking up in the morning but we get our little box lunches and [Music] what you got there i got the goodies i got the bacon cheese biscuit the uh oatmeal raisin this is gonna pack well we are in hotel though so that means continental breakfast that means freak all the coffee that i can drink now the continental breakfast for jeremiah and travis bacon egg and cheese biscuit muffins yogurt i mean they were eating like kings but i did have a pack of oatmeal that i was able to put some hot water in so i ate some oatmeal i did get a little fruit cup that i stuck in my bag and an apple juice that i stuck in my bag that was for later we wake up in the morning i'm feeling good no knee pain moving around trying to see if there's anything to be sharp points it's like i don't want to start and be like guys i'm out ten minutes in good morning i've had two cups of coffee this morning two that is a sharp incline on my daily average so far i've been able to throw down amazing number two the weather's great but we literally have one of the biggest days ahead of us so we start my knees feeling uh oh my god let's start pedaling get it in the spot like getting used to pedal again if he can make it up vesuvius he can make it travis can make it because this climb is a monster and i was told this climb is steep and long and jeremiah's like the klm's 20 minutes i'm like all right like we're not going not slow up this thing [Music] [Music] um and we make it to the top we make it to the top and i'm just like holy he's back in the game get over that and after that it was just we're done we made it if i can get over this hill with no knee pain i can do the rest of the ride i'm so glad i wasn't doing this last night in the dark starving and so i just everything is uh has this positive light to it and maybe that's from jeremiah rubbing off on me at the death valley project but it's just like nothing can bother me everything is sunshines and rainbows no matter how difficult it is we get to the blue ridge parkway the sun is shining things are good it's so beautiful the weather's great there's this great vista to the right and you're almost on a ridge line so it goes from the views to your right to the views on your left and you're just like it's just so awesome [Music] [Music] don't come around [Music] never stay [Music] stay away from [Music] [Applause] [Music] this is unbelievable like that scene in lion king where it's just like you know he surveys his domain over this rock face and you're like that it's a cartoon there's no place in the world that really is like that that doesn't exist and then you see this i mean you can just see for so far and it's unbelievable really i didn't think anything like this existed on the east coast then we start hitting just a wild descent so fast and when you're traveling fast when you're going 45 miles an hour it just gives you so much more ambition for the day because you're making time when you're going five miles an hour you know your brain starts to calculate how far away and how hard so the vibes are up and one of the big key points to this is that we're going to go through the blue ridge tunnel a bit of a tragedy but also a bit of a triumphant work for the predominantly irish immigrants that built the tunnel of course there was a smaller percentage of enslaved african americans that helped with the tunnel uh construction were instrumental in the completion of what was one of the greatest public works of the time um part of history part of history that needs to be preserved and uh learned about the energy inside this tunnel was unlike anything i've ever experienced at one of the points in the tunnel there's a water spring coming off the wall so we start filling our water bottle from the mountain there you go it's the highlight of the trip because everything else all the other roads all blend together it's green it's awesome that's kind of the whole trip but this tunnel took me out of that it was dark it was cold it was musty i mean the the whole vibe was different in that tunnel so that in my mind sticks out much more than anything else [Music] so that's kind of something i've never seen before because of like the sacrifice that was taken right the amount of lives that were lost to build it uh how hard it was to build i mean the sheer logistics and engineering to get that done so long ago is just mind blowing and so then we're riding our bikes through it it's uh it's quite special that was for me maybe the highlight of the trip so far [Music] [Music] do [Music] and this route is really a culmination of some old turnpikes a lot of it i don't know and so eddie anderson helped build the east side of the route we had logan jones wilkins in the south part of the route i knew a lot of the stuff in the middle part of the route allegheny highlands and then we had uh john in west virginia helped to sort of plug this thing together and man if it is not amazing death valley don't want to do that one ever again i don't want to keep mentioning death valley but when that exists in your spectrum of understanding what is tough nothing else even matters i mean this is this is a perfectly paved road compared to that but this route i mean when i get to richmond get some rest some food in me i want to go back out in those mountains next week i am not kidding it is just it's magical out here this route is doable for most of the public given that your time frame is in three days right if you do this over five six seven days you know doesn't matter what your fitness is you can enjoy this area of the world and so we went through the blue ridge tunnel it was phenomenal the lighting was awesome we stopped for a few shots things were good but then we looked at the time and we had 30 minutes to go like six and a half miles because they shut for lunch at the post office we've got to make this next post office drop this is paramount to our trip if we don't make this post office stop none of us have food we are not gonna make it if we don't get help from the post office a hundred miles left we have to get to the post office and so i put my head down and i'm like you know i'm up for the test and jeremiah just lights it up and just takes off he's like i'm gonna make the post office so i'm dropping down into the hill looking at the time one minute past the hour i pull on the door of the post office and it opens they hadn't locked the door and i'm like am i in time he's like well i was just stepping out for lunch can i help you and i'm like yes so i get the boxes i walk outside and like guess what guys we got the goods and i'm just we're back in the game boys the dude was and like had his hand on the key [Music] this is a lifesaver so we missed the very first one tears the second one we got two packages that really turned jeremiah and i's mental game his package did not show up it did show but they sent it away so that wrecked him so then today this is so paramount because we're out of money we can't go to any gas stations we can't get anything so all the food we have and i think you're out of food i've got like totally out i have like one peanut butter he's got his emergency cliff bar i already hate it he's out so we got three things first one matt daring impossible route fellas best of luck on the final leg of your journey we hope albermarle and virginia in general has been good to you y'all are amazing the clothes are some treats some savory some sweet some energy packed hat tip to seaville vegan at seaville vegan for the food directions awesome so david is his son and his son wrote a little note on here as well superhero there's the sun right there yeah going down right now it's so good this one has my name on it so whatever's in it it's all my just kidding this is from elio are you kidding there's oreos they sent you avocados yeah buddy oh my god it's real food not in the package so this one's from bike hardcore uh they're the chain lube company that we've been using [Music] [Applause] cut that open right now we're eating a pineapple right now real food it's so good he's coming to a crescendo here with like awesomeness i'll ride a thousand more miles the pineapple fruit jerky this is a mango yes when you're pushing your body to the absolute limit there's something about your how you perceive calories and how you feel calories it gets into a real survival mode and it's like you look at every little piece of food and your body almost like calculates how many calories is in that and how important it is and since we were just on the ragged edge i mean this is this is the best pine this is the best thing i've ever eaten in my entire life given the context and when i'm eating it have you ever seen someone eat a pineapple like that dude like a hundred percent this is gonna make us finish if we didn't get this drop we'd be in we'd be pear-shaped to elio and bike hardcore for sending real food i love you [Music] [Music] i'm self-conscious about my body i'd like to have a six-pack unlike freaking jeremiah who's 80 years old and is shredded like mr olympia and we are feeling like awesome we're going to make it but we look at the distance it's still like 60 miles [Music] [Music] [Music] so at this point i'm thinking cakewalk i even like fist bumped travis and i was like dude we made it it's over the sun's out it's beautiful no issues and then the clouds rolling and they're getting darker and bigger and meaner the wind's picking up so i have my phone i pull up the radar and holy crap i mean it's like orange and red and like it is just coming and then it starts sprinkling a little bit it's no big deal it's fine it's warm it's not cold then the rain starts really coming then a huge thunderstrike happens like like slaps like thor is pissed he's saying this is not impossible boys you're not riding into the finish with smiles on your face so then the skies just open up and just start dumping rain but i've reframed my thought that without this rain we would be stopping all the time for water because it was so hot before this rain came and now that the rain is there i'm i'm like drinking the water that's pouring down my face i'm drinking water from the road being squirted up into my my mouth i i think once we got close to the end you know travis was a little less interested in getting to the finish i think he was cold too it was weird like i didn't i don't think i chose my emotions like one point i was like laughing and crying for no reason i was my body was just i think so cracked mentally and emotionally and physically at that point it was just i was done i am shivering out of food i am cracked [Music] [Laughter] [Music] [Music] 20 miles feels damn far away when you've been pedaling for nine hours we had been through everything we've been through the heat through the cold through the fog did the rain through the forest through the gravel roads through the tunnel we're drenched we're soaked we're tired we're hungry travis is barely able to make it i mean his head is drooped the kid wants to quit [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] congrats guys that was awesome [Music] i'm tired i want food and a shower come on i didn't break my leg so that's all good uh this is the emotion that i was hoping to have last time so today was rough 170 miles 14 13 000 feet of climbing torrential downpours was just magical though i mean every flavor of terrain we've seen today from cobblestones to the green of the piedmont to dust steep pavement i mean the city the mountains the tunnel it was phenomenal i don't want these to come off as like commonplace like oh it's no big deal i mean these this this was very difficult but i will give it up to the bike packers the true by packers that would continue after this if we had to camp again tonight under this tree with so like and then start tomorrow with soaking wet clothes and no food i mean this this is one of those things where we only did three days we got a little taste of it that's about all i want and travis felt better today we hit the first climb vesuvius very steep and i'm thinking if it doesn't hurt on vesuvius i think you can do it and and sure enough he made it over the top it was phenomenal i i think that is really like one of the highlights is just to see i mean he's 19 years old i mean a 19 year old finishing this is is no joke yeah so as we were riding today we saw this little sign on the side of the road and had a quote on it it just seemed so fitting and it goes something like this it's impossible says ego it's risky says experience it's pointless says logic but give it a try says the heart [Music] the canyon race was the perfect bike for this route you know you got cobblestones you got gravel you've got a little bit of bedrock but a lot of pavement too and uh bike was the bike uh we had irc sand uh protection tires dt swiss grc 1400s perfect and um man apadra bag setup that we have here which is a little bit more of a racing configuration was perfect we had flow formulas for about the first six hours of the ride until we went to our independent mode but it was great [Music] [Music] uh also a huge thanks to whoop travis and i use a ton to make sure that you know what are we doing what are we getting sleep how our bodies responding [Music] uh also a huge thanks to strava i mean they really help us map this stuff out and to create these routes because we're just sort of piecing together a lot of stuff that's already out there but we got to make it all one [Music] [Music] so [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: The Vegan Cyclist

Views: 229,541

Keywords: vegan cyclist, vegan cycling, health and fitness, bicycle riding, road bikes, cycling, bike racing, cycling tips, the vegan cyclist, go pro cycling, cycling go pro, bike hacks, cycling racing, tips for cycling, vegan athlete, cycling videos, cycling workouts, sufferfest cycling

Id: rRLkbNMwxsQ

Length: 60min 43sec (3643 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 27 2021