What It's Like To...
What It's Like To...
What It's Like to Compete in a Cross-Country Bike Race
Andrew Backer decided to enter his first-ever bicycle race--but not just any old competition: the Trans Am Bike Race, a self-supported, ultra-distance ride that takes weeks to complete (21 days, for Andrew). Not only did Andrew do it, and complete the ride (a feat in itself); he was sixth overall, and the first American to finish! In this episode he shares what inspired him to go from weekend rider to racing 4200 miles across 10 states; how he figured out the strategies involved in this particular race (how much--and where--to sleep at night; why it's best to buy food at gas station convenience stores); what it was like to bike through hail, sheets of rain, extreme heat, and driving wind; and how the mental game was as important as the physical preparation to get to the finish line. Andrew also shares snapshots of lovely Americans he met along the route who helped him with encouraging words, an offer to fix a tire spoke, and a meatloaf sandwich.
In this episode:
01:53: What inspired Andrew to take on this challenge
04:06: Describing a "self-supported, ultra-distance" bike race
05:34: Why several racers dropped out, and mechanical issues Andrew faced along the way
12:46: How many miles Andrew rode each day, and how much sleep he got
15:45: The obstacles riders dealt with along the route
18:00: What Andrew ate to fuel himself--but not weigh himself down
21:41: Kind people helping the riders across America
23:33: The times doubt or worry crept into Andrew's mind during the three week-long journey
31:38: How he entertained himself while riding
39:13: Andrew's creative ways to earn money to pay for the race expenses
40:16: "You can't do it alone"
41:38: How it felt to cross the finish line on day 21
Want to know more about Andrew and the Trans Am Bike Race?
- Watch this interview with him during the race: https://youtu.be/vnLy41GFLwA
- Check out the Trans Am Bike Race's website: https://transambikerace.com/
- Sign up to be on our Insiders' List to receive our newsletters and insiders' information! Go to whatitsliketo.net (sign-ups are at the bottom of the page)
- Follow us on social media:
You think of this race and it's like, Well, you need to be such a good cyclist. Yes, but time off the bike also matters. If you're really good at fixing up your bike, that's gonna save you time. If you're really efficient in the grocery stores and can eat when you're on the bike, which you kind of try and do as much as possible, that's gonna save you time. If you can go off of 3 to 4 hours of sleep, that's gonna save you a lot of time.
Hello, and welcome to What It's Like To, the podcast that lets you walk in someone else's shoes and live vicariously through their unique experiences. I'm your host, former journalist, Elizabeth Pearson Garr. And each episode, I'll be asking a new interviewee all the what, why, when, and where's of how they do what they do.
If they can do it, so can you.
Join me on a little thought experiment. Let's do it. Imagine getting on a bicycle one morning along the Oregon coast and biking east for 8, 10, even 15 hours, and then getting up the next day, and the next, and the next, to do it again, for 21 days, all the way to the Eastern shore of Virginia. But that's not all, imagine doing this as part of a race called the Trans Am bike race with professional riders from all over the world.
When it's your very first bike race ever. This is the story of my guest today. Andrew Backer, not only took on this challenge and finished, he also ended up as the first American to finish and in sixth place overall. Andrew, what an accomplishment. Welcome to my podcast. I'm so happy to have you here. Thank you.
I'm glad to be here. First of all, congratulations. Second of all, Why did you decide to do this? What inspired you to take on this incredible challenge? Yeah. So a few years ago, a certain event that happened to all of us, it was COVID. So I was home in Southern California, got sent home from college. And so I was home and not really doing much and then started going on long rides. And my first ride that summer was maybe 28 miles and got back and I was like, Oh, what if I did a century? Nah, that'd be too far. That'd be too far. But this was just for fun. I mean, you weren't a biker. You, you, you were an athlete maybe in high school and college, but you hadn't biked.
As a sport, right? This is all just for fun. Yeah, it was just for fun. Uh, just a way to pass the time. I'd wake up around 6:45-7 in the morning, go bike for four or five hours and get back and see what else I was going to do to spend the days as we were all home and locked down. And so. Started biking a lot during that summer and saw this documentary called Inspired to Ride.
The route had been around since 1976. For the bicentennial, a group of people got together and said, what if we created a bike touring route across the states to kind of see the United States? And then in 2014, I believe it was, the first bike race started. And I ended up doing a documentary film as well, following the first year of the race running, Inspired to Ride.
And I watched that and I was inspired. And I was like, I want to do this. I don't know when I'm going to do this, but I would love to do this. And what about it really got you? Was it the challenge of it? Or was it, I want to see America this way? Or I just want to do something really different that most people don't do?
Or could you even quantify what it was? Just the adventure of biking across the states sounded incredible and all, so I mean to ride from coast to coast as well would just be such an incredible journey, but also an incredible accomplishment. Something that's like, well, if I love doing it, so might as well wake up every day and ride my bike and, and get somewhere as opposed to
kind of the usual bike rides of kind of going out and coming back or a loop or out and back. This would be an adventure. So we should probably kind of clarify what this is, can you describe what it is? You have to carry all your belongings with you. Yeah, this is you are, but I stayed a lot more hotels and motels than I was expecting to
beforehand, but it's self-supported ultra distance cycling. So self-supported, meaning I can't get any support that would not be available to all riders. So it means like mom can't come along the road and gimme a bag of cookies, you know, , if my uncle's along the route, I can't stop and stay at his house. I can only use anything that's commercially available to all riders.
Okay, so that's the self-supported piece. Ultra distance is kind of quantified a couple different ways. One definition I've heard is any distance over 150 miles for cycling, but obviously this is going to be a multi-day event. You know, there are some ultra distance races that are maybe one day or kind of like 24–48-hour races That would be anywhere from like 300 to maybe 700 miles whereas this is it's self-supported ultra distance cycling, but it's on a much larger scale.
This is kind of the premiere Ultra distance race in the world. There's one that's longer, the trans-Canada, but I think only one or two people have actually completed that race. So this is kind of like the main one in the United States, at least. Wow. Okay. I've got so many questions. First of all, that you would decide to take on one of the biggest ones as your first challenge.
You're more like, okay, let's just do a, a two-day event and kind of ease into it. You were like, let's just do the whole enchilada. I like your spirit. And a lot of people who started this. Didn't finish a lot of people have to stop out for various reasons, right? Either their body can't continue or their bike breaks.
I guess you had mechanical issues too, didn't you? I did. Yeah. So there are a number of reasons that people would stop or kind of drop out of the race. I think the dropout percentage each year is usually anywhere between 30 to 50%. And different racers will drop out for a number of different reasons.
There are only two racers that have lost their life during the race that I can recall. And one of them, there's actually a monument along the route as well in memory of that, because it is a dangerous route. I mean, this was created in 1976. The roads have changed since then got a lot more busy with traffic as well as the advent of cell phones, you know, and people being distracted as they're driving.
There are other racers that usually will drop out. Maybe they will get in a crash. And they're just injured. And so they can't continue, certain mechanical issues where they're not able to get a repair, or it's not really feasible financially or kind of depending on the resources in the area to get a repair done a number of different reasons.
There was one racer this year that had dropped out because he hit two days of massive thunderstorms or racer from the UK and wife and kids back home. It's not worth it, you know, and so there's a number of reasons that people would drop out and recognizing too it's a huge commitment that we're putting into this, you know, a lot of the racers are from different countries.
There were 14 countries represented in this past year's Trans Am. And so you're traveling internationally. You're maybe having to apply for a visa of some sort. You're. Getting all of your equipment over and then all the funds of, you know, doing the currency transfer and everything. There's a huge commitment.
So to drop out as a pretty big deal, as far as mechanical issues that I had, I broke six spokes in my rear wheel, not all at once, luckily, usually once one goes, then kind of the next one's going to go and the next one's going to go. And then also I had an issue where the spoke nipple, which kind of. Keeps the tension.
The head of it just ripped right off into the rim for no apparent reason. So I had a lot of issues with the rear wheel and kind of once one goes, then you kind of need to redo the whole wheel, which I didn't have the time for during the race. So kind of just decided to Band-Aid it all the way along. And you did that yourself.
Like, did you become kind of a bike mechanic before you started? So you knew what to do? Sort of. There are some parts of it that. I was able to fix myself kind of once I got the first spoke fixed, kind of watched how they did it and it was like, okay, cool. I'm going to grab some extra spokes as well. And another tool to kind of replace the spoke.
Some of them, I had to go to a bike shop off route. And sometimes the bike shops were right on route and it was like, okay, get to this town. Just kind of take this little mini detour. Other times the bike shop was 13 miles off route. Which happened in Kentucky. I was going and even like two days before that day happened, I was looking ahead.
I was like, Oh, if I run into any trouble, there's not really a bike shop close to the route. And lo and behold was riding and broke enough spokes that I couldn't fix them. And I didn't have enough spares. So I showed up to Elizabeth Town at a bike shop there, and I'd called ahead and said, Hey, I'm coming in.
I need to get this fixed. They're like, okay, cool. We'll take you. And I show up and said, all right, I called about the spokes. Can you get this fixed right away? And they're like, yeah, our main mechanics out at a doctor's appointment. Oh, no. Can you fix this? He's like, no, I'm the owner. I don't really do the repairs myself.
You're like, I'm on a race on the clock. I know. It's like, well, then can I fix this? And you're like, yeah, sure. Come on back. You can use our tools and everything. So luckily he didn't charge me for the labor or anything, put a new rear tire on just cause those wear out and needed to get a new chain as well.
Cause that was stretched. And it's funny. Cause as I was there, there were a bunch of people online that kind of follow across the States called dot watchers. They watched the dots going along and there's a Facebook group for people who are doing the race and kind of people who follow the race each year.
And within like half an hour of me getting to the bike shop, somebody sent a screenshot saying, where's A B, you know, it's like he's off route. And somebody else is sending a screenshot saying, Oh, he's at a bike shop. I should stop at the Dairy Queen next door on the way out. So there's really a community that kind of follows this across and supports too.
And some of the people on the Facebook group, there's one gentleman out in Pueblo, Colorado, who open it up to all riders said, Hey, well, it was not a really great place to camp. There are previous riders that have camped here and had items stolen overnight. So if you need a place to stay, reach out, I have a spare bedroom.
I have a backyard. You can stay with me. I ended up staying with him and he was super kind and opening it to all racers, you know, and had other people that would kind of help out along the way, which is super cool and kind of just capture every rider that came through. The riders, you're all on different, well, you're on the same path, but you're on a different time journey, right?
So you're not there with a pack because you start spreading out. So you're all alone. And sometimes there are racers that you'll kind of be along similar pace with. So like towards the latter half of the first week, there were two other riders, Isaac and Pierre, where we kind of go on similar pace. And it was like, well, we could try and like race each other right now, or we could save that for the finish.
And so we kind of without really saying anything like, okay, we're going to kind of go similar pace, make sure everybody's okay. Not really like helping each other necessarily, but just kind of like, okay, did you make it over the pass? Cool. Great. Then it was funny at one point in Yellowstone, we were going through the park and Pierre and I were going head to head on each of the climbs and he kind of turned to me and said, you know, can we like take it easy and save this sprint for the very end?
And I was like, sure, absolutely, that'd be awesome. Pushing me too much here, kid. Come on. And it's incredible that we all start at the same time, but the closest finish there's ever been, to my knowledge, is two hours. Wow. That's the closest it's ever been. There's never really been like a neck and neck sprint to the finish, because there's so many different things that you're going through.
How much you're going to be sacrificing sleep, are you... really fast on the bike and then kind of take your time resting, or do you just kind of keep going? You're not going super fast, we were just spending a lot of time on the bike. You know, what level of mechanical issues are you having? Are you having a lot of flat tires you're replacing?
Did you snap a cable? Which happened to me at one point after getting that spoke repaired in Elizabeth Town, kept going, and like within a few hours of that. Snapped my rear derailleur cable so I couldn't shift in the rear and was stuck riding basically at two speed through the hills of Kentucky, which was very frustrating for about 70 to 80 miles.
And eventually got to a repair shop and was able to get that repaired, but you know, kind of different mechanical issues, those are slow you down. So It really depends and there's not really a lot of riders that go together. Since this was your first ride, did you know how to kind of pace yourself? Like you mentioned, it's up to you how much to sleep, how much to race every day.
How did you know how to kind of program your ride? You didn't have any experience to fall back on. No, I didn't. And I mean, some of the training ahead of time was helpful just to see, okay, what is it like to do a hundred miles? What is it like to do 200 miles? And I did one weekend where I rode a hundred miles and then did a hundred miles the very next day.
And so that was kind of helpful to get a gauge, but you can't really get a gauge for what day after day for a few weeks will be. And so kind of, as I was going into it and training ahead of time, kind of looked at the first week as that's kind of the last piece of training. Since it's such a long race.
My training can kind of bleed into that first week where I'm figuring out what nutrition looks like more, what will sleep look like, kind of what all these different pieces look like. About how many miles did you do a day? I averaged 200 a day. Unbelievable. Yeah. My longest day was the first day, 251 miles, and my shortest day was 110 miles the day that I had to get the cable replaced.
So usually it ended up being close to 200 miles or a little bit over 200. And going into it, I did strategize, okay, minimum I want to get 150 miles, every day, if I can get 200, great. Anything beyond that, it's asking myself, do I feel comfortable to keep going? Will this hurt me the next day? Another thing too, is seeing what are the big climbs on the routes?
Cause sometimes the route has natural kind of stopping points where it's like, okay, if I push ahead and finish this climb, I know that there's not going to be a rider behind me. Attempting this climb, and that gives me at least another hour buffer in the morning. So that's another strategy piece. As far as sleep goes, though, sometimes I'm limited by how long I can sleep, depending on where I'm sleeping.
So if I'm in a post office, then you need to kind of be up and out of there pretty early in the morning. You sleep in the post offices? You do. I mean, other writers have done this before as well. It was funny, Pierre said to me, he was like, Yeah, I want to write a thank you note to the U. S. Postal System for lodging me.
And I was like, I don't think they'll appreciate that. The gesture is good, but I don't think they'll appreciate that. It especially saved us out West. And I say us being Isaac, Pierre and I, because there was one morning where I split a lodge with Pierre and we split even finances and everything, so we didn't share resources.
We just split it to save money because you're spending $100 to $200 a day. Like the first hundred dollars is really just on food and then anything beyond that for lodging, mechanicals, extra things like that. So we split it and he was going to wake up at 2am to get going, and I was like, I want to sleep in a little bit.
I'm going to wake up at 3am to get going. And I wake up and. It's nice and shining outside and nice and cozy. I'm like, Oh no, I had overslept my alarm by three hours. Oh wow. So it was six already. So it was like six, seven o'clock already. And so you get things going and you know, people at home are calling like, are you alive?
I'm like, yeah, I just overslept. They're like, well, at least you're rested. So I get going then you know, my entire day, I'm like, I need to catch Isaac and Pierre because Isaac had passed us the night before Pierre and I split the lodge, but he got going early in the morning. So I woke up, they had probably 50 miles on me.
So the whole day was I'm going to catch them. And by 2 AM, the next morning, I caught them on the descent from a climb. We rolled into Wisdom, Montana, and it, or at least, 5000 feet of elevation or so. It's like, well, it's cold. We can't really sleep outside. So we rolled through the post office and go to open it and it's unlocked, you know, so people can come and get their mail.
So we roll right in and set up shop and nap for two and a half, three hours and then get up and just keep going. Wait, so had he gone for nearly 24 hours then? Because he'd gotten up at two or three in the morning and he kept riding till 2am? He kept riding till 2am. Well, yeah. Yeah. And he hadn't been going for, for a long time.
Yep. And so there was no worries about riding in the dark. And I know you rode through, like you mentioned, thunderstorms, lightning, heavy traffic. I mean, there was a lot of obstacles you guys went through. There's a lot of obstacles and, and there's kind of two ways that riders will tackle riding at night.
Uh, sometimes they'll have what's called a dynamo hub in their front wheel, which as a wheel spinning creates electricity and that can power you know, a light, it can charge a battery, it can charge electronics. I didn't have a dynamo hub. The installation of that would have just cost a lot. Now, looking back, I think I would have done that.
The investment just to have that security of being able to charge things as you go. Sometimes people will think, Oh, you could do solar power, but you don't always have either the capacity to have all the solar panels out depending on how lightweight they are, or it's not going to be super-efficient if it's, you know, cloudy depending on what weather you're going and whatnot.
So I had everything battery powered. I'd get to the hotel or wherever I was staying. And if there was an outlet, I would plug in the front light, the rear light, my phone, the GPS, the tracking GPS, you know, all the different electronics that I had so I could keep going. And I had lights that were powerful enough to ride at night, but they only last so long, so that was another factor that I put into play and, you know, I had an external battery bank, but if you use that up, then that needs to also be charged at night.
So. We kind of do this constant game of what can I charge? What can kind of go without a charge tonight? How much light do I need to keep riding at night? Do I need full blast thousand lumens, or can I do 600 lumens or whatever? So it kind of varies depending on the night. But I know some riders, once they hit Kansas, they'll kind of switch strategies and almost become nocturnal to escape the heat and the wind during the day.
So kind of nap during the day and then. Ride through the night. So I tried to ride through the night one night and got to around 2, 2: 30 AM and it was just falling asleep. I was so tired and just kind of standing up on the pedals and everything to make sure I stayed awake. Otherwise, you get cozy in the aero bars as you're kind of leaned over.
And some riders will drift off to sleep and end up crashing. So keep yourself safe. Rule number one. So I'm curious about the food. Are you eating while you're biking? Do you get off the bike to grab something to eat? And that also leads into everything you're packed on the bike, you're having to carry is weight for you to pedal forward.
So how have you packed so light that you can be kind of aerodynamic? So first on the nutrition piece, there's a saying in the ultra-distance world that if the furnace is hot enough, anything burns. And that's kind of what I went with because you just need to keep eating. I mean, you're burning 8,000 to 10, 000 calories a day if you're including the metabolic resting or whatever that is.
So you cannot replace that many calories. If you've ever seen a 10, 000 calorie challenge, they're usually sick by the end of the day just from eating. Let alone doing some massive athletic fete. So the goal is just to be constantly eating like lemonades, iced teas, soda is really helpful for that too.
Cause it's just packed. Sugars, getting a lot of sugar because that doesn't really fill you up as much. And so you can just keep drinking sugar and it's not going to really affect you at least in terms of feeling full or bloated. Just kind of eating whatever looks good because you're eating so much and constantly that it becomes really a chore to keep eating.
On my GPS. Computer, I used a Wahoo Roam, which had all my navigation on it, and then it would kind of track what my ride was looking like. And on there, I had a reminder of, you know, sip something and eat something. And every time I cleared the drink, something I was like, please don't make me eat something.
I don't want to eat another thing. So constantly eating and then trying to keep electrolytes up as well. Cause you're burning a ton of calories, but also sweating a lot too. So you need to keep those up so you can keep functioning well. So that's kind of the nutrition side of things. And as far as what to bring, that I could really only know what to bring off of a lot of research. Seeing what have other people brought. What are the basic things that I know that I need and then just recognizing like I am gonna Maybe walk into a gas station and you'll know my presence by my smell cuz I only wore one Jersey The whole time. I wore one bib the whole time. Really one pair of socks, leg warmers, arm warmers, sun sleeves I didn't really bring a lot of extras.
That's just extra weight. You have to carry on top of everything else. I had all my kit without food and without water was around 45, 50 pounds, including the bike itself, which is pretty lightweight. There are other riders that need even lighter. So you would just pack small, lightweight food because the water's heavy.
So the food had to be light, the food had to be light and the food it's not really like getting everything ahead of time. You're constantly restocking at gas stations at convenience stores, which obviously are more expensive than like say Walmart in town. But, the convenience store, I can get around in 20 steps.
Walmart takes half an hour to get around the whole thing. And they also don't sell, you know, everything in single packs. So convenience stores are really a lot easier. I could get three different flavors of Clif bars as opposed to having to buy six at Walmart per se. So convenience stores are really the main go to, which means you're not really having a lot of fresh food.
The best meal that I had was, I stayed at this bed and breakfast place in Kentucky. And I called ahead, I was like, do you still do breakfast? And she's like, no, I don't do food anymore. I'm like, Okay, bummer. I get there that night, she's like, well, have you eaten anything? I'm like, well, I stopped in town for like a pizza and a Coke or whatever it was.
She's like, well, I could fix you something. I'm like, I'll take whatever you'll give me. I'm not picky. Cause she knew what you were doing. It's cause she knew what I was doing. Yeah. She had kept that place open really for the cyclists that would come through. Cause there's really not a lot kind of in that area of Kentucky to stay at.
And so she comes back and she fixed me two meatloaf sandwiches. So just like meatloaf on white bread, some sliced tomatoes, fried apples, and fresh coleslaw. It was just amazing. Wow. It was the best meal I ate. A meal you'll always remember. Oh, yeah. And I only did 110 miles that day, maybe 90 of which were en route, because that was the day that I had to get the cable fixed that morning.
But I was sitting there eating and I was like, that's fine. I'm going to get up and ride tomorrow. But right now I'm being well fed. I have a place to sleep, got a shower. And she even did a load of laundry for me as well, which was awesome. So I asked her, I was like, did you do laundry at all? Little angels across America for you.
Absolutely. And there were many, there was one in Pueblo, it's around probably 11, 1130 at night, and this other biker comes up beside me he's like, Hey man, I'm like. It's like, Hey, I'm Lewis. I'm I'm a dot watcher. I'm like, okay, cool. Great. How's it going? And we're kind of riding through town. And he's like, yeah, I got any mechanical issues.
I'm like, well, unless you want to completely rebuild a rear wheel. I'm good. He's like, sure. I'm like, really? And so we roll into his place. He's kind of in the process of setting up a bike shop. So he kind of starts working on it. I'm keeping an eye on it. Like, okay, is he doing the right things? Yeah, it looks good.
Looks good. I excited. Heard horror stories of people accepting help for mechanical issues and their bike just getting ruined and stuff, but Lewis was solid. So he's kind of fixing up the bike and then it was just amazing. And they were like, we try and catch every single rider that comes through town.
They need something, we'll try and help them out as much as possible. Another couple up on the Blue Ridge Parkway in Virginia. There's nothing that's really up there. So they'll try and catch every rider that comes through, whether it's at 2am, 3 in the afternoon and a massive downpour or whenever. I was kind of going along and I was hoping that I was going to run into them, then this truck drives up behind me,
I try and wave them past and they roll up. They're like, Hey Andrew, how's it going? I'm like, Oh, Hey, good to see you. They're like, well, even knew your name. Oh, they've been watching. They've been watching. Okay. And they're like, we have some snacks for you at the top and cheeseburger. If you want it. I'm like, that will get me to the top.
I'll see you in a few minutes. Ducking in their truck for a little while because there was a storm that was coming through. So talking to them and just eating and oh, they were awesome. How wonderful. You're having these snapshots of experiences with lovely Americans. Yep. Oh, it's just such a treat. Such a treat.
You mentioned that one time, I think in Kansas, where you felt like you were falling asleep at 2 30 in the morning. Were there other times that you felt either kind of nervous for your safety or like what am I doing? I don't know if I can keep going. Yeah. Do you ever have doubts? Yeah. Two, two times come to mind there.
Missouri, it was just Missouri. It was just so hot. Missouri, miserable? It was just miserable. I mean, they have the Ozarks, which are beautiful if you're in a car, but really, really steep. There's one day in Missouri where it was like, this is hard. This is really hard. And it was kind of the closest where I started thinking, okay, if I drop out now, what would that mean?
But even then it was like, if I quit now, I still have to ride 10 miles to town to do anything about it. So you might as well get to town, eat something, drink something, call somebody who can encourage you or who you can vent with, and then keep going. So I got to town, took a breather from the heat. And it kept going.
So that was the day probably closest to quitting or thinking about it. Probably the day I was most nervous, I was out in Wyoming, the previous night I'd seen Isaac and Pierre. And then that day, kind of Isaac decided he was going to step back a little bit, kind of the mileage was getting to him. I totally respect that.
And then Pierre caught up to me at one point in Wyoming. He was like, Hey, go ahead. I want somebody to chase. It's fun to have somebody like keep you on your toes. I'm like, I totally get that. So I kept going and went through this massive section where it's just straight headwind for, I don't know how many miles.
Wow. And I'm kind of going and going and kind of stop at one point, trying to see if Isaac and Pierre are close behind, looking at the tracker, they were a couple of miles back and I'm laying there and this little rest stop on the side of the highway and this trucker stops by. It's like, Hey, you all right?
I'm like, yeah, I just need a minute. You know? And then another family stops by. They're like, Hey, are you doing the Trans Am ? I'm like, yep. So I talked to them for a little while and I keep going. I'm looking at my map and I'm about to make a right turn that will give me a little bit of a tailwind. So I'm like, okay, I just need to get to the right turn.
And the storm is starting to come to me and I'm like, I can see the lightning, I'm hearing the thunder. It's like, okay, we're still safe right now. And then it starts raining a little bit and then it starts hailing on me. Oh wow. And hail on a bike hurts a lot. Sure. So I had pea sized hail and I didn't get the worst of it.
I think there were some riders ahead of me that had golf ball sized hail at one point, but still even just a little bit of hail was not feeling great. So I kind of stop at one point, because it's kind of dangerous to ride on the road too, because it's starting to cloud up the road and whatnot. So I put my bike up against the fence, and I'm like trying to duck behind it, waiting for the storm to pass.
So the storm eventually passes. I keep going down. As I'm rolling into the gas station, another spoke snapped. I'm like, oh goodness, this rear wheel. Got something to eat. I'm trying to like, figure out the weather and whatnot. The storm is still kind of coming through, and it looks like there's gonna be a clearing.
But I'm still waiting there and I see this ambulance going the way that I came from. I'm just thinking, did Isaac and Pierre get trapped in this? Oh no. So I'm trying to figure out where they are, where I am. I'm like, I can't really think about them right now. I just need to go. Because I had a two hour weather window from Muddy Gap to Rawlins, Wyoming.
It was 42 miles. I'm like, I just need to go because otherwise I'm going to be caught here. There's no place to stay, I'd be camping outside, get soaked. So I decided to go for it and I can ride fast. Can't do 21 miles an hour fast, but I can ride fast. I'm like, I just need to go for it. So I'm kind of going, this is kind of late afternoon.
And it's kind of a little, you know, rolling hills and it's just flat. I can see the final climb ahead of me and then to my right, I can see the storm coming. I need to get straight ahead of me before the storm to the right arrives right in front of me. So I'm going and I'm going and eventually the storm hits and I'm at the base of the climb.
There's nowhere here to shelter. Wyoming is really not super populated. Very, very spread out. I just need to go for it. So I get up the climb, took about 25, 30 minutes. I get up and I'm like, okay, I just need to go downhill now and it's going to be great. But I get up, and I'm just in the thick of this rainstorm.
It looked like it wasn't too bad, the rain or anything, and the lightning kind of subsided, but at this point it's pitch black. I can see only my headlights, and my headlights, once they get to about five to ten minutes left, they flash every 30 seconds. So I'm like, okay, my batteries are about to die on this too.
Oh, Andrew. I just keep going and I just keep going. Your poor parents, they've known even up the path, I'm going, Lord, you tell every lightning boat where it should go. Keep them away from me please. And just pleading and going and going and going and eventually get down into Rawlins. I'm like, I'm definitely staying in a motel tonight 'cause I need to fix the spoke that I'd snapped some two hours before.
Need some. I need to get warm. Need to have a shower. I stopped at a McDonald's and just eat a ton and end up calling home like, you would not believe what I just went through. Got through it. I got through it. But I got through it. Exactly. So that was probably the most intense moment. And there was a moment in Kansas as well, where I was riding and I knew that weather was coming.
So I paused at one point to put on a rain vest. It was too hot to have a rain jacket on and it was midday. So I knew I'd dry off by the end of the day, or at least just decide I'd have to find a motel. And I stop and this car is driving up like, Hey, are you doing? All right. I'm like, yeah, just getting ready for the weather.
They're like, yeah, rain's coming. Like, yeah. Is there any thunder though? And they're like, Oh no, you'll be fine. I'm like, great, cool. Thanks. So I get going and sure enough, the rain starts coming a little bit heavier, a little bit heavier. And eventually it gets to the point where I can see 10, 15 yards in front of me.
That's how much water was coming down. And so I've gone and go through this massive storm, just sheets and sheets of rain. And it kind of clears up and I keep going and my mom calls and she's like, Hey, there's some storms around you, by the way. I'm like, Oh, you mean the one I just went through? I was like, Oh, you all right?
I'm like, yep. I'm great. Thanks. I just want to circle back on the ambulance in Wyoming. That was not for your friends. I hope it was not. No. Yeah, it was not. They were fine. Yeah. The storm in Kansas was going and caught up to the guy in front of me. Aiden is from the UK. He finished fourth. So I caught up to him and we were riding together a little bit, we had road side by side and he kind of pressed on.
I decided to sleep that night, but saw him and then passed him. And so it was in fourth for a little while. And then a little bit after that is when the spoke happened in Kentucky and then the cable snapped, which is when I lost fourth place to Aiden. And then fifth place to a rider named Zaki, who's from Indonesia, who just had an incredible race.
Once he hit Kansas, he just flew. So I wanted to fight for 5th place, but oh well. But I'd like to mention that those are professional riders who have done many of these, uh, bike races. Some of them are. Aiden had done a transcontinental race, which is kind of like the first ultra distance race, to my knowledge at least, that runs over in Europe.
But Zaki, he had done, I want to say like a 1500 kilometer race. Somewhere in Indonesia before, but other than that, this was his first big race and first time to the United States as well, to my knowledge, but it's incredible what people can go through. And, and you think of this race and it's like, well, you need to be such a good cyclist.
And it's like, yes. But time off the bike also matters because since there's no checkpoints, you know, if you're really good at, you know, fixing up your bike, that's going to save you time. If you're really efficient in the grocery stores and can eat when you're on the bike, but you kind of try and do as much as possible,
and that's going to save you time. If you can go off of three to four hours of sleep, that's going to save you a lot of time. So time on the bike is really important, but time off the bike is also really important. There's a previous racer in an interview, he said, you lose the race in the gas station when you walk into the gas station and you don't know what you're going to get.
You just waste half an hour, 45 minutes to an hour. That's five miles that I could have just done. That's 10 miles that I could have just done. And with how many times you're stopping at the gas station, that's a day that I could have finished earlier. So time on the bike is important. You don't need to be the best rider.
You just need to keep going. You just need to keep going. But I, Isaac, at one point he was riding and he woke up every morning and he was like, this is miserable. I don't want to keep going, but I'm not going to quit until I get to this town. And then you get to that town and say, I'm not going to quit until this town.
And that's how we got to the end of the race. Yeah. Some people finish in Yorktown at the monument and they're like, Oh yes, this was incredible. I loved it. And some people are like, Isaac and say that sucked. That was not fun at all. It's type two fun. You know, it's like in the moment it's hard, but afterwards it's like, okay, yeah, that was cool.
I'm glad I did it. I don't know if I'd do it again though. Which kind are you? All of it. I don't know. I loved it. Every day I got to wake up and ride my bike, which was such a treat. You know, just something I love to do and listen to music, listen to podcasts or sermons. I wanted to ask what you did. I mean, some of those days were really dramatic and you had to be super focused.
It sounded like, but what about those long stretches where either it was flat or maybe it was a little hilly, but. How did you entertain yourself? So podcasts, sermons, music. Yeah. A couple of different things. Sometimes you think it's funny. A buddy of mine here at the college will ask me all the time, like, what do you think about when you're riding?
You're thinking about something, right? I'm like, not really. Like, what do you think about when you're playing soccer? Like you're just playing soccer. So that's kind of what it is with biking. And there are moments where, yeah, I can maybe think through something or spend time in prayer. But there are other moments where it's like, I just kind of need something to distract me.
So sometimes music is helpful. Especially if it has a good beat and it's just kind of like going and going, it's like, okay, this is going to keep me going. The other moments it's listening to podcasts. I kind of realized that in Idaho with some of the different climbs where, you know, you're doing a thousand to 2000-to-3000-foot climb and where it takes an hour.
You know, or the first big climb that we do is Mackenzie Pass in Oregon, and that climb took two and a half hours to complete. Yes, you can listen to music, and on Mackenzie Pass, there's one song that I just listened to over and over and over again. What song was it? Do you remember? I think it was like, Don't You Give Up On Me.
Oh. Beautiful, beautiful song. We definitely recommend it. But there are other moments though where I kind of realized as I'm going on the climb, okay, I've listened to a lot of music at this point. This is taking a while. You know, it kind of becomes, instead of encouraging, it's kind of a little bit defeating.
Yeah. So then I switched over to podcasts. You know, something that my mind can just kind of wander and think about the podcast or kind of whatever. As my body is just grueling. Slowly, you know, five, six, seven miles an hour up a climb or whatever it is. The podcasts were helpful, but sometimes just listening to the road, especially at night, everything gets incredibly still and quiet and the wind kind of goes down.
It's maybe a little bit warm from the day and it's beautiful. It is absolutely beautiful. It's one of my favorite things to ride at night. Maybe not through the night, but kind of those evening hours, the sunset into those first few hours of darkness are just beautiful and quiet and still. And there's something really nice about only being able to see as far as your headlight will go.
Uh, on climbs it was helpful because it's like, I don't see the peak that's way up above me that I need to get to. I just see this small section. Exactly. I just see the small section of road in front of me. But the quiet of the night is just amazing. We're listening to the bugs at night, the birds during the morning, you know, whatever cows that you can get to look at you.
If you moo with them as you're going along, it's just awesome. Just awesome. How did your body feel? How did you train other than the long rides? There are other things. And did your body hold that pretty well? I mean, you're 23, right? So you're different than the guy in his mid-fifties who probably trains differently.
But did you have to you know, stretch a lot in the evenings or how did you deal with it? Yeah, when I was being kind to my body, I stretched in the evening. Sometimes I was just too tired, but it's amazing what the body can do when it is faced with a 23-year-old body, but no, it's, it's incredible that yes, you wake up a little bit sore, but you're not sprinting and going super hard and tearing all those muscle fibers.
You're just going, you're going at a pace that you could probably sustain a conversation with somebody else. Sometimes I'd call home. I'd call my small group leader, Sam. We talked almost every day or every other day just to check in. How are things going? So if you can talk to somebody, you're probably going at a sustainable pace.
You know, you can get into all the nitty gritty of heart rate, you know, what is that saying or power meters, which measures kind of how much force you're putting into the pedal, but you're going at a steady pace the whole time. And so training wise, it was in long rides just to feel what it's like to spend an 8-10- 12 hours in the saddle.
But then other than that, during the week, you know, I was still doing grad school and work and everything. And so during the week, it'd just be go out and do 20 miles in an hour. Just go really fast and hard and try and shred all those muscle fibers so they rebuild stronger. And then once the race started, that training fled in the first week like we talked about earlier.
And then seeing that as long as you're trying to keep up nutrition as much as possible and giving your body a lot of protein at night. So that I can have the materials to rebuild with. And that kind of helps the next morning. Usually those first few miles in the morning are kind of a warmup and getting into things again, that you can just keep going.
The bigger things that start to get challenging is just the mental exhaustion, especially without sleep. Making sure you're sleeping is important, but stretching, eating, having a lot of protein at night. You can't really have protein during the day as much, just kind of blocks up your gut and takes a lot of blood to digest that.
So it's a lot of carbs during the day, but protein at night. But then. For the mental game, it's seeing what small winds can you have. Usually like right after lunch was the hardest time for me. Yeah. Like two to five o'clock time. Cause you kind of get like the sleepiness from eating food at lunch. And it's kind of mid sun, like the sun's just bright up in the sky and super hot, a lot of wind at that time as well.
And you probably have anywhere from 60 to a hundred miles to go. So the day is only really just beginning it feels like, so that was usually the toughest time for me that it's like. Between that time, I can't quit. I'm not allowed to quit between two and five o'clock. Maybe afterwards, maybe before, but every day I knew that that was gonna be the hardest time for me.
That's the mental game kicking in. That's the mental game. I kind of figured that out during that first week where I was like, I already didn't like midafternoon. It's just not my favorite time of day. So I knew that that was gonna be the toughest time, but it's that mental piece of knowing that challenge is coming.
I'm already starting to feel a little bit off or whatever it is. Okay. What music can I listen to? Who can I call? Sometimes that was helpful, especially when the cable snapped. It was like, okay, I'm going to call Matt. He was one of the dot watchers in Colorado. I'm like, I'm just going to tell him a story because I didn't need to tell somebody this story.
You're calling another buddy from grad school. And we just talk, you know, sometimes that would pass the time. It's just those small wins and knowing who are those people that you can call. And they'll be like, all right, anything else? Great. We'll keep going. You're doing awesome. Really care for you. The right people to boost you to give you what you need at that time.
Yep. Yep. And that came from family, from friends, even just text messages every once in a while, you know, and somebody would text me, it's like, Hey, I've been thinking about you. You're doing awesome. Keep it up. And it's like, Oh, cool. Call themselves backer trackers. Uh, Backers my last name. So it's like, Oh, we're backer trackers, you know, the race finished.
They're like, well, what are we going to do now? We've been following you day in, day out every day, you know, three weeks. Well, I have to ask just from the layperson's perspective, a lot of people can't bike for very long because their rear end start hurting. How do you deal with that for mile after mile, day after day?
So sometimes people do a bib or a short. So bib kind of looks like overalls. Oh yeah. Yeah. And then it has like a specific pad. Yep. So there's a specific pad that is kind of designed to fit your anatomy and the saddle and everything and make sure everything's working good. And usually people use some sort of like shammy cream or a butter or something to just kind of keep friction down.
And then aside from those two things, really the biggest thing is like making sure that the fit is good, that the bib feels good, that the saddle feels good, that the combination feels good as well. Cause you're spending. You know, at least 12, 13, 14 hours a day in the saddle. The longest day I had riding was 15 hours.
The close second longest was 14, you know? So it's like, you need to be comfortable taking breaks as well, either time off of the bike, or if you're riding and it's kind of flat for a while, like. through Kansas or the Midwestern parts. It's usually you're not really standing a lot. Usually you're standing on the bike and pedaling when you're climbing or if you're sprinting, but you're not really doing a lot of sprinting because it's a 4, 000 mile bike race, but there's a fair amount of climbing.
So standing up kind of helps give a break. You mentioned how expensive things get between the hotels and all the food and keeping the bike up and everything. And you're in grad school. So did you have to do some interesting things to prepare for this race? Yeah. So a lot of it was saving up beforehand, birthday money and Christmas money.
So kind of like trying to save up a little bit and starting to collect the gear, look for deals, look for used gear. And then one thing that I also did as well was donating plasma, which a lot of college students will do. How it works is like, if you're getting blood, you know, the needle and stuff, takes your blood out, kind of separates out the plasma and the red blood cells that keep the plasma to give you the red blood cells and you're compensated for your time.
Uh, so that's how I was able to make about 1, 700 to help offset expenses through different like promotion tracks and whatnot. That's significant, but that's great. Which was really great. If one thing you have to realize with it is If you're doing plasma donations and you're an ultra-distance athlete, they don't mix very well because donating plasma is kind of like anti-doping doping.
You're trying to increase your blood volume, increase how much oxygen you have, or just the blood volume in general. But if you're getting rid of your blood volume, then you have a little bit of a problem. So that helped offset finances. And then a lot of friends and family were super generous and just offering funds.
It's a self-supported bike race, but you can't do it alone. It's. the family that you're calling. For me, it was good friends of mine, you know, extended family that's following along. And even one of our good dear family friend of ours, she kind of called herself my meteorologist and would track the weather that was happening along.
Like you can't really do this race alone. Yes, you're the one doing the feet, but it's everybody behind you. It's the hundred or plus. So people that were my backer trackers that were praying for me, or. Texting encouragements or offering financial help, but that was just such a blessing, such a gift as well.
You know, it's so encouraging just to remember, Oh yeah, this is really cool. People that I've got behind me, you know, as I'm doing this bike race, but even in life as well. I want to do that. I think of that with all these things, you know, you see someone win an award or win an Olympic medal or something, and there's always so many people that went into that effort.
You know, there might be one person at the top or in the spotlight. But there's the encouragers and there's the financial support and the people who drove them to the practices all that time. And, you know, it really does take a village to do all these things. Oh, it was awesome. I'd love to get inside your head that final day when you knew the finish line was
almost in sight. How did that feel? And then how did it feel to actually cross the finish line in Virginia? So I got to Virginia on probably what day, 18 or 19 or something. And Virginia, once I crossed the state line, I couldn't help but grin for the next like 20 minutes, because I was like, actually in Virginia, like this is the last state of 10, you know, like you're saying, I know I'm going to make it, you know, at that point, there's no stopping you exactly.
So I'm going along and. You kind of go through the different days and the route across to a train crossing and sitting there waiting for the train to finish passing and this car rolls up ringing a cowbell and I look up and my mom and dad had flown out to surprise me and I didn't know they were going to do that at all.
I didn't know that at all. My dad was there at the beginning of the race. My mom met me in Colorado, but they flew out and surprised me at the very end which was such a treat like that was just so so cool. So I'm going I slept at the church that night and then kind of got up the next morning. I was like, okay.
Today's the day that I'm going to finish. I have like 112 miles or whatever it was. I stopped twice. Once to get a Sprite and then the second time to talk to one of the Dot Watchers who had like some Coke and stuff. So. The last day was really on just soda, I think, but kept going and then eventually get on the Blue Ridge Parkway and like the miles are just ticking down.
It's like the last 10 miles and then eight miles and seven miles. Wow. I get to mile seven, this car rolls up past me and there's a sign saying it's cousin Annie. And one of my cousins who lives up in DC, I drove down with her husband and a friend of hers to see me on the finish. So I got a little video of me doing the last few miles there.
And the whole time I'm just saying, this is surreal. This is surreal. It's crazy that this is happening. So I'm kind of going, you follow the route and you have to turn up this one hill, you turn and there's the monument and there's the finish. You start hearing all the cowbells. It's like, I'm close. I'm almost there.
So I go up and mom and dad are there. And a ton of people as well, the kind of monument angels, they call themselves that. I just kind of welcome all the riders as they come in, they try to have somebody there for every rider that finishes, recognizing that a lot of riders aren't able to have family visit because they're from overseas.
So they welcome them in and take them to the hostel nearby and take them out to dinner afterwards, get to the grocery store, whatever they need. Oh, that's so nice. My mom and dad were there. So go up. get to the monument, did one lap around the monument as kind of the final victory, and then kind of just sat down and it's like, that's it?
Really? I can keep going? You know, because you got so much adrenaline or endorphins or just, you know, all the happy chemicals are going on your brain and just so excited. Funny that you felt like you could keep going though, after all those 4, 265 miles or something and you could keep going. Well, I know it was midday as so it's like, well, there's still daylight.
And so I got to see some of the other riders had finished before me and then stuck around a few days in Yorktown to see Isaac and Pierre finish. Isaac finished the next day and then Pierre, I think like two days later or so, which was really sweet to see them again. And it's like, Hey, we made it. You made it, man.
Congratulations. After even like those few short days. Of writing together, you go through something like that and just kind of bonds you in a certain way. It was such an intense experience. Oh yeah, you had to know somebody that also went through what you went through and kind of similar storms as well.
What did you want to do after you finished? Did you want to sleep or did you want to eat or did you want to just chat with people you knew? Shower, eat, just talk to people that were there. Talk to mom and dad and be in Yorktown and recognize, oh wow, this is done. Which still just doesn't hit. Like, even the other night, I was looking through photos from it, and it's like, wow, this actually happened.
Like, that's just wild. Like, truly just awesome to reframe it. It didn't happen. You did it. Yeah. It didn't happen to you. You, you made it happen. Yep. And by the help of so many people and many, many people who prayed for me day in, day out, such a, such a blessing. Do you have it in you to do more rides like this?
I think so. I mean, the day after I finished. It's like, I'm just going to take a minute and breathe. But then the next day I was making notes of what I do differently next time. What strategy, what gear I'd bring, what I wouldn't bring. Well, it's just fantastic. I love that you did it and that you leaned into a passion and took it on and you got so much from it.
Thank you. Yeah, it was such a treat. Thank you so much, Andrew. It's so fun to talk to you more about all this. Absolutely. Thanks for having me on the podcast.
I'm pretty certain I won't ever bike across the country, especially through rain and windstorms. So my huge thanks to Andrew Backer for sharing what it's really like to do that. Here are some of my takeaways from our conversation:
1) be open to new ideas and new adventures. One documentary film triggered this idea in Andrew's head and set him on a course that changed his life.
2) things will go wrong. Things will break. Rather than fume and get frustrated, figure out how to fix the problem or find people who can help you.
3) if you need a dose of perspective, remember how much Andrew appreciated these simple things. A home cooked meal, a shower, a bed to sleep in, freshly washed clothes. And think how giving those simple things to someone else could make them feel.
4) if you're in the midst of something challenging and you're thinking of quitting, take a pause. Call someone who can encourage you or listen to you vent and move forward.
5) Know who to call or text when you need a pick me up or when you think they might need one.
6) Sometimes it's helpful not to be able to see all the way to the peak of the literal or metaphorical hill you're climbing. It may be too intimidating. Just focus on the few feet in front of you.
And here's a bonus, direct quote from Andrew that I just love: “You don't need to be the best rider, You just need to keep going.”
Big thanks to the delightful and very impressive Andrew Backer for sharing his journey with me. If you'd like to learn more about Andrew, check out the show notes for this episode. By the way, he's in the process of writing a book about his experience on the Trans-Am bike race.
If you want to hear more stories of people who have tackled amazing physical feats, listen to episode 49 with Cal Currier, who set a world record when he sailed solo across the Atlantic Ocean at age 16. And episode 11. When Jeff Gottfurcht shared about summiting Mount Everest. You can find all of our past episodes at whatitsliketo.net.
If you haven't already subscribed to this podcast, please do. And please tell a few friends about it too. I'm Elizabeth Pearson Garr. Thanks for being curious about What it's like.