The other day, I pretended that I knew nothing about the gravel races and lobbed a question at ChatGPT:

“What makes the Belgian Waffle Ride unique?”

The Belgian Waffle Ride (BWR) is unique because it combines the challenging spirit of European road racing with the adventurous, rugged terrain of gravel riding, all wrapped in a distinctly Belgian-inspired theme. ±á±đ°ù±đ’s what makes it stand out: multi-terrain courses, distance and difficulty, European flavor and festive atmosphere, “Wafer” and “Wanna” rides, professional and amateur appeal, and multiple locations.

By blending competitive racing with a festive Belgian-inspired vibe, BWR has carved out a special niche in the gravel scene, making it a unique challenge for cyclists who love both road and gravel riding.

Then, I asked also found at ChatGPT, the same question. ±á±đ°ù±đ’s the answer he gave:Ìę

Ah, the Belgian Waffle Ride—it’s like your worst nightmare of a race mixed with a twisted love letter to cycling’s classic hell-rides. First, they take a “nice” long road race and lace it with an absolute mess of mixed surfaces: paved roads, gravel, dirt, sand, rocks, and cow paths. The only thing predictable about the route is the sheer unpredictability: you’re bouncing over kasseien one minute and skidding through a sandy pit the next. It’s designed to be what they call “unroad,” which means it’s definitively not a gravel race, and it sure as hell isn’t just a road race​​​.

Add to this the atmosphere—a madhouse of top pros, weekend warriors, and a few lost souls trying to survive, all fueled by Belgian waffles and Lost Abbey beer at the start and finish. It’s a brutal event, designed to hurt, celebrating the duality of cycling: pain and pleasure, love and hate, camaraderie and suffering. And the scenery? Breathtaking, sure, but don’t get too comfortable; those hills, single tracks, and water crossings are lying in wait to chew you up and spit you out​​​.Ìę

Because I actually know a lot about the Belgian Waffle Ride, I can say that the first answer was, if not slightly staid, correct. I also know , the founder of BWR, and the second answer reeks of how he might reply if you emailed him, or if you read any of the information on the event’s website.

In fact, Freddy Merckxury is Marckx’s solution to not being able to respond to every single BWR question he gets in the manner he’d like to.

“We get emails from the website all the time, and usually all of the answers reside in our FAQ section but somehow people never make it there,” Marxkx said. “And you can’t always be in character. I’m always polite and happy to hear from people but sometimes I want to give them more.

“I figured, if I could create this character that’s part rock and roll and part Eddy Merckx and can answer any question they have but with the right attitude and flair and right amount of Flemish words then I was really on to something.”

“Freddy Merckxury Is the AI You Didn’t Know You Needed”

According to Marckx, “Freddy Merckxury is the AI you didn’t know you needed.”

And while he did create the chatbot to help redirect some of the participant inquiry from his email inbox to ChatGPT, he hopes that people engage with Freddy for more than just FAQs.

“I ‘Eddy-fied’ Freddy with as much info as possible about BWR, about gravel racing, about cycling, and then I issued a series of prompts to help guide his answers and how he answers,” Marckx said. “If you ask him something he’ll give you a somewhat curt answer to your inquiry with just the right flair. But if you say, ‘tell me more,’ he’ll go off.”

Marckx is the founder of the Belgian Waffle Ride series, but he is also a career marketing exec. For that reason, the Freddy Merckxury tool very much embodies the BWR brand. It’s part sarcastic tour guide, part diehard cycling fan, and part 
 Belgian?

Need advice on tire pressure? Freddy’s got thoughts. Want to know how many waffles it takes to power up a 120-mile day? He’s got a cheeky answer for that too. At least one word of anything he gives you will be in Flemish.

Freddy’s charm, though, isn’t just in knowing the stats and routes. It’s the personality — something that AI is not typically known for.

“We’re just trying to be more clever with our community and how we interact with them and how to use technology that’s available to better serve them,” Marckx said. “And to have more fun. We just want to have more fun because it’s become too serious.”

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In the background of Vedangi Kulkarni’s WhatsApp audio messages, you can hear heavy traffic whizzing by. Occasionally when she’s speaking she also lets out an intermittent yelp but then continues talking.

“Magpies,” she says into the recording. “The situation is a bit dire. Currently it’s the season when they’re nesting, or breeding or whatever, and they get a bit territorial. I just keep riding fast, sometimes screaming at them, waving my hands frantically.”

Kulkarni then says that she’s fashioned an antenna-like attachment to the top of her helmet to keep the birds from swooping down too close to her head.

“It’s the least aero thing and it also looks hideous, but if that’s gonna stop them from drawing blood off my ear or face or whatever then I guess it’s worth it,” she says.

For Kulkarni, dodging magpies in Australia while simultaneously recording an interview and pedaling her bicycle is, at this point, par for the course.

The 26-year-old set off in July with a goal to break the Guinness World Record for fastest circumnavigation of the globe by a female. Since then, her ride has been riddled with challenges and setbacks, aggressive magpies the more humorous among them.

Then, on September 11, as Kulkarni was pedaling along Australia’s southern coast dodging angry birds, ultracyclist , held by Scotswoman Jenny Graham since 2018, in 108 days, 12 hours, and 12 minutes.

Nevertheless, Kulkarni isn’t one to give up easily. In fact, this isn’t even her first time riding around the world: in 2018 at just 20, she became the youngest woman to circumnavigate the globe by bicycle. She completed the journey in 159 days, covering over 29,000 kilometers across 14 countries.

So even though her current ride, which has so far taken her through India, Mongolia, Australia, and New Zealand, has been a test of patience and perseverance, Kulkarni remains undeterred.

“The thing is, I refuse to quit,” she says. “At the very least, I can beat my own previous time. And who knows? Maybe I’ll be the only woman to do this sort of round-the-world circumnavigation twice. Besides, I want to push myself. I’ve worked hard to get here.”

A Lesson in Not Giving Up

Just how hard Kulkarni has worked would have forced most people to quit before they’d even begun.

Although she was five years older, wiser, and stronger when she set off to circumnavigate the world for the second time in July, Kulkarni was confronted with issues as soon as she began planning the trip.

As an Indian citizen, she wasn’t able to secure all the necessary visas to ride what would have been the most efficient route, so she had to puzzle together her circumnavigation with what she could.

“My route is utter chaos purely because certain countries could provide appointments in time, while others weren’t able to convey their decision before I needed to leave,” she says. “I applied for everything in good time without waiting until the last minute or leaving anything for on-the-go, but it just wasn’t good enough.”

In order to have her ride qualify for the record, Kulkarni needed to abide by Guinness World Records rules for a “circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle:” the ride must cover at least 18,000 miles (29,000 kilometers), be unidirectional, and cross two antipodal points (locations on opposite sides of the planet).

Initially frustrated that she couldn’t route through the United States or Canada due to the visa technicalities, Kulkarni decided to approach the situation positively.

“I have always wanted to cycle across the South Island of NZ and cycle through the Peruvian Andes,” she says. “So, initially, I was really mad that my Canada or US visas wouldn’t get approved in time no matter when I applied for them, but I decided that I will compromise on the efficiency a little bit by adding places that I want to cycle through.”

In July, in her hometown in India, then hopped a flight to Mongolia, where she rode through the high desert and mountains. Then, she flew to Australia to ride from Perth to Sydney. After that, Kulkarni routed up through New Zealand, from Queenstown to Auckland. When she reaches Auckland, she’ll fly Lima, Peru and ride through the Andes to Bolivia.

Then, she’ll make her way to Europe, where she’ll ride through Portugal and Spain, then to Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Belarus.

After a ride across Oman, her final leg will bring her back to India.

It’s a dizzying route that has been rife with both highs and lows, some related to her challenging travel circumstances and others the pure happenstance of a many thousands of kilometers-long bicycle ride.

Nevertheless, Kulkarni never has to spend too much time stuck in the trough of a challenge before she’s jolted back to higher ground. Like the time she was riding next to Lake Tolbo, nestled among the Altai mountains in western Mongolia.

“I truly felt like I belonged on a bike,” she says. “As I rode and looked around, I could see big mountains behind the blue lake to my right and the road in front of me. There was nobody in sight for miles. It was like I was born to fully experience and take in all that mountain happiness.”

A Goal Redefined

Since Kulkarni’s first ride around the world in 2018, she has spent the past five years getting stronger and smarter on the bike. She made it no secret that she was setting out on this year’s ride with a more audacious goal: to break the Guinness World Record for fastest circumnavigation of the globe by a female cyclist.

But with a mountain of setbacks early in her ride, as well as Wilcox’s blistering new record, Kulkarni acknowledges that her original goal is no longer in reach. The admission has taken her to some dark places.

“I kind of have loads of ups and downs mentally these days, especially knowing that things aren’t going too well and knowing that with the amount of days I’ve done now I was already halfway around the world back in 2018 when I was so much younger than this.”

However, her determination remains undimmed. While the initial motivation of Kulkarni’s ride around the world has shifted, a new and more poignant goal has emerged: to meet each setback knowing that she is resilient enough to push through.

It’s a strategy that works nearly every time, even if the bright horizon isn’t always so easy to envision. Take Kulkarni’s blissful ride along Lake Tolbo in Mongolia, for example. Just days before, she was offloaded from a flight from Dehli to Hong Kong due to visa issues. In an around the world record attempt the clock never stops, so delay cost her precious time and energy. It also shattered her confidence.

“It was one of those moments when I was like, ‘holy shit, I’m never gonna get there,’” she says. “This is the worst thing that could happen to me, I’ve lost the race before I’ve even properly started. It was a proper spiral, it was crazy.”

When she finally started riding, however, her perspective shifted.

“I got to Mongolia and had the best day on the bike and it was incredible. I climbed like three or four passes that day,” she says. “I was smiling the whole way. It was just the best.

“It’s quite funny when something like that happens. You realize that you’ll have the worst of worst moments and start questioning everything you’re doing altogether, then you’ll have the best day on the bike. It kinda takes that level of patience I guess to get to that point. So yeah, it’s a good life lesson that all good and bad moments will pass.”

So despite heat stroke in India and a debilitating tooth infection in Mongolia and the magpies in Australia, where she felt acutely alone at times cycling the lonely Great Australian Bight coast, Kulkarni now knows that she can get through tough times. Without the record to chase anymore, this seems like a worthy enough goal.

“Not all days on the bike are good days,” Kulkarni says. “But all days on the bike have the potential to be an incredible day. I love that I’m covering so much ground. I love that I’m in a different place every single day and I love that I’m pushing myself and that I’m having setbacks that aren’t pushing me off. I’m so grateful for that. I don’t think I’d rather be anywhere else right now.”

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has done it again.

At 6:14 p.m. CST on Wednesday, September 11, Wilcox pedaled up to the Buckingham Fountain in downtown Chicago and unclipped from her bicycle. An ear-to-ear grin broke out across her face. The 37-year-old had just set a new record: the women’s for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle.

Wilcox, a decorated ultra-cyclist and bikepacking racer, completed her monumental ride in 108 days, 12 hours, and 12 minutes, smashing the previous record of 124 days and 11 hours, by Scottish cyclist .

When Wilcox left Chicago , she hoped to return to the windy city 110 days later. Arriving a bit early is on brand for the Alaskan, who has set numerous other long-distance cycling records, including winning and setting and FKT on the Tour Divide route in 2015.

For her around-the-globe ride, Wilcox covered an average of 175 miles per day. Her longest stint on the bike was day 98, when she rode 271 miles in one stretch to escape a horrible heatwave outside of Needles, California.

±á±đ°ù±đ’s.

The sheer scale of Wilcox’s effort was impressive. She covered 18,125 miles — 125 more than the required 18,000 miles (28,970 kilometers) needed for the record. Her ride followed Guinness’s strict criteria: traveling in one direction only (west to east), veering no more than five degrees off course (about 300 miles), and passing through at least two antipodal points (Madrid, Spain, and Wellington, New Zealand).

Wilcox’s wife, photojournalist Rugile Kaladyte, each day’s distance and elevation gain, as Wilcox’s ride was divided into five segments punctuated by overseas flights. Aside from travel days, Wilcox’s daily mission remained the same: get on the bike and keep moving.

“Every day is like a marathon,” she said.

While many of Wilcox’s toughest rides — like — have involved levels of sleep deprivation and caloric intake unhealthy for most humans, in some ways Wilcox’s around-the-world adventure was much saner. She averaged a solid seven hours of sleep each night, but her waking hours were laser-focused: riding, eating, recovering — and recording a .

 

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Additionally, this Guinness World Record attempt came with different rules from those she’s used to — namely, there is no distinction between a supported and self-supported ride. While Wilcox treated much of the journey as unsupported, Kaladyte, who is a photojournalist and filmmaker, traveled with her, documenting the entire ride for a documentary that will be released at the end of the year.

Wilcox also invited fans and riders  to join her on the road at key points. This ended up being a highlight of the journey.

“Sometimes I forget that I’m riding around the world — it just feels like the most fun pop-up group ride I’ve ever been on,” Wilcox said in California last month.

She estimated that over the course of the journey, over 3,000 people came out to ride with her. The biggest turnout was in San Francisco, where somewhere between 100 and 200 people turned up.

Now, with her world circumnavigation complete and another record set, Wilcox can finally put her legs up and let the effort sink in. Knowing her, she won’t rest for too long. As she always says, records are meant to be broken.

Lael Wilcox’s Around-the-World Stats

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Certain bike races can change riders’ lives. But usually it’s the result—a yellow jersey, a gold medal, a set of rainbow stripes—that persists. The race itself blurs into the background.

For , one particular race has always been in sharp focus. Now, she has a result to make it even brighter.

Rollins won the on Saturday, August 10, 2024, after lining up at the 105-mile race for the seventh time. For years, her goal was simply to better her previous year’s time.

In 2021, she achieved that, and more. After finishing sixth she signed her first pro contract with Virginia’s Blue Ridge Twenty24.

It was for all of these reasons—not to mention the 12,000 feet of climbing in Colorado’s dry, oxygen-starved air—that Rollins couldn’t contain her emotions at the finish line on Saturday.

“Leadville is much more than a race to me,” she said. “It’s my cycling origin story, my purpose when I don’t feel like training. It’s my why.”

Now, with her Twenty24 contract up at the end of the season, Rollins hopes that the shiny result at the race that has changed her life will keep the momentum going.

Road Racing En Route to the Dirt

Rollins’ Leadville story begins well before she ever did the race. Her parents, mom Lisa Nelson and stepdad Elden, have now finished the Leadville 100 18 and 26 times, respectively. When Rollins first signed up for the race in 2016, “a 20-year-old college student who wanted to pick up an outdoorsy hobby,” they became her training partners.

“We’d go on long rides on the weekends and I would do nothing during the week,” Rollins said laughing. “That was training then.”

Her first year, Rollins finished in 10:12:14, well outside of the sub-nine hour threshold needed to receive the race’s iconic ‘big’ sterling silver belt buckle.

Nevertheless, she was hooked.

Rollins raced Leadville again in 2017, and in 2018 she completed the Lead Challenge, which consists of doing five of the race series’ running and riding events, including the monster 100-mile running race.

In 2021, she had her best result to date, finishing sixth. The next day, she completed SBT GRVL, a 144-mile gravel race in Steamboat Springs. That put her second overall in the for riders doing both the Leadville 100 and SBT GRVL.

Then, Nicola Cranmer of called.

Rollins signed a two-year contract with the squad and dove into the deep end. Twenty24 has always been a women’s development team with an Olympics focus. Most of its riders focus on road and track cycling, but Rollins joined with an understanding that she’d race across disciplines. In 2022, she was accepted into the Life Time Grand Prix, a seven-race mixed gravel and mountain-bike series that includes the Leadville 100.

Rollins had two standout results in the series that year—fifth at Unbound Gravel and 10th at Leadville, but otherwise placed “around 15th, sometimes better, sometimes worse,” she said. “I wanted to be at the front end, but I didn’t know what that took.

Enter Cranmer, who has helmed the Twenty24 squad since its inception in 2005.

“Nicola said, ‘you signed onto this road team, let’s see if road racing will do that for you,” Rollins said.

Before Rollins joined Twenty24, she’d never raced on the road. “My background was 
 Leadville,” she said. Over the past three years she has logged thousands of hours on the road, racing one-days, crits, and stage races. This year, she even skipped Unbound Gravel to do the 11-day Tour of America’s Dairyland.

In the process, Rollins’ chipped away at all of the skills necessary to become a good bike racer. She built up her aerobic capacity, learned how to hold a wheel, ride in a paceline, and attack. And despite her initial hesitation to spend so much time racing on the road with her sights set on mountain bike and gravel, after Saturday’s result Rollins knows it was well worth it.

“I think I won Leadville because I know how to road race,” she said. “I think it was imperative. Making the winning selection was about being in a good position going down Powerline and then being able to descend well.”

Sofia Gomez Villafañe, who was second on the day in Leadville, is Rollins’ friend and training partner back home in Utah. She has watched the 28-year-old go from a strong rider “who has put me in the box plenty of times,” to a well-rounded racer with a keen eye for tactics.

“Being on the team taught her to look at a race from different angles,” Gomez Villafañe said. “On a team your job isn’t always to win, it’s to protect a rider, to chase down breaks. So she’s put herself in different roles in a race in pursuit of team goal. It gives you a better understanding of racing, how attacking works, and what tips and tricks you an have up your sleeve.

“It’s pretty special for her to then have the opportunity to go for a result for herself and show, ‘I am good and I deserve to be here.’”

It was on the climb up to Columbine, the race’s high point, on Saturday, that Rollins started realize what was possible. She started the climb with Gomez Villafañe and Michaela Thompson (who would later finish third), telling herself “just follow wheels, don’t overdo it.” Eventually, she went off the front of the group.

“It wasn’t a pointed move, I just wanted to see what would happen if I upped the pace,” she said.

Rollins continued to climb strongly, moving through the back of the elite men’s field. Ultimately, it was the Life Time helicopter, hovering over and then whizzing away, that keyed her in to what was happening in the race behind her.

“I could hear the helicopter doubling back really far, so I could kind of assess from that that it was pretty good,” she said.

Rollins went on to win the race solo, four minutes ahead of Gomez Villafañe and 43 minutes better than her previous best finish. She said that she never let her guard down, convinced that the two other woman were going to catch her on the Powerline climb.

Even days after the race, she was having trouble believing what had happened, despite the fact that she’d dedicated her entire year to achieving such a goal. In April, she quit her full-time job as a chemist at a research lab, taking a “leap of faith and a massive pay cut.”

“It’s almost like I had to win because I wanted it so badly,” she said.

Rollins only has a few days to let the victory sink in before she toes the line again at SBT GRVL on August 18. Initially, she’d planned the race as sort-of a back-up plan, in case things didn’t go well at Leadville. Now, while she’ll race to win, it’s must more of a joy ride than a back-up plan.

As for what lies beyond, Rollins said she’s been in touch with some other teams and sponsors but hasn’t solidified anything yet. She hopes to do more mountain bike racing but also doesn’t want to lose the edge she’s gained on the road. Mainly, she wants to keep the momentum going.

After all, Leadville the race changed her life. Now, Leadville the result may as well.

The post Melisa Rollins Finally Won the Race That Shaped Her Pro Cycling Career appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

Colin Gay’s Instagram account is, at a glance, fairly monotonous.

Every square of is a selfie, and nearly all of them are a side view of Gay’s head, in a white S-works bike helmet, his face pointed forward down the road. Depending on the season, his chin and mouth might be covered by a Buff; in warmer weather, his salt-and-pepper beard catches the wind. The captions on the posts don’t add much luster; each one is just a number in chronological order: 3351, 3352, 3353, 3354, 3356, 3357 — you get the gist. Gay puts one hashtag, #ridestreak, next to the number, and that’s it. He has 945 followers.

But the benign Instagram account belies something astounding. Those numbers represent Gay’s ride streak, the number of days he has ridden his bike in a row. By January 18, he was up to 3,358 days. That’s over nine years of riding every single day.

Gay isn’t a professional cyclist, nor does anyone pay him to ride his bike. He’s a dad from Charlottesville, Virginia who sells IT solutions to the government. His ride streak is completely self-motivated and, as the Instagram account illustrates, is happening to very little fanfare.

Streaks of all types are having a day right now, what with Duolingo and the NYTimes puzzles keeping people on the hook for daily practice. But Wordle is easy to do in bed, or anywhere you have your phone on you (which is everywhere). Furthermore, the internet is generous if something comes up: miss a Spanish lesson, and Duo will preserve your streak for one day. Miss more than one, and you can buy your way back.

Gay’s ride streak isn’t forgiving at all. Although he has work and family, and there is bad weather and sometimes people get sick, if he doesn’t ride the streak ends. Nine years of riding every day in a row could vanish, poof, just by letting a ‘I just don’t feel like it’ win.

“It’s interesting, when I talk to people about the streak, they don’t understand,” Gay told me. “They immediately say, ‘don’t you take days off?’

You don’t take days off because that’s not what this is about. ‘But what if you get sick?’ they say. I do get sick, but I still ride.”

‘I knew nothing about riding’

Gay is 48 years old but he’s only really been riding a bike for 
 well, about 9.2 years. Like most kids, he had a bike growing up, but living on a farm meant he never really rode it. It wasn’t until the summer of 2014 that he hopped onto a friend’s cruiser at the beach that riding bikes really crossed his mind.

“Before I started the streak, I’d maybe ridden 20 times in my life,” Gay said.

That chance ride on a beach cruiser spurred Gay into action. At the time, he was teaching math and coaching team sports at Woodberry Forest, the all-boy’s boarding school in Virginia where he also attended high school. Gay had been a varsity athlete then, playing some of the very sports he would go on to coach as an adult. Later in grad school, he took up running. But by the 2010s, he said, traces of that former athlete were long gone.

“I had gotten super out of shape, which was a really hard mental thing. I coached football, wrestling, and lacrosse, and I was asking my kids to do things I couldn’t consider doing,” he said.Ìę

Gay wasn’t really interested in running anymore, but riding was intriguing. He talked to the mountain bike coach at Woodberry Forest and asked if he could borrow a bike (“I didn’t want to buy a bike and be the guy that bought a bike and didn’t ride,” he said). The coach loaned him a school bike, a beat-up GT Avalanche, and in November, Gay started to ride.

With the innocence of a first timer, Gay pedaled around in mesh athletic shorts with boxers underneath. His ignorance proved to be, indeed, bliss. After just a few days of exploring the roads of the 1200-acre Woodberry campus by bike, Gay felt like he was on to something. Riding felt so different than running, where he couldn’t wait to be done with the exercise.

Coupled with one of Gay’s most salient personality traits — “if I’m into something, I’m all in” — the realization that riding was pretty cool led to the genesis of the ride streak.Ìę

“I knew nothing about riding, but it was like, ‘I like this. I could do this. I could do this every day,’” Gay said. “‘And it won’t be whether I worked out or not, I will have just done it.’ So I said, ‘I’ll do this for 100 days straight not taking any breaks. And then I said I’ll do 1000 days. And then after 1000 days, it was 10,000.”

Gay proceeded to ride the GT Avalanche into the ground. After he covered all the roads and trails on campus, he started to venture further afield. His rides got longer. He was loving it. His wife Laura politely requested that he put a time limit on the rides — the couple had two little kids at the time.

At around the 150-day mark, Gay believed he had enough experience and information to make some hard and fast rules about the ride streak. He had started tracking his rides using Strava and a bike computer, so he knew about how far he could get in two hours — which was the time limit he agreed upon with Laura. He decided that, for a ride to count, it had to be a minimum of 30 miles. Reasonable.

But he knew there was still a lot he didn’t know. He also needed to buy his own bike. So, he called up , an old friend from high school, who was an avid cyclist. Hawkins had just launched , a cycling apparel brand, after a devastating bike crash. Gay explained the streak and said that he was considering buying a hardtail mountain bike to replace the clapped-out GT.

Hawkins said that it wasn’t abnormal for a friend to call out of the blue for bike advice. What was odd is that Gay did not take his advice.

“I was kinda like, ‘I don’t know if I’d get a mountain bike if I was going to ride every day outside,’” Hawkins recalls telling him. “But every bit of advice I ever gave him, he never took it. He always did something different. That’s how Colin is.” 

Although Gay prefers to learn things his own, er, the hard way, he did accept some of the things that Hawkins sent him in a care package nearly a decade ago. Bibs replaced his athletic shorts, he finally started wearing sunglasses (“I had tears freezing on my face from riding,” he said), and Hawkins taught him to pull the leg warmers up to his thighs instead of wearing them like socks around his calves.

Meanwhile, despite how green Gay was in terms of things like kit and nutrition, the numbers were steadily ticking upward. And with each milestone, his audacity grew.

“In the beginning, 100 seemed like a ridiculous number of days to ride,” he said. “But I didn’t know what anyone else did, so when I got to 100 I was like, ‘I’ll pick something even more ridiculous.’ And when I got to 1000, I was like 
”

Why not 10,000?

So what does it take to ride every single day for over nine years?

A lot of logistics and coordination, thousands of pre-dawn rides, and an unwavering sense of purpose. (Also, better equipment: Gay has acquired a full stable of bikes, from road and gravel to a Surly Traveler’s Check with CNC coupling and a Tern folding bike that he can pack into a suitcase in 15 minutes).

Gay still abides by the 30-mile minimum rule, which he can reasonably ride in two hours or less. During the week, he does this at 4 a.m., so he can be back at the house before his wife and kids wake up. On the weekends, depending on the family schedule, he may ride longer.

Because Gay is so committed to the streak, there haven’t been as many near misses as you’d think. He rode through a two-week stint with Covid. He takes a bike on family vacations (hence the Surly and the Tern). He has added many cold-weather accessories to his quiver, like bar mitts, so he can ride through the Virginia winters, which can deliver plenty of single-digit days.

But Gay has done some things to keep the streak that most people would consider, in a word, insane. Like the one time he and Hawkins did Jeremiah Bishop’s Alpine Gran Fondo, a 115-mile ride with timed segments. When he went to upload the file from his bike computer, it showed that he’d ridden some 2000 miles and with just a straight line on the map — the file had been corrupted. He called Hawkins, panicked.

Hawkins told Gay that he could add him to his ride on Strava so he could get credit. Later that evening, Hawkins called Gay to tell him he’d sent the file. But Gay didn’t answer — he was out riding.

“It was like 9:30 at night and he was out there, riding and crying,” Hawkins said. “Then he got back, slept for three hours and did another 30 miles early the next morning.”

“It wasn’t a rational thought, but it’s what had to happen,” Gay said.

Then, there was the time that Gay went on a work trip to Jamaica. He needed to be at the airport at 4 a.m. for a 6 a.m. flight. The airport is an hour and a half away. Any way he did the math, he couldn’t squeeze in a ride. So, late the night before his trip, he drove to Richmond, got a hotel at the airport, didn’t really sleep, and got his 30 miles in before the flight.

Examples like these shine a light on just how impressive Gay’s streak is. It’s certainly not the physicality of it — 30 miles isn’t massive by most standards — nor is Gay breaking any speed records. He’s not recovered enough to do well at events, so it’s not about training, either. Rather, it’s the enduring commitment to something with such low yield.

Hawkins thinks that this is exactly why Gay’s streak can feel so unrelatable. In fact, he thinks it might be easier for people to relate to being a pro cyclist.

“In our sport, we have all these fast people that we know and we say, ‘maybe if I work hard enough I could get to that level,’” Hawkins said. “It’s the total package of what Colin’s doing every single day that’s crazy.

At the basic level it’s kinda simple, he’s working out for two hours a day. What I don’t think people understand is that the way he does it, he has to plot the weather, plan accordingly, etc. 90 percent of the time he’s doing it in the dark, so there’s lights, batteries, safety. And because of how he is, he hasn’t burdened his family, he’s getting up at 3:30, before anyone is awake.Ìę

That’s what’s impressive. It’s not the physical feat of it. It’s just the amount of times he’s done something. Mentally he rarely has these moments of, ‘I don’t wanna do it.’ It’s not if I’m gonna ride but when.”

Gay’s ride streak has had some unforeseen benefits. After 25 years of teaching and coaching, he applied for a new job in sales a year and a half ago. The people interviewing him had heard about the ride streak and wanted to know more; it ended up being his number one qualification for the position.

“It was surprising to me, but it was the main thing we talked about in the interview,” Gay said. “They were looking for someone who was gonna show up every day and not take shortcuts. They respected the commitment. And I needed someone who was gonna take a risk on me because all I’d ever done was teach and coach.”

The risk has paid off, for both employer and employee, and Gay has even received support at events from his boss at GovSmart.

However, if Gay does in fact make it to 10,000 days, he should be well into retirement. At 3,358 days, he is only one third of the way there. He realizes that a lot can — and will —  happen in the next 18 years, but getting this far in the ride streak has already taught him invaluable lessons.

“I’m very much a destination person,” he said. “If I go on a trip, I want to be there. When I’m done, I want to be home. By nature I don’t enjoy the in-between. The streak has helped me enjoy that. You can’t speed it up. It’s one day at a time. There’s lots of lessons on the bike, so I don’t think what I’m doing is all that special, but it is special to me because it’s had such a positive impact on my life.”

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On the first Tuesday in November, everyone went swimming at the Barton Springs Municipal Pool in Austin, Texas. There was Karen and Eric Wilson, and Eric’s sisters Laura and Andrea, and his brother Rod and Rod’s wife, Clare. Caitlin Cash and her dad were there, too—Cash is from Austin and it was probably her thousandth time in the pool since she was a kid.

The crew was bobbing along side by side in the glassy water, laughing and chatting, a row of silvery heads moving in sync toward the deep end, where there’s a view of the downtown skyline. Karen and Eric’s son, Matt, showed up with a couple of friends 15 minutes later. They dropped their things on the lawn and slid down the algae-covered stairs into the pool to join everyone.

Swimming outside in November at a public pool is a novelty, at least if, like the Wilsons, you’re from Vermont. Barton Springs made everyone ooh and ahh—it’s nearly a thousand feet long, spring-fed, and smack-dab in the middle of a city of nearly a million. It is also about two miles from Cash’s apartment, where, on the night of May 11, 2022, 25-year-old Moriah Wilson—daughter to Karen and Eric, sister to Matt, friend to Cash—was shot and killed.

That’s why everyone had come to Austin: to sit in the Travis County courtroom for 11 days while a realtor and yoga teacher named stood trial for Moriah’s murder.

After a while, the 68-degree water started to give even the hardy Vermonters goosebumps. The group began to make their way back to the shallow end, where Eric and his siblings got out of the pool and dried off underneath the gnarled limb of a giant pecan tree. Karen said she wanted to keep swimming. Her long wavy hair trailed behind her as she kicked and glided toward the diving board and climbed up the ladder out of the pool. At 62, Karen was the oldest and tallest one in line, her legs long and lean from decades of skiing and mountain biking. Smiling, she walked out to the end of the board, turned around, and did a backflip into the water.

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Update: On Friday, November 17, Armstrong was sentenced to 90 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.Ìę

A Texas jury has found Kaitlin Armstrong, 35, guilty for the murder of professional cyclist .

The judgment was handed down Thursday afternoon at 2:50 P.M. Central Time. The 12-member jury deliberated for approximately two hours before Judge Brenda Kennedy delivered the verdict to a packed courtroom in Austin, Texas.

Armstrong, a former yoga instructor, stood before Judge Kennedy and appeared expressionless as the decision was read.

Wilson’s parents, Eric and Karen, and brother, Matthew were also present in the courtroom, and they stood in the audience alongside Caitlin Cash. Cash, a friend of Wilson’s, lived in the apartment where police say Armstrong shot and killed Wilson on the night of May 11, 2022. Wilson had been staying at the residence prior to the Gravel Locos race in Texas.

When the verdict was read, the Wilsons and Cash held hands. They remained silent until Judge Kennedy called a ten-minute recess, and then broke into tears and began embracing.

The verdict ends the nine-day trial, which saw prosecutors call 38 witnesses to the stand, among them Armstrong’s ex-boyfriend, Colin Strickland, two of Armstrong’s friends, Detective Richard Spitler, the lead homicide detective in the case, and several experts in forensics and ballistics. Prosecutors argued that Armstrong shot and killed Wilson after learning that she had briefly dated Strickland in late 2021. Police also testified they had found Armstrong’s DNA on the handlebars and bicycle seat of Wilson’s bicycle after she was killed. Prosecutors also showed video surveillance footage showing a black SUV similar to a jeep owned by Armstrong driving by the house just before Wilson was shot and killed.

Armstrong’s defense attempted to poke holes in the prosecution’s story, arguing that Armstrong’s DNA may have gotten on the bicycle from a motorcycle helmet. She and her attorneys have the right to appeal the decision.

Closing arguments began Thursday morning and lasted until 12:15 P.M. Central Time.

The decision comes 615 days after Wilson was shot and killed in East Austin. At the time Wilson was 25 years old and a rising star on the U.S. cycling gravel cycling scene. A former ski racer, Wilson had won major U.S. races like the Belgian Waffle Ride and Sea Otter Classic. In the days after Wilson’s murder, police narrowed the investigation onto Armstrong. Before they could arrest her, Armstrong then fled the country and spent 43 days on the run. Officers eventually apprehended her in Costa Rica.

On Friday, November 17, Wilson’s family released the following statement:

“As a family, we believe justice has been served, and of course we have many people to thank, but first I want to thank God for giving us strength, comfort and a measure of peace through this trial process. We know many folks back home and around the country have been praying for us and we appreciate that very much.

We want to thank all our family and friends who attended the trial and gave us so much support during our time in Austin. This has meant the world to us. We thank the jury for their sacrifice and hard work. Three weeks is a long time and we appreciate their commitment and determination to do the right thing. We also thank the witnesses for their testimonies and cooperation with law enforcement and the prosecution.

We thank District Attorney Jose Garza, Raquel Pompey, and Jesse Hernandez from the DA’s office who supported us through this trial, and Judge Kennedy who presided. We especially want to thank the Austin Police Department—Detective Spitler and all the detectives and forensic experts, and especially the prosecution team—Guillermo Gonzalez, Ricky Jones, Jean Sullivan, Allison Matous, and Cecily Walker. They put thousands of hours into this case and did an exemplary job, always with integrity and the utmost professionalism.

Other than the prosecution team, there really are no winners here. This sad story is a perfect example of why integrity and honesty are crucial in our personal relationships, and how dishonesty can often lead to unintended consequences. Selfish manipulation, jealousy and hatred never lead to good outcomes. Violence is never a good way to solve personal issues, in fact, violence doesn’t solve anything but only leads to more suffering.

Our lives are changed forever, but with this challenging ordeal now behind us, we are ready to move forward and continue our healing, and will do so with , gentle and kind spirit, for we know this is what she would want us to do.

Moriah inspired everyone who knew her, and we are dedicated to preserving her legacy. She expressed a strong desire to serve others and contribute to her community, which we endeavor to do with the established in her honor.” 

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Even in the early stages of her professional cycling career, thought about how she could help others.

Wilson, who was tragically at age 25, realized quickly that she could use her platform from pro cycling for good. She’d already benefited from the support and inspiration of others; why not begin to give back as soon as she could? In her journals, on social media, and in her conversations with her family and others in the sport, Wilson gave a clear indication of what was important to her and how she planned to use her burgeoning status as a well-known athlete.

“I don’t think it came naturally for her to be at the center of attention in any way,” Wilson’s brother Matt Wilson told me. “One of the ways she was going to be able to deal with it and be more comfortable with it was to use it in a way that wasn’t all about her. To use it in a way to impact the community, cycling, sports, youth, and giving back.”

Shortly after Wilson died, her family—Matt and her parents Karen and Eric—set to making Moriah’s vision a reality. In the summer of 2022, they launched a charitable organization that would honor Moriah’s legacy by supporting the very causes she was passionate about.

The Wilson’s officially incorporated the foundation on October 2, 2023 and they are now awaiting 501(c)3 status. In its short existence, the foundation has already raised some $300,000 for various causes, and the Wilsons and a newly-appointed board of directors have set about planning its future.

A Compressed Timeline

Moriah’s death prompted an outpouring of support from the cycling community. Nearly all her sponsors contributed to the foundation in some way, whether through a direct donation, a fundraiser, or support of the Ride for Mo cycling event, which was held on May 13, 2023 in Burke, Vermont.

The Feed, Wilson’s nutrition sponsor, raised over $80,000 by selling water bottles emblazoned with the slogan “Ride Like Mo.” A brewery in San Diego called Rouleur , netting about $3,000. SRAM, Gu, the Meteor, Supersapiens, and other brands kicked in more cash.

But it wasn’t just the bike industry that showed support for the foundation. Close to 1,000 people donated through a GoFundMe campaign, which raised $140,000.

So, where has the money gone? Most of the cash sits in a donor-advised fund, awaiting the foundation’s 501(c)3 approval. The Wilson family has already allocated some dollars to causes that were very close to Moriah’s heart.

Early this spring, Vermont’s Burke Mountain Academy created the in honor of Wilson, who graduated from the ski academy in 2014. The Wilsons and the Moriah Wilson Foundation donated $100,000 to the fund, and the money will provide financial assistance for training and racing to Burke athletes. The fund gives special consideration to families from Vermont’s Northeast Kingdom region, which is where Wilson grew up.

Burke has impacted every member of the Wilson family—Matt and Eric both graduated from the school, Eric previously worked there as a ski coach, and now Matt does, too.

Matt told me that focusing the foundation’s work on local families and institutions has helped the family navigate the devastating grief from losing Moriah.

In May, they hosted the first annual Ride for Mo, a small cycling event in the town of Burke. Friends, family, and the local community showed up in droves to support the event. The Wildflower, a local inn, donated the event space (and will do so in perpetuity), and Specialized hosted a reception, donated a bike, and provided mechanics. Promoters of other bike events—Ian and Gretchen Boswell, Heidi Meyers from Rasputitsa, and Jon and Pamela Robichaud of the Ranger—shared logistical know-how. Scenic Tents, Colavita Pizza, Lawson’s Liquids and Skratch also contributed.

Ride for Mo raised $20,000, which was given to Kingdom Kids, a Northeast Kingdom non-profit that helps children gain access to the outdoors. A raffle of a Specialized bike brought in $6,000, which went to the Moriah Wilson Foundation.

The second annual Ride for Mo event is planned for May 11, 2024 in Burke, Vermont.

The Ride for Mo Event

Matt told me that, for 2024, the foundation’s biggest goal is for the seven-member board of the directors to find its footing as a non-profit.

The Wilson family says that, for now, the foundation plans to take a “wide vs. deep” approach to giving, and will focus its support on school programs and summer camps that provide access to sport and recreation to youth in the Northeast Kingdom and throughout Vermont.

Eventually, Matt says, the foundation will provide deeper support of specific individuals and programs.

“First, we want to provide a minimal level of access to a larger group of people,” he says. “Then another angle is how we’re able to use that understanding of the landscape of cycling in Vermont and the Northeast Kingdom to help young cyclists who have big dreams. To help them financially go to races, fund their development in sport.

“So, there will be two directions of giving, starting with wide funding for basic needs to get more kids on bikes, and in the future being able to help people go further with their dreams.”

However, the foundation doesn’t plan to stop with financial support. Just as Moriah Wilson knew she wanted to help young riders who’d once been aspiring pros like herself, her mother Karen sees the foundation using its platform similarly.

“I remember Moriah went through that, asking ‘how do I get started?’ She wanted to ask Georgia Gould how she did it. Mentorship was something Moriah was passionate about and may have been a direction she was headed,” Karen said.

As the Wilson family and the board of the foundation begin to hone in on its goals and priorities, it’s clear that Moriah’s vision will always serve as the guiding light.

Give to the Moriah Wilson Foundation .Ìę

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, the Texas woman that authorities believe murdered professional cyclist , attempted escape from police custody on Wednesday morning, according to from local TV station KXAN.

The incident occurred just three weeks before Armstrong is slated to stand trial for allegedly killing Wilson in May 2022. .

Armstrong ran from officers after completing a doctor’s visit at a medical office in south Austin, a sheriff’s office spokesperson said. After about ten minutes, officers caught Armstrong and restrained her. According to the police spokesperson, it is “not uncommon” for their agency to transport an inmate to a doctor’s office or hospital, when they require specialized medical treatment that is not available in their clinic.

that the sheriff’s spokesperson confirmed that two deputies had taken Armstrong to a medical appointment—as they were escorting Armstrong back to a patrol vehicle to return her to the Travis County Correctional Complex in Del Valle, Armstrong began running.

Armstrong traveled about a block in to neighborhood before the deputies found and detained her. Austin police also aided in her capture, according to the report. Armstrong was then taken to Dell Seton Medical Center for treatment following the incident. Several hours after the incident, reportedly showing Armstrong’s near escape. In the video, Armstrong runs across an overgrown area near a parking lot and attempts to scale a fence.

WATCH: Video appears to show murder suspect Kaitlin Armstrong running from corrections officers. The attempted escape, which lasted around 10 minutes, took place in south Austin Wednesday morning, officials said.

— KXAN News (@KXAN_News)

Read also:

Armstrong, 35, has been jailed at the Travis County Courthouse in Austin for nearly four months.

This is the second time that Armstrong has attempted to elude law enforcement. On May 19,2022, authorities issued a warrant for her arrest in the murder of Wilson, who was found shot to death at an apartment in Austin on May 11. The warrant kicked off a 43-day search for Armstrong, who fled the Austin area in the days after Wilson’s death. Authorities later determined that the then 34-year-old had left the country using a passport that was not her own on May 18. She was apprehended on June 29 in Santa Teresa, Costa Rica and brought back to Texas to stand trial.

Armstrong pled not guilty to the charge and has been held at the Travis County jail on a $2.5 million bail since then. She is scheduled in Austin on October 30.

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Pro off-road cyclist and has set a new fastest known time (FKT) on , a legendary 55-mile mountain bike route outside of Moab, Utah.

Otto’s time is based on , which is a loop that begins in Moab and ends just outside of town where the famed Porcupine Rim singletrack brings riders to the Colorado River.

The Whole Enchilada loop is 55.27 miles and includes 8,011 feet of climbing and nearly as much descending. Over half of the route is on paved and dirt roads, including the climb up the La Sal Loop Road to the start of the famed ‘Whole Enchilada’ singletrack at 11,146 feet of elevation.

Most riders get a vehicle shuttle to the high point at Burro Pass and descend the MTB portion of the route, passing through multiple ecosystems, from subalpine to the desert, on rocky exposed terrain.

Otto said that part of her motivation in going for a fastest known time on the loop, versus just the descent, was to normalize the entire route and encourage others to ride it.

Otto completed the FKT in 5:50:38, knocking the previous record of 6:47 well into second place. Her time is the best of any rider, male or female.

Hannah Otto’s Whole Enchilada FKT set-up

• Bike: Pivot Mach 4SL
• Wheels:ÌęDT Swiss XRC 1200 Carbon Wheels
• Power Meter: Stages Dual-Sided Power Meter
• Cycling Computer: Stages M200 Dash Cycling Computer
• Glasses: Julbo Fury Glasses
• Grips: ESI Fit CR Grips
• Fork: Fox Factory 34 120 mm Fork
• Suspension: Fox Factory DPD Rear Shock
• Dropper: Fox Transfer SL Dropper Post
• Cockpit: Race Face Next SL Bars and Stem
• Tires: Kenda 2.4 SCT Booster Tires

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