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“It’s easy to not fail.  Just don’t try to do anything hard”

That’s a loose quote from one of the Impossible Route episodes by Tyler Pearce Ⓥ  We failed attempting this last year, but we learned a lot, tweaked the route a lot (thanks to Thomas H. 🙏🏻) and the support we had on Day 1 and the end of Day 2 was just phenomenal. 

8 of us set off at daybreak ( Thomas H. , Dave Cook , Jay Lee (Team CSC) , Joseph Mordarski-Triangle Cyclist ✝️ 🇺🇸 🇵🇱 🇮🇹  , Antonio Nieto , Roy Chaves  (BrandsCycle.com), Jose Pena and we picked up Scotty Pluschau / Team ☕️ & 🍺   at Southampton College.  Absolutely HEROIC work by Scotty, Jay and Joe on the front that morning, keeping our legs as fresh as possible. Lots of laughs on what was a beautiful morning including having to pass through a bamboo forest on Shelter Island. When I made the route on SI, Strava gave no indication that this was not a normal road, so when we encountered a dead end, I was mystified. Thankfully Antonio checked out the little trail and it was actually rideable and only about 50 ft to connect to the cul de sac on the other side. It was sad to see Scotty make the planned turn for home in Montauk, but at least I knew I wouldn’t be yelled at to get to the back when I rolled on the front 🤣 Now the turn west and I did good job of not thinking about the fact that we now ride to Queens at least 12 hours away.  

Made a stop at Kreb Cycle in Eastport where Chris took good care of us with free nutrition and made some adjustments to Roy’s bike and Antonio’s. Many thanks to Chris!  It was here that Tom let me know that his stomach issues were getting worse (he’d been struggling all morning with this) and wouldn’t be able to continue. And Dave was also suffering in a few ways and would be able to get us to his place in Sayville, but would end there. I was sad to lose them.  They both really wanted to finish this, but I do know this - they are two of the strongest riders I know and they will have learned a ton from this year to make next year a reality 👊🏻

Next stop - Dave’s place in Sayville. I travelled light all day and dropped my top tube pack and nutrition at his place. Top tube pack held a spare tire, tube, CO2’s, lights, charger and cords. You have to be entirely self sufficient through Queens, Brooklyn and Nassau since that part of the ride was from 11 pm to 6 am the next day. Had some good Italian and now we were 3.  We hammered until dark - a good two hours until we hit Massapequa when traffic lights slowed us down. Had many stretches at 21-23 and actually held over a 20 mph avg until Belmore. 

Brooklyn and Queens were as slow as we expected but with no cars on the road, we set a world record on the number of red lights we blew through 🤣 Antonio sorted out a mapping problem at some bridge in Brooklyn and Battery Park was absolutely devoid of people. 

By 2 am we’re at La Guardia and we pause so I can bio freeze my burning feet. Fatigue is now setting in for all of us so Roy lays down on a bench. That doesn’t look like a half bad idea so I set a timer for 20 min. None of us slept that 20 min, but it was good take the weight off and relax. 

The most daunting part of this ride is ahead of us. Starting on the east side of Queens and continuing for over 100 miles into Suffolk will be more than half of the elevation gain for the entire ride. We will have to climb over 7,000 ft in that stretch and it will start at 3 am. The three of us tackled every climb at our own pace. It was a nice ebb and flow - I would generally get to the top of the climbs first and they would catch me on the descents. Antonio went on a 30 min tear where he was up every climb first and he ended up paying for it. In Lattington, he dropped way back; Roy and I were grinding and didn’t realize - it was a full 5 min before he rolled up to us. And he was a disaster. It was hard to do, but we felt his only option was an Uber. And he agreed. But it’s Antonio so he got Ubered about 40 miles up the road, joined back up with us in Stony Brook and finished the ride. 

That entire stretch of up and down miles was brutal. I developed a left knee problem and a right achilles problem that I’ve never had before. Saddle soreness and a long-standing neck problem progressively got worse. We climbed Snake Hill in Cold Spring Harbor around mile 320 and Broadway in Port Jeff at mile 360. I’m pretty sure Roy and I recorded our all time slowest time on both climbs 🤣 

So the band is back together in Stony Brook. Antonio looks fresh and much better than the Antonio we left in Lattington. I can’t remember where Tom intercepted us, but he dragged us for some miles back to his place in Calverton where I was ditching the top tube back, hosing off and throwing in a new kit. And Tom was now back for good to get us to the end. Scotty also jumped on from Baiting Hollow to Southold. So they set 17-19 mph pace and I felt like a million bucks. That would change…

So from Southold to Orient, the knee, the neck and the saddle soreness raged. But the worst pain was the achilles. Putting weight on that foot was very painful. I actually left the boys in Orient Village because I was trying figure out how to pedal with one foot. I was also terrible in the pace line since I was constantly standing up and not pedaling. We basically got back together after the turn at Orient but I got dropped a few times, scrambled back but made the achilles worse in the process. In Greenport, we stopped to talk about the situation. I really wanted to just ride home alone at 10 mph and let them continue the route and I would take the straightest way home possible. After riding 430 miles I was finding the idea of riding another 30 miles next to impossible. Never in my life have I suffered this much and I just couldn’t envision torturing the boys at 12 mph when they could be done twice as fast. Of course they were hearing none of this and off we went together. 12 to 15 mph was all I could do and as much as I tried not to think about how long it was to get home, that was all I thought about. With 20 miles to go I was off the bike again to deal with the hot spots on my feet. Up the road I see two riders coming towards us and think nothing of it until I look up and there’s Steve Dorn and Andy Drake. We knew Andy was coming to ride in with us but I had no idea that Steve was going to be there. Steve and I have ridden thousands of miles together and I’m sure what he was looking at with me sitting on the ground was nothing he had ever seen before. But in typical Steve fashion, the first thing he says to me is, “Get up bitch we gotta get home!”  I can’t explain what happened to me next, but I do know that I was overwhelmed at the amount of support that was around me at that moment. Andy and Steve were on the front side by side protecting me from the headwind, Tom was next to me - it was like I was the protected GC rider in a grand tour or something. No one knew it then so they’ll know now but there were tears behind my sunglasses. For that last 20 miles, we rode a respectable 17-19 mph. I still could feel the pain, but something else washed over me and gave me the energy I thought I didn’t have.  We rolled back into my driveway, my family ran out the front door, beer all round, pizzas on order and a couple of hours just sitting in my driveway with just the best people I know. Life is very good 🙏🏻

Big shout out to Darren at Carl Hart who literally took a seat off a bike in his showroom for me. That seat was soooo much more comfortable than the one I had and I know it made a difference on this ride 👍🏼

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Walter Olsen / Team Ride the Edge

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A little more PT

Zwift - Double Parked in New York

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