Riding Long - 2024 Mishigami Challenge
Getting a little philosophical about this year's race - and the many years of riding that led to it.
It’s a special kind of crazy when you look down at your GPS and think, “Oh. Only 100 miles to go.” But it’s a crazy I suppose I’ve embraced over the last few years.
The 2022 Mishigami Challenge (an 1100+ mile race from Chicago around Lake Michigan) was the first time I ever signed up for a bikepacking race. It was only the third time I’d signed up for a bike race - by which I mean I’d previously participated in the equivalent of the local 5k run a couple times. I’d done a decent amount of recreational solo bikepacking, but racing a long distance event? Nope. I planned to go about 150 miles a day, something I’d only done for the first time a few weeks before the event started.
I ended up averaging 200 miles per day, and only going as little as 150 on one out of six days riding.
Getting out on a bikepacking race, where you literally have nothing to do except ride your bike, is an eye-opening experience. You aren’t bringing camping luxuries, so there’s no reason to roll in early and sit around. Instead, it’s a constant calculation of, “Should I stop here and sleep? Or do I have the time and legs to keep going another 2-3 hours to the next place I could stop?” As I said, it’s a special kind of crazy, and it turns out I love it. Looking down at my bike GPS and thinking, “Only 100 miles to go,” isn’t a hypothetical. It’s something I actually did coming in towards the finish of this year’s 2024 Mishigami Challenge after I’d gotten up at 3am and already ridden 125 miles.
It Doesn’t Become Short, You Just Know You Can Do It
Let’s be clear: 100 miles is still a long way to go on a bicycle. It is a meaningful accomplishment for anyone at any time. As I raced this year, I thought some about the rides I’ve done in my years as a cyclist that felt BIG. Twelve years ago when my riding consisted of a 20-30 mile ride once a week through the Hollywood hills, my first-ever 50 mile ride was the biggest thing I could imagine. I didn’t know what I was doing, didn’t bring enough food and water, and bonked hard getting home. But it was an accomplishment. When I did my first-ever 100k ride, it absolutely wiped me. When I first rode 100 miles, I’d spent the previous two years crisscrossing the Austrian Alps - but usually in 100k increments. That first 100 mile ride left me shattered. I had to draft off friends for at least the last 30 miles just to make it home.
Over the last two years, and really the last 5 years as I got into bikepacking, going further and further hasn’t necessarily felt easier and easier, but more and more consistently doable. I’ve learned how to fuel myself for these long rides, learned how often I need to stop, and pushed my limits for how quickly I could make a stop and maximize moving time. I think that’s one of the biggest frontiers when you start riding long. Can you go from a 30-60 minute pause every 3-4 hours to just a 10 minute-or-less break to grab some water, some snacks, and keep rolling? Going long has a learning curve just like any other kind of riding. The consequences just seem much bigger from the outside, and sometimes they really are. If you bonk 50 miles from the next town, there’s nothing to do but rest up and then keep going.
100 miles is still going to take 6-8 hours, maybe more. That’s now and always a significant ride. It’s just possible to get used to riding 12+ hours such that six more hours on the bike feels manageable, not unimaginable.
Choose Your Own Adventure
The 2024 Mishigami Challenge reminded me of this because it was a new frontier in pushing myself. Whereas I’d turned up in 2022 for a solo adventure and happened my way into the front of the race, this year I came to the start line with an ambitious plan for racing the course. I had time and distance goals that I felt were achievable, but would nevertheless require a lot of long, consistent riding. I’m happy that, despite some imperfections in execution, I was able to achieve or come close to most of those goals, but it was still hard. Particularly emotionally, this was the hardest thing I’ve done yet on a bicycle. The entire race I worried whether I was going far enough, fast enough. I fell behind some of my more ambitious targets on day 2 largely due to a mechanical, and I wasn’t sure I was ever doing enough to recover.
It’s the kind of thing that I’m happy to embrace from time to time, but it also reminded me how cycling has been such a different athletic pursuit for me, and how that’s been a good thing for my mental health. I am a competitive person. I grew up playing competitive sports, and continued to do so into adulthood. But for the most part, and until the last few years, cycling has been marked for me by the spirit of adventure rather than the spirit of competition. So when I do things like the Mishigami Challenge I have to confront whether or not I’m letting competitiveness consume the pure joy of riding my bike.
The answer, at least for now, is no. I can take on a competitive pursuit from time to time because it helps unlock my ability to seek adventure. The Mishigami Challenge has shown me just how far a bike can carry me in a day. It’s shown me how capable I can be. It has unsealed my imagination for new adventures. The art of going long is an adventure unto itself, and sometimes a little bit of a push is the tailwind you need.
I’ll be following up soon with a day-by-day breakdown of my 2024 Mishigami Challenge as well as a detailed gear breakdown. This newsletter will also become the home for musings on other cycling adventures year round, so please subscribe for inspiration, advice, musings, and more!