Early one August morning in 2013, I joined a small group of cyclists gathered on London Bridge. I could feel the nervous energy as we did a final gear check and said goodbye to family and friends. As the second hand on Big Ben ticked out the final minute, 31 racers lined up at the starting line. At precisely 7 a.m., the bells tolled across the silent city, and we clipped in for an adventure that would end on the Bosphorus in Istanbul, some 2,113 miles away.

Described by writer and broadcaster Jack Thurston as a “ on how bike racing used to be back in the ‘heroic’ era,” the inaugural (TCR) legitimized unsupported ultra road racing and birthed a community of bikepacking “crazies” and their GPS-addicted “dot-watcher” fans. This race would give birth to the in 2014, which covered 4,300 miles from Astoria to Yorktown and was the subject of the film . Over the next few years, the number of bikepacking races exploded, with events all over the world, from Ireland to South Africa to Australia. “By putting the lost virtues of adventure and self-reliance back at the heart of a bike race,” wrote Thurston, “the Transcontinental is a breath of fresh air in the increasingly bland, commercialized world of modern cycle sport.” World cyclist and Tour Divide winner designed the 2013 race to revive the original spirit of the Tour de France, “where a rider can simply pick up a bike, shake hands at the starting line, and race thousands of miles for the pure satisfaction of sport,” as .Ìę

This new subculture of ultra racing has redefined what some consider the ultimate tests of physical, mental, and emotional endurance. Anything can (and does) happen, and riders have to be prepared to handle it all. My own experiences—to name just a few—include broken bike parts, punctures and crashes, cracked ribs, frostbite, heatstroke, animal attacks, blizzards, hail storms, mountain and desert crossings, getting lost often, and getting dangerously ill. These races have also given me some of the best experiences of my life and brought me into contact with others who share the same desire for self-discovery and determination to push limits.

They are regular people with regular jobs, but once or twice a year, they race bicycles, covering distancesÌęthat double or triple what pro riders in the Tour de France or Giro d’Italia race daily. They do it without the benefit of a support crew, good nutrition plans, a massage, and a comfortable bed. They carry their own gear, fix their own bikes, find their own food and water. There is no prize money or reward, apart from a cold beer and a handshake from fellow riders at the finish line.

How do they do it, and why? To answer this, I chatted with six experienced “crazies” I’ve raced with over the years to find out what makes them tick.

KristofÌęAllegaert

Age: 42
Job: Middle school teacher
Hometown: Kortrijk, Belgium
Bikes Owned: 10Ìę
Races:ÌęThree-time winner of the Transcontinental Race; ; and

You’re known as one of the strongest riders in the unsupported ultra racing world. You’ve never lost a race and often come in days ahead of the next rider. Do you have a secret to riding well?
I actually hate competition. The inaugural TCR was my first experience with ultra racing, but to me it was just a ride. I didn’t know what to expect or that I would do so well. For me, it’s less about the competition than it is about pushing myself. I ride my own ride. I listen to my body. I eat when I’m hungry and sleep when I’m tired—usually around two hours a night.

When I start hallucinating, I know it’s time to stop and get some sleep. During the Indy Pac, I was only sleeping about an hour a night, and I started seeing strange animals on the road and hearing strange noises. Everything went into slow motion, and I wondered what was reality.

I dream of healthy food and a good meal on these races, but the reality is that you just eat crap from service stations and it’s all about getting enough calories. I eat a lot of ice cream—ten to 12 bars a day is pretty standard.

What were one or two of your favorite rides? Ìę
Some of my favorite rides have been close to home. One I called “four capitals in three days on two wheels,” where I hit Brussels, Amsterdam, London, and Paris. I decided to do it on a Wednesday and set off that Friday. Another I called the “Monopoly Ride,” a loop of all the cities in Belgium. Instead of collecting houses like on a Monopoly board, I collected a stamp from each city. You don’t have to look far to have an adventure—all you need is a little imagination.

And your toughest ride?
My hardest moment was on the second TCR, trying to reach the checkpoint over Stelvio Pass. I’d had a long day with a lot of climbing. The last stretch was so painful, I almost got off my bike and walked to the top.

Another was a 155-mile ride home from Paris. I had a brutal headwind the whole way home, and it was impossible to cycle faster than 12 miles per hour. I was pushing so hard and barely moving. It was one of those fights you can’t win. I ended up arriving five hours later than expected. But it was good physical and mental training.

You’re nicknamed the Terminator. Do you have a weakness?
I forget to drink enough water. I can go up to 124 miles without drinking and put myself in danger of serious dehydration, so I have to consciously remind myself to drink.

What does your training regimen look like?
I try to do some kind of sport for at least an hour a day. I hate limiting myself to just one discipline, so I’ll practice a number of sports, like swimming andÌęyoga. Leading up to a race, all my free time will go into cycling, and I’ll put in the bigger numbers on the weekends, from 15 to 24 hours in the saddle. The last months are about fine-tuning everything.

Do you have an essential piece of kit you never race without?
A wind- and waterproof jacket is essential, because once you catch cold, it’s game over. I also carry a light sleeping mat and bivy bag—nothing too comfortable so I don’t sleep too much.

Do you have advice for people interested in participating in an unsupported ultra race?
You have to love cycling or it’s not worth spending long hours on the bike. Be prepared to suffer a lot, to experience pain, hunger, thirst. Many things will go wrong, from being unable to find food to bad weather conditions. Try turning negative energy into positive. The moment you focus on the things that go wrong, you’ll start going crazy. Just give them a place in your mind, but don’t pay too much attention.

You also have to be okay with solitude. Most people go out cycling with friends and are rarely without company for long stretches of time, so when they are completely alone in an unsupported race for the first time, they suffer more. After three or four days of being alone, your mind starts playing games with you, especially when it’s dark at night, with nothing to look at and no one to talk to. You have to be strong enough to handle those moments of solitude.

Emily Chappell

Age: 35
Job: Freelance writer and speaker
Home Base: Llanidloes, Mid Wales
Bikes Owned: 7
Races:ÌęWinner of the TransconÌęRace; the 24-hour ; time trial around ScotlandÌę

Do you follow a specific training plan or diet when preparing for a race?
I live very cheaply, pay a low rent, and support myself doing small chunks of work that pay well, so I have bigger chunks of time free to cycle. I rarely go out “on a training ride.” As I'm on the road three weeks out of four and do most of that traveling by bike, the training happens of its own accord. I will do a couple harder rides and then some lower-intensity recovery rides. Since I’m always cycling, I’m never more than a month off race fitness.

Most of what I do or eat is fairly unscientific, but I’ve absorbed a lot speaking with other cyclists. My diet has evolved over the years, and although I don’t follow anything very rigidly, I do go for a higher fat and protein content and try to cut out sugar. Obviously there are periods on the road when I just eat what comes my way.

Why race? Why not just go on long bikepacking rides?
That’s a question I’m always asking myself, as I’m actually very ambivalent about racing. I first entered the Transcontinental Race in 2015 because I have this fairly compulsive need to always look for a tougher challenge. Once I got into the unsupported racing scene, a part of me loved it, and the other part did not enjoy the scrutiny and judgment of strangers watching and commenting online and the tension of direct competition. I love being out there on the road on my own with the one objective being to keep riding. It’s a way of simplifying your life for the period of time you’re in the race. It brings out the best in you. Racing gives you a focus—a faintly arbitrary but definite target—and that focus makes me a better rider.

How do you get through the times that are difficult mentally or physically?
In terms of getting through it mentally, I don’t get bored or lonely. I don’t need to listen to audiobooks or have conversations with myself. Being on the bike is my happy place, so that makes it easier mentally.

Most things that go wrong can be sorted out by just keeping on pedaling. It is a bit like having a newborn baby. There's only ever a couple of things that could be wrong: Am I hungry? Am I tired? Am I thirsty? Do I need to go to the toilet? I quickly figured out there are certain times of day that I do better. I can ride all night and morning and feel great. Come late afternoon, my pace slows and I start to hurt. Because I am aware of the time of day when I feel like this, I can be more gentle on myself or more stern, but I just keep pedaling and find a way to get through it.

What would you tell women who are interested in joining the world of ultra racing?
It's much easier than you think, and you're capable of much more than you think. Every time I’ve done it, I've surprised myself with how much I could do. When speaking with women, 90 percent of their questions and concerns tend to be around the risk and safety elements. People have been told the races are really risky, so everyone believes that it’s a big issue, but in reality it’s just 0.5 percent of the race.Ìę

Steffen Streich

Age: 48
Job: Motel manager, tour organizer
Hometown: East Berlin
Home Base: Lesbos, Greece
Bikes Owned: 6
Races: ; Transcontinental Race; TransAfrika; Trans Am Bike Race; Indian Pacific Wheel RaceÌę

How do you balance training with the rest of your life?
I cycle 15 kilometers to and from work. During lunch/siesta hours, when others drive home, I go out on the bike for a couple more hours. I have been cycling my whole life, so my muscle memory is good, and I can get into form pretty quickly for races. In all, I average around 300 kilometers of riding throughout the week, and then on my day off I’ll do a longer ride of up to 186 miles. Ìę

How do you deal with long hours on the bike?
I take it an hour at a time, enjoy the scenery, pay attention to my body, stay busy with taking care of myself, finding food and water, a place to sleep. You can’t think about the long term or you’ll never finish. There will be bad days when you suffer and you’re not riding well. I just keep moving and don’t let those low times stop me. You will experience the full spectrum of emotions throughout the race, and your mood can change from one minute to the next.

For example, one of the last days in the Indian Pacific Wheel race, the weather had turned dark, wet, windy, and cold. I was feeling pretty miserable when I came upon a roadhouse and decided to stop and eat something in order to have the energy to face it all. By the time I came out, the weather had changed completely and so had my mood. So it is important to keep positive and find a way to manage each challenge. It’s all in the head anyway.

What draws you to ultra racing?
I love it. I race to challenge myself. I learn the most about myself out on the road. You can be a normal person and live a normal life, but for two weeks you get to live the extraordinary. You can be a hero. You suffer. You ride. Then, when you come back to ordinary life, you become mentally stronger and tougher in handling the day-to-day problems because you know you can face any difficulties and surpass them.

What would you tell someone who is just getting into ultra racing?
Don’t be afraid. Just go. Don’t think too hard on all the “maybes” or it will stop you from enjoying the experience. You can’t let circumstances paralyze you or you’ll never move. It is the same in every day life.

Jackie Bernardi

Age: 37
Home Base: Melbourne, Australia
Bikes Owned: 6
Job: Community corrections officer and part-time rock climbing guide
Races: Indian Pacific Wheel Race; first woman in the

What’s your morning ritual?
Coffee, stretch, cuddle the dog, ride to work.

Do you have a favorite post-ride fuel?
A shake with banana, yogurt, protein, and nuts.

How do you fit training into your life?
Strategically! I commute 30 minutes each way to work, so I tend to go the “long way” on training mornings and do longer rides on the weekend. I have a coach, Jenni King, and she helps make sure my training time is well utilized.

How did you get into ultra cycling?
I heard about the Tour Divide and was mesmerized. Bikepacking racing seemed very much like the interface between riding bikes and big-wall rock climbing. You have to be prepared, not carry much, move fast and light, multitask, plan, do logistics. I’m a gear freak and an exercise freak, so I fell in love with everything about bikepacking.

Why do you race?
Just before the IPWR, I was exhausted from training, planning, writing cue sheets, and I groaned about it to one of my friends. He hugged me and said, “You do it because you want to grow.” I need adventure in my life. If I’m not riding long distances, then I’m climbing. I love being outside, getting into nature, and seeing what is truly possible. The mind is so powerful, and these events allow us to push ourselves to our very limit.

You are newer to ultra racing. What’s something you have learned?
Expectations are dangerous. If you find yourself saying “should”—I should be there by now, I should be moving faster than this—then you have expectations. Expectations are an energy leak. Focus instead on the tasks that make you faster, not general overwhelming feelings of inadequacy. Be efficient, thorough, and logical. Be kind to yourself. You are where you are, and it is what it is.

Matthijs Ligt

Age: 44
Job: IT project manager
Home Base: Amersfoort, Netherlands
Bikes Owned: 3
Races:ÌęTranscontinental Race; Indian Pacific Wheel Race

What has been your most challenging race?
TCR 3 was the toughest. I had a bad start, with serious stomach and health problems. Things improved by the second half of the race, and because I wanted to get into the top 25, I had to ride hard to recover from where I was in the back. I rode the last 400 miles from Serbia to Istanbul in one stretch. I had already been pushing hard for a few days, so it was difficult to sustain the pace and stay awake during the night. I started hallucinating. My eyes couldn’t stabilize on the bumpy roads, and my vision was shaking like someone running with a video camera. It was crazy.

Do you follow a specific diet?
I try to eat healthy, but I don’t follow a specific diet. During a race, I have to eat whatever I can get from service stations along the road, so I try not to restrict my diet too much. The one essential thing I carry with me during a race are electrolytes. If I happen on the rare fruit stand, I will stop no matter what.

The Netherlands are very flat. How do you train for the hills and mountains?
We have the wind, what we like to call the “Dutch mountains.” I also use an indoor trainer some evenings.

How do you prepare leading up to a race?
I rarely ride the distances I do in races, because it requires a different state of mind. I think a lot of people train high-intensity in a short period of time before a race, but taking enough time to rest and recover is essential. Everyone knows how to train hard, but it’s important to know how to rest. I will get back on the bike a few days before a race to build muscle tension.

What does endurance racing mean to you?
Endurance racing gives me both a physical and mental challenge and also a sense of freedom. It’s stepping out of life with its usual rhythm and routine and getting back to the basics. The sports I have chosen throughout my life were connected to what was mentally and physically challenging and appealing to me. Unsupported ultra racing combines being able to see so much of the world and its beauty while challenging myself with a goal. The combination fits me as a person.

Sarah Hammond

Age: 37
Job: Spinning instructor, RaphaÌęemployee,Ìęcatering cook at Paella Pan
Home Base: Melbourne, Australia
Bikes Owned: 7
Races: Trans Am Bike Race; Race to the Rock; Indian Pacific Wheel Race

How do you train and work three jobs?
It has never been easy. Leading up to races, I commit one day a week to long miles, and the rest is mainly condensed sessions of strength, endurance, and speed. Apart from that, I ride everywhere: to work, to dinners with friends. I believe the bike is the only way to travel, and I haven’t owned a car in over 15 years. Never underestimate the daily junk kilometers—they add up.

What’s your go-to road food?
Peanut butter sandwiches are a must when it’s a long day trip. Racing makes it tough to be picky, but staples are flavored milk, hash browns, orange juice, toasted sandwiches, and rice.

You’ve completed and made the podium in three big races in a year. What have you learned during this short but impressive entrance into the world of ultra racing?
Despite the physical pain and mental strength required, it can be really enjoyable. The races are long as hell. My clothes stay unwashed, and I get smellier each day. I sleep in the dirt each night and get eaten by insects. I consume bad food regularly.ÌęBut these are all small trade-offs for seeing new parts of the world or even my home country, sleeping under the stars, discovering new wildlife, seeing numerous incredible sunrises and sunsets. That makes it all worthwhile.

I take each race one day at a time. Circumstances are so unpredictable at the best of times, so everything has to be managed on a smaller level. Set daily goals or mileage so it doesn’t feel like you’re taking on the whole race at one time.

Riding long days comes with the need for music. I make playlists, because different moods need different tunes.

Got some tips for the newbies?
Invest in good pieces of clothing. Weather is unpredictable, and you can be battling extreme heat oneÌędayÌęand then snow-capped mountain climbs the next. Good clothing can double as sleeping gear, eliminating extra weight on the bike. Do all the research you can, but don’t be afraid to ask experienced racers for advice.

The post Life Lessons from the World’s Most Extreme Cyclists appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.

My wheels whistled in the hot crosswinds, and I gulped down a mouthful of water to moisten the dryness in my mouth and throat. I had set off from , in the freezing, pre-dawn darkness of late MarchÌę2017, with the target of reaching Port Augusta, nearly 300 miles across the state of Southern Australia, that night. I was racing in the inaugural and it had been an eventful race for me from the start: 750 miles in, I suffered a serious allergic reaction to the painkiller I had been taking for my bad knee, and had to go to a hospital.

After getting the green light from the local doctor, I'd restarted the race again a week later with the intention of completing the course in an Individual Time Trial. On the morning of day six, a Facebook message lit up my phone screen: “OMG,” read a text from Billy Rice, a and veteran and cycling coach. Unable to type well while riding, I sent back a simple, “?”

“U haven't heard about Mike yet? .”

“Shit. Serious?”ÌęI pulled up short on the side of the road.

“We think he died. Australians won't confirm yet.”

“What???”ÌęFor a moment I thought it must be a prank.

Mike's GPS dot hadn't movedÌęsince the incident, Billy told me. AÌęreport said he'd been rear-ended by a car. Mike's status: “fatality.”ÌęIt's the word every family member and friend watching a rider's tracker moving across a virtual map dread.

We all race knowing the risks we are taking—that anything can happen out there alone on the open road—but it is something we try not to dwell on much. The fear of all the “what ifs”Ìęwould become paralyzing.

I rolled numbly along for a few more miles, in a state of shock and disbelief. Then it crashed into my gut like a sucker punch, knocking the air right out of my lungs, and I convulsed into hard sobs. It couldn't be true. Not Mike. . He was my mentor and a kindred spirit. But most of all, he was my friend.

I first met Mike in December 2012, after returning from cycling around the world. He, too, had recently completed a record-breaking circumnavigation a few months before and we bonded over beers at a pub in Bristol, in the U.K., comparing notes and stories from the road until the bar called for final rounds. We hung out on weekend at the annual . We chatted about the loss of loves, the loneliness of the road, and the feeling of never quite being able to settle into a life of normalcy.

Mike had studied and worked as an engineer, but he struggled to conform to corporate life and the constrictions of a social structure he felt alien to. He seemed to wade hesitantly into humanity until he reached saturation point and couldn't handle any more, then he would disappear. One night, we had been out drinkingÌęwhen, without warning, he took off running. I didn't hear from him again until two days later. When Mike heard about the , he seriously considered applying for a one-way ticket off this planet. Riding a bicycle was his way of escaping from a world he did not walk through comfortably. On two wheels he was strong, he was more than human, he was his best self.

“He did it because he needed to,”ÌęAnna, his girlfriend of three years, said on a video chat to me a few days after his death. “After a race he would come back chilled and calm, contained, happy, relaxed for a few months. Then the need to do another would build and build till it reached a kind of fever pitch. Then he would become moody and difficult.”ÌęPushing himself out on the road was not an option. It was a basic human need, like air.

Somehow I got myself to the next little town in Australia before falling apart completely. My will to cycle had been totally knocked out of me. Until that moment, nothing could have made me quit the race.ÌęI was intent on reaching that finish line no matter what. Now none of it mattered. I was here because of Mike. My racing achievements, which include the ,Ìęwere all thanks to him. When Mike decided to put on the , in 2013, it became the race that launched ultra, unsupported road racing into the mainstream and birthed a Ìęand their addicted following of “dot-watchers”Ìęaround the world. Had he not gotten me into unsupported adventure racing I would not be here, somewhere in the middle of Australia. Likely none of us would be.

At the time that he started the Transcontinental Race in 2013 there were next to no women on the scene and Mike sent me an invite to the inaugural race saying, “We need women riders.” I had never raced in my life and had only been cycling a little over a year. “I don't know if I am capable of it,”ÌęI told him.

“You've been around the world already, Europe will be a piece of cake. You just gotta ride your bike, the rest you already know.”ÌęHe made it sound easy, like anybody could do it. Like I could do it. He gave me confidence. That was Mike. He wanted to get people riding, to encourage people to get out of their comfort zone and have an adventure. He constantly pushed me to explore my own capabilities and limits, to take it one step further. He was the bar that I wished to raise myself to.

“You don't get called a badass without earning the title.”ÌęMike told me when I had complained about the difficulty of the climbs crossing the high cols of the Alps during that first Transcontinental Race, the longest and most challenging of which was the highest, About halfway up, the sky had clouded over and rain started pelting down. Near the end, the wind turned ferocious. The higher I climbed, the worse the elements grew; wetter, colder, windier. The cold and wet soaked into muscle and bone, until it felt like I was freezing from the inside out. The race crew drove down from the summit checkpoint as I climbed the last miles in a blizzard. Mike was at the wheel, a camera guy next to him.

“This badass enough for you?”ÌęI shouted at him, my voice lost in the gale. He just smiled and shrugged without comment. My admiration for Mike quickly extended into a growing desire to earn his approval. Where others talked big, Mike quietly went ahead and did without making a big show. He did not seek out attention or recognition because he was not competing for anybody else, or any other reason than the .

I earned his validation the next year, during the inaugural 2014 , an unsupported 4,400-mile race, coast to coast across the U.S., from Oregon to Virginia. His advice to me as we lined up at the starting line in Astoria was, “Just don’t ever stop.”ÌęBy the time I rolled up to the finish line I had suffered a cracked rib from a crash on the second day, a broken seat post that had destroyed my knees, numerous breakdowns, and a pinched nerve. MikeÌęwas waiting for me with a cold beer.

“I'm proud of you kid,”Ìęhe said, hugging me. “That was a great ride.”ÌęFor Mike, the real achievement Ìęlay in the struggle. Anybody could talk when the road was smooth. It was what you did when the going got tough that proved your mettle in the end.

An hour after hearing about Mike's accident, I was parked in front of a service station, crying. I sat paralyzed, unable to move or decide what to do next, when I got an update from the race organizers, saying they'd canceled the race. Riders were making their way to , scheduled for Sunday morning. I hitched a ride to Adelaide and caught a late Saturday night flight in to Sydney.

The street in Sydney was packed with hundreds of cyclists by 7:00 a.m. Only 11 of the 70 “”Ìęracers had managed to get there in time and we huddled together, overwhelmed after so much time alone on the road. We rode in silent procession to the Opera House, each absorbed in our own world of emotions. climbed the steps and left a bouquet of flowers. Then we stood, more than 500 strong, in silence. The silence stretched into minutes as we each said goodbye to the man who had inspired thousands around the world to ride their bikes.

Later our group of racers gathered in a nearby bicycle courier’s apartment for beers and memories. “What next?”Ìęseemed to be the question everyone asked each other. Some were going home, others would wait around for a few days to see other riders who were still coming in. Everybody spoke of Mike, his legacy, and what heÌęmeant to the world of unsupported ultracycling races.

To most he seemed like a legend, a machine that could go harder and further than everybody else—the embodiment of what cyclists aspired to be. Hashtags like were circulating, and he was already being set on that pedestal reserved for those immortalized by premature death. But to me, he was the understated, no-nonsense guy who, though often critical of others in the same field, was always quick to offer help and advice. The guy who could be churlish and introverted one moment, and a cheeky prankster the next.

One thing was clear, sipping my beer on the terrace, listening to the chatter around me. There would never be another Mike Hall, and it left me hovering over this empty space that he still filled, unable to come to terms with the fact that he was gone. In my mind, he was still out there on that empty stretch of road, a few hundred miles from the end of his final race. He would have hated leaving his race unfinished.

I needed closure, a way to say goodbye. Troy Bailey, a freelance photographer and journalist I'd met earlier in the day, was the last person to see Mike alive before that fated morning. Troy would be driving home to Melbourne in a day and offered to drop me there on the way. We agreed on a 5:00 a.m. start that Tuesday morning, and he pulled up early in his hollowed out van that functioned as a house-on-wheels and command center for his trips around the continent.

There had been a lot of speculation going around as to the cause of the crash and whose fault it was. Police were not releasing any statements. All we knew for sure was that at 6:25 a.m., on March 31, Mike had been rear-ended by a car and thrown from his bicycle. It appeared his death had been instant. I wanted to know what Mike’s state of mind had been before the crash. Had he been happy, at peace?

“When I caught up with him, he was just coming up on the second climb into Cabramurra and we actually stopped and had lunch,”ÌęTroy told me. “He was in really good spirits. I asked him what his thoughts were about trying to track Kristof down and Mike just kinda said, 'Yeah, he got a way from me last night and I didn't have it in me to chase him down, so I needed to have a rest.' But he was totally fine and in a good place. His exact words were, 'I don't need to win this thing.'”

I asked Troy whether he thought sleep deprivation may have had something to do with the accident. “I don't think so,”Ìęhe said. “Mike had had a couple good nights'Ìęrest. In fact he'd stopped a few hours that night.”ÌęThis corroborated with what Anna had told me, that he had texted her at night, Australia time, to say he was stopping to sleep.

I spotted the crash site instantly from a distance. It was impossible to miss. The post that marked the place was so laden down with flowers, tires, reflective strips, energy gels, anything that passing cyclists could leave him, that it bowed halfway to the tarmac under the weight. The impact of Mike's death across Australia and the world was undeniable. Thousands around the globe were dedicating rides in his honour.

“It's ironic that Mike ,”ÌęAnna had said. “I don't think he would believe how many people he affected through just doing what he did best, but I feel sad that it took his dying to get the recognition he was never given while he was alive.”

Troy pulled off the road near the crash site, and brought a little foldout picnic chair to leave for people to sit and have a chat with Mike. He passed me a marker to write a message on the post. The sky was cloudy. A chill wind prickled my skin, but I felt a stillness spreading like a warm blanket inside me. Looking down the highway ahead, I felt the familiar itch, the call of the open road. I could hear Mike saying, “. We're just riding bikes.”Ìę

I smiled. “Then let's ride.”

Juliana Buhring is a professional ultra-endurance cyclist. șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű wrote about her in a magazine feature in 2015.

The post In Memory of Mike Hall, the Man Who Inspired a World of Cyclists appeared first on șÚÁÏłÔčÏÍű Online.