Ride for your Lives

It’s been 1 year, 1 month and 10 days since embarking on what should have been the most challenging journey of my life; spending 70 days alone at sea with little more than two sets of oars, 300 chocolate bars and a lot of determination. Perhaps the biggest challenge in the last year has been finding a way to top the last adventure.

More common than being asked “Why row across the Atlantic?”, the question most have asked, including myself, has been “What’s next?”. Although I have embarked on many adventures, I feel as if they have a way of finding me when I least expect it. They seem to have come into my life, one way or another, and perhaps this one more random than the rest.

It started on a Monday morning. It should have been a simple morning of driving myself to work. Except someone during the night decided that a minivan isn’t a cool ride for a 24-year-old and did me the favor of removing it for me. Good-bye minivan. Such is life. It was on its last legs anyway, but then it began to sink in more. My bike that I crossed America with and the oars that I used to cross the Atlantic were also inside my minivan. Double ouch.

Sometimes it’s from those unfortunate situations that you realize how supported you are. After posting flyers around Cleveland with pictures of my stolen bike, I was in for one of the biggest surprises ever. A few generous folks in the community took it upon themselves to get me back on the road. I now had a bike again.

I felt like the bike had a purpose, other than being light and strong. It needed a new story. And after doing adventure after adventure solo, I knew it was time to share it with someone else.

Two hours after being given this bike, I texted my friend Sam a simple “Do you want to do Race Across America?”. Fifteen minutes later is was confirmed. With a simple text, we had decided to take on one of the toughest endurance challenges in the world, perhaps more so than rowing across an ocean. Sometimes it doesn’t need to be any more complicated than that!

The oars have been replaced by the bike and, as I’m here in London training with Sam, I can’t help but wonder what I’ve left myself in for. Is it one step too far?

There’s only one way to find out…