Marley Blonsky told her story to producer Shweta Watwe for an episode of The Daily Rally podcast. It has been edited for length and clarity.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had your heart broken, but it really makes you question everything about you. Am I valuable? Am I worthy? Do I even have a purpose?

My full name is actually Marlena Blonsky, but everybody knows me as Marley Blonsky.

Currently I am in Bentonville, Arkansas. I moved here about a year ago after spending the last 18 years in Seattle. The bike industry is absolutely blowing up in Arkansas, and I came down here for a big race last year and fell in love.

My full-time job is running All Bodies on Bikes. We are getting incorporated as a nonprofit as we speak. We do advocacy consulting and community building to make the bike industry more welcoming and inclusive to people who fall outside the norms of what you think a cyclist looks like.

Somebody asked me the other day, 鈥淒o you have any other interests besides biking?鈥� And I was like, Oh God. Reality check. Yes, I do. But cycling is really what makes me excited and when I’m feeling down about the world, going for a ride picks me up.

We got married in front of our friends and family in this beautiful ceremony in September 2012. But it didn’t mean anything in the eyes of the law. There was this big referendum that we volunteered for, and helped get marriage equality passed in Washington State. Then we legally got married in December, so we had a second wedding ceremony, and we were in the Seattle Times, and there were all these pictures of us. So it was fairly public as well.

I found out about the affair in March. It was St. Patrick’s Day. I think we were officially separated in April. I was still getting emails from people saying, 鈥淐ongratulations, I saw your story in the Seattle Times,鈥� or, 鈥淚 saw it in the West Seattle blog.鈥� And how do you say, 鈥淲ell actually it fell apart?鈥�

We were married, we were looking to have kids, it really felt like my life was going in a certain direction. And I had based a lot of my self-worth and my personality on our relationship. So when that no longer existed, I didn’t know who I was.
It was very shortly after that I found the bike. Thank God I did.

I was trying to figure out, How do I make new friends? How do I meet people? I kept seeing all these people on bikes, and they looked like people I wanted to hang out with and people I wanted to date. I was living in West Seattle, which is kind of a car-dependent part of town. So I moved to Capitol Hill, which is not a very car-friendly place in Seattle, and I kept seeing all these people riding bikes, and I wanted to be like them.

This was also when Tinder had first come onto the scene and, like any good 26-year-old, in addition to going to therapy, I got on Tinder. I rode my bike to a first date.

It was June. This was one of those perfect, bright blue, sunny skies. It was uphill to the park. So I remember getting there and feeling sweaty. The grass was just starting to turn green, and I just felt alive. I felt so badass and so proud of myself when I rode to the date, and this guy was like, 鈥淵ou rode your bike here. That’s so cool. Tell me about that.鈥�

I think everything started to click of, OK, people think that this is cool and I do this. I’m not gonna lie, that’s part of the reason I still ride bikes, is people think it’s cool. You don’t expect somebody who weighs 250 pounds to ride 100 miles and enjoy doing it.

It really opened the doors. Like, Aha, not only can this be transportation, but it can become part of my personality or my identity. I just had this feeling that a whole world was gonna be unlocked.

I was experiencing all these really deep emotions and deep sadness and just grief over the demise of my marriage. So getting on the bike and feeling the physical manifestation of working hard gave me something else to focus on as well. There were many rides when I would find myself crying and working through feelings, because I’m also really good at ignoring my feelings and just being like, No, I’m fine.

I think every time I got on the bike, it soothed my anxiety, because it made me be present in the moment. I had to think about the pothole in front of me, or I had to think about, What am I going to eat to make sure I can ride this eight miles from my house to where I’m going? So instead of worrying about the future and what’s gonna happen, or asking, Am I ever gonna fall in love again? Am I lovable? What is my self worth? I was instead focused on OK, how am I gonna make it from point A to point B on my bicycle?

The thing that I love about cycling is it takes a long time and it forces you to get in tune with your body. Finding the bicycle and finding my power on the bicycle really allowed me to be OK with who I am. It just makes me feel connected to the earth, and reminds me that I do have a lot of power in this fat, soft body.

I love the phrase, 鈥淲ith these thighs.鈥� Oftentimes as a kid, my sister would say thunder thighs, or make fun of the size of my body. And I’ve learned to reframe how I talk to myself, how I take care of myself, and how I appreciate myself.

I learned that I am so much stronger than I ever thought possible, both physically and emotionally. That my body is capable of really, really amazing things, even if it doesn’t look or perform the same way as other people.

With those thighs, I climbed that hill or I rode there, or, I did that thing.

Marley Blonsky is a co-founder of , a nonprofit that advocates for size inclusivity in the cycling community. In March of 2023, she completed the Mid-South Gravel 100 Race, which was her fourth 100-mile ride in the past year. You can find her on Twitter .

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Susan Clayton told her story to producer 鈥嬧�婼hweta Watwe for an episode of The Daily Rally podcast. It has been edited for length and clarity.

They say your life flashes before you, and it doesn’t really flash, but moments pass in front of you. And one of them was, 鈥淚’m not gonna be able to do my 12 miles tomorrow.鈥�

I live in Baltimore, Maryland, and I was born and raised here in Baltimore. I am an inventor and business owner of a mitten called White Paws Run Mitts.

The 2021 Boston Marathon decided that they were gonna have a virtual Boston Marathon. I decided I was gonna do it because I was like, I’m never gonna qualify any other way, so I’m gonna do this virtual marathon. I’ve done lots of half marathons, but this would’ve been my first marathon, so I was super excited.

It was in the summer and it was actually four days before my birthday. I was leaving work. The sun is starting to set, but it’s not completely dark. It’s sort of like that glory time of the day when you want to be outside after work, and you want to go and hang out with your friends, maybe sit and have a cocktail.

I was thinking, Tomorrow I have to get up. I have to do this training run. I hope that the weather is nice and it’s cool enough when I get up in the morning. Just thinking about getting up the next morning. And I was crossing the street in this crosswalk, and I got hit by a car.

As the car was coming towards me, I kept saying, He’s gonna stop. He’s gonna stop. He’s not gonna hit me. I can’t believe he’s鈥h my God, he’s hitting me.

As you’re falling and you’re laying on the ground, you’re like, I can’t be hurt. I can’t be hurt.

I was laying on the ground, he was yelling at me. 鈥淵ou weren’t supposed to be there! I had a green light!鈥� And I was like, Ugh. You’re laying there in agony and you’re hoping that you’re not beat up so much that you can鈥檛 function after this, and that you’re not hurt so bad.

I had two cousins who had died recently. We were all close in age. And all I kept thinking is My family can’t handle if I get hurt. I need to make sure that nothing happens to me. I have to be OK with this.

Nothing happened to him. He wasn’t issued a ticket. He probably just was like, 鈥淲hatever,鈥� because he didn’t feel like he did anything wrong. So he went on with his life. Whereas my life was changed. I’m scared to even cross the street, because the next person might kill me.

I felt like my life had been taken away from me because that’s how I got around. I walked to the grocery store, I walked to the drug store, I walked and hung out with friends. We’d take long walks on Sunday morning. We’d walk to the farmer’s market.

I would make these weird detours. I would try my best not to go places where I had to do major street crossings. It was just like this shock, this terror. I’m looking both ways, and I’m looking everywhere, and I’m like, No, I don’t want to cross yet. Let’s make sure there’s no traffic. I can’t cross that way. I can’t cross this way. I gotta cross this way. It was taking over my life, not being able to just cross a street. I could walk, but I couldn’t mentally do it.

Needless to say, I wasn’t able to train right away for the Boston Marathon, and it was devastating, because I was like, They’re never gonna do this again. They’re never gonna offer this again. This is my only shot at doing this virtual marathon.

I was so angry that this person was going to take this experience away from me, and I was like, I can’t let this define me. I can’t let this person take something else away from me. It took about a month and I just said, I can’t live like this. I am going to figure this out.

I just got up and said, No, you’re gonna finish this. And even if you don’t finish it, you’re gonna train to try to finish it. If it takes you 12 hours to walk this race, it’s gonna take you 12 hours to walk this race. But you’re going to get past that finish line.

I just started in the neighborhood. And then slowly but surely, I would walk a little bit further, walk a little bit further. I even made my route so that I didn’t have to cross so many streets. I mapped it out. So I was like, OK, if I go this way and I go this way, and I go this way, I can alleviate so many streets that I have to cross in order to do 26.2 miles.

I was determined that I was going to finish this race, no matter what, and I did. I don’t know if I would’ve made myself do it if I hadn’t gotten hit. It sounds crazy. I got hit by a car, but I was more determined to finish the marathon than if I hadn’t, because I was not gonna let this person take this away from me. So I think that gave me even more determination to finish it.

People are always looking down on certain aspects of peoples鈥� lives. You didn’t do this, you didn’t have this. You didn’t grow up this way, you’re not supposed to succeed. You’re not supposed to be this way. You’re not supposed to do that. And I think that those things in the back of my head make me want to do even more. I’m gonna prove you wrong that I can do it.

Susan Clayton is the founder of , a Black-owned company that makes mittens designed for runners.

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Erica Cole told her story to producer Shweta Watwe for an episode of The Daily Rally podcast. It has been edited for length and clarity.

And then I was thinking, What if I can’t tread water in the same way? Because you’re kicking to stay afloat. I was like, What if I jump in and just start sinking?

I’m originally from Iowa. I just recently moved to Richmond, Virginia. I am the founder and CEO of No Limbits, which is an adaptive apparel brand for people with disabilities. I’m an amputee, I started it for myself on a sewing machine, and then it grew into a full-fledged startup.

I say adaptive fashion is one of my passions. And scuba diving is definitely the other.

Before my accident, I was actually living in New Mexico for a while. I was hiking a ton, like 30, 40 miles a week, and I was working a full-time job. I was the mascot at my university, so that’s a fun fact about me. I was going to all the football games in a giant suit and running around, it was actually very physically demanding. I was a ballroom dancer, on top of coaching P90X. So I was just unreasonably fit.

I lost my leg in an accident in 2018. It was a very sudden car accident. I didn’t really have much of a choice. I know a lot of amputees struggle with, do they keep their limb, do they try to go through surgeries to save it? I didn’t have to go through that.

I was in the hospital for a month. The day after I got out of the hospital, I was like, I have been in this room for so long. I think there were some heavy pain meds in me that were saying, What did we do before to get some dopamine? And I would always go for a hike, do something active. So I was like, Yes, Rocky Mountain National Park, let’s go.

I got my first prosthetic, and it was way harder to walk on than I thought it would be. It was summer, but we were going up to the alpine area of the Rocky Mountains. So it was nice and green on the way up. And then as we got closer to the top, there was some snow.

Since the accident, I had trouble thermo-regulating. So I remember, my dad was in long pants and a coat, and I was in shorts and a light sweatshirt, and I was sweating trying to go through on these crutches. I remember my dad being like, 鈥淲hat are you doing? Why are you doing this?鈥� And I was like, 鈥淣o, it’s fine, it’s fine. I’m fine. We’re just going on a hike.鈥�

I was treated like a fragile doll by some people. So I think on that hike, too, I was trying to show that, oh no, I’m still the same Erica as before. You don’t need to treat me like this fragile thing or this poor victim. But it was me forcing myself to try to get back to some sense of normalcy in a way that was not quite the approach that ended up being most effective for me.

Struggling to do a quarter mile really highlighted how much I had lost, and then how much I had to regain to get back to what my normal was. That moment it was settling in, like, Yeah, this is gonna be a longer journey than I originally anticipated it being.

About a year after that hike, I decided that I would like to take this scuba class. I emailed the instructor of the class saying, 鈥淚 really want to take your class, but I’m an amputee. Do you think that I can take this?鈥� And honestly, I was expecting him to say no, because I’d had all of these people tell me, 鈥淣o, you can’t do that,鈥� in this journey of trying to use a prosthetic and trying to walk on a prosthetic and all of that. I’m not sure why I even decided to take the chance. I actually think there was a part of me that maybe wanted him to say, 鈥淣o.鈥� To just confirm that me wallowing in self-pity was appropriate, that there were all these things that I couldn’t do.

So then when he said, 鈥淵es,鈥� I was super caught off-guard. He was like, 鈥淲e’re gonna make a mermaid out of you.鈥�

Taking this class was the first time I had even gotten swimming since my amputation. And then I was thinking, What if I can’t like tread water in the same way? I was like, Man, am I gonna be out, just right out the gate? But no, I got in and I was treading water and I was like, Oh, OK, this is gonna be OK.

Nobody’s paying me any attention other than just, 鈥淗ey, hop in the pool. Let’s go.鈥� It was a very friendly, accepting environment.

There was the pre-accident Erica, and then there was the post-accident Erica. But this group of people that I was meeting at my scuba class, they didn’t know pre-accident Erica. There was only the current Erica. They weren’t treating me like this fragile thing. This was the person that they had known all along. They were just like, 鈥淵eah, That’s Erica, she’s a scuba diver.鈥�

I was pretty hooked on diving. Maybe not from the first dive; the first dive is not typically people’s most comfortable experience. But the second dive when you’re like, OK, I’m not gonna die underwater, I was like, Oh yeah, this is for me.

Just imagine caves made out of coral, and the water absorbs light in a way that when you’re underwater, everything looks kind of green-blue. You’re diving through massive towers; it’s like an underwater city of coral. You carry a light with you, and then when you shine a light on the coral, all of the colors come back into the coral, and it’s just kind of a psychedelic, kaleidoscopic wonderland.

You could watch just a square foot of this reef and see hundreds of fish, because everything’s so tiny. It was the most beautiful, incredible experience I’ve ever had.

The other thing is that you’re really focusing on your breathing, because your breathing is how you control your buoyancy. So it almost forces you into this meditative state. The only thing you can hear is your inhale and exhale of all these bubbles. Underwater, there’s no room to think about anything else.

I was suddenly feeling so graceful when, for the previous year and a half since my amputation, I was feeling like the clunkiest, most awkward person. You’re getting around on crutches. It’s not a graceful journey. But then being underwater and being able to really control where you’re going, moving around just like everybody else. Being able to enter this world where I feel in control of where I’m going. I feel this weightlessness. It was a shift in: this is my reality now.

A phrase that I’ve come to use is, 鈥淓mbrace the new normal.鈥� Embrace this moment instead of thinking about what could have been or what was. It’s so easy to get wrapped up in, What’s next, what’s next, what’s next? But just take a moment and relax.

That meditative time in scuba where you’re just focusing on breathing, and you’re feeling this weightlessness and you’re just listening to your own bubbles, that forces me into that state.

Erica Cole is the founder and CEO of , a ready-to-wear adaptive clothing brand for people with disabilities. No Limbits was also featured on 鈥淪hark Tank.鈥�

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Luke McFadden told his story to producer Shweta Watwe for an episode of The Daily Rally podcast. It has been edited for length and clarity.

That was sort of a defining moment to me where I was like, Man, I’m at the bottom. There’s gonna be real life resistance by real people and conflict. This is not some kind of sit back and close the computer and it’s gone kind of deal. If you want this, you’re gonna have to be really dedicated. You’re not only gonna have the struggle of making it happen for yourself, there’s gonna be the struggle of human to human.

I get called all kinds of stuff, but, 鈥淐rab Guy from TikTok鈥� or 鈥淐aptain TikTok鈥� have been the ones that have stuck around the most here in the past few years. I am from Pasadena, Maryland, pretty much raised here, and I am in Pasadena, Maryland now.

I’m a commercial crabber, or a waterman as they call us, here on the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland.

People ask me, 鈥淲hat would you do if you weren’t a waterman? What would you do if you weren’t crabbing?鈥� And I say, 鈥淚 don’t even know. I’ve never considered it.鈥�

I’m an outlier in my industry. I’m Asian American. I’m also young; I’m 26. I started my business when I was 18. I’m also a first generation fisherman, meaning I didn’t come from a family of fishermen, which is very uncommon among watermen here, but really everywhere. I had a lot of resistance from a lot of other watermen, and they were not bashful about letting me know.

I remember one summer, I was down crabbing below the Bay Bridge on the Western Shore here. It was probably August because I remember it being real hot. One of those days where you wake up and you walk outside and you just feel like you walk right into a wall of humidity. There ain’t a stitch of wind. It just kind of sucks to be honest. It’s one of them things where it’s like you gotta just embrace the fact that it ain’t going to be that fun. You gotta get in your groove and just make it happen.

I mostly stick to crabbing above the Bay Bridge, but I had this new boat, I could go a little further than I usually do. I was just trying to expand my reaches a little bit. Dipping my toe into some new territory wasn’t a welcomed thing for sure.

I came down to check my crab pots, and I was going down the line working some floats, and I pulled up a float and it had some racial slurs written on the float. I was working down and I’d have pots that were smashed up. There were other watermen that were just destroying my fishing gear and writing pretty nasty racial things on my crab floats telling me to go home. And that my kind wasn’t welcome here.

I took it hard. At first it was like Wow, I don’t understand, why are people being like this? It kind of cuts me deep because I put so much effort into really trying to be considerate of other people and how my actions will make other people feel or affect them. So when things like this happen, it hurts me. I beat myself up.

I actually put a picture of it on Facebook. I knew who it was and I tagged like the guy that had done it. But every crabber that was on Facebook that saw it took the other guy’s side.

It was this realization that, Wow, a lot of people really don’t like me. It really was pretty hurtful.

The other side of that was all the people that were my friends, not a single one of them stood up for me because they didn’t want anybody to know that they were friends with me at the time. That was a crushing moment to me.

I just was angry, because it was obviously this thing that, if it was anybody else, these guys would’ve been rioting and picketing and coming together to go take care of the situation. I felt completely humiliated and alone.

I just decided, You know what? They’re not gonna get rid of me. I was like, I can’t let ’em win now.

It is really hard to see the bigger picture in the moment. And when you’re in the moment, it’s emotionally driven. But use it as fuel to push yourself and take risks. Do better and be better than the people that are trying to hold you down, and recognize the fact that the people that are trying to hold you down are the most scared of you. They know where you’re going. You just gotta know where you’re going. You gotta see their vision of where you’re going and then make it happen. They wouldn’t do that to you if they didn’t think that you were gonna be better and bigger than they are one day.

Now it鈥檚 my personal goal to be the biggest and the best. And that鈥檚 where that fire came from.

I saw the crab pot float with the slurs on it as the the physical thing of like, Hey, you’re gonna have to fight. If you want this, you’re gonna have to want it. You’re gonna have to fight for it.

And honestly, from that day on, I’ve had a fire under myself to prove ’em wrong. That was the beginning of that where I was like, I’m not gonna stop at just crabbing. I saved up all my money and I bought my own piece of property, and then I switched to selling all of my own crabs that I catch. So I’m doing it now. It ain’t a big restaurant yet or anything, but I’ll have it. You gotta start somewhere.

And one of these days, there’s gonna be a place with my name on it. I promise.

Four years after Luke McFadden’s equipment was defaced, he started a TikTok account, chronicling his experiences as a commercial crabber in the Chesapeake Bay. He now has 1.3 million followers. You can find him , the name of his boat, on TikTok, and on Instagram, he’s .

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Caro Rolando told her story to producer Shweta Watwe for an episode of The Daily Rally podcast. It has been edited for length and clarity.

You know those moments where you kind of step outside yourself and you get like a bird’s eye view of yourself, and are like, What am I doing? This is nuts.

I think that was the moment that I realized, Oh my gosh, I am completely consumed by this thought.

My name is Caro Rolando. Caro itself is a nickname, but that’s what everybody calls me. I am currently in Birmingham, Alabama, and I split my time between here and Toronto, Ontario. I am a journalist and podcast producer.

When I was about 22 years old, I decided to study sociology. I was really enjoying learning it. At the same time, it was causing me a great deal of angst because I had gone to University, hoping to find a way to “save the world.鈥� And I quickly realized it was not that easy, and that the world was a very complicated place. It just launched me on this very dark spiral. It was like, What is the point of being alive, if nothing in this world matters.

I experienced something called disassociation, which basically is where you don’t really feel like you’re in your body. I would look in the mirror and I would tell myself, That’s me, that鈥檚 me. But it didn’t feel like me. And everything, like voices, felt farther away. Everything felt impermanent, and it was very scary.

Eventually I reached out to a therapist. I was referred to a psychiatrist, and I was diagnosed with OCD. They were like, 鈥淭his is trademark OCD. You’re having ruminations, and you’re not going crazy.鈥� The moment I heard the diagnosis was a huge relief, especially the moment that the psychiatrist said, 鈥淵ou’re not crazy.鈥� I felt hopeful that soon, I wouldn’t be trapped by my thoughts.

I had gotten into the habit of running a bit earlier in my life, but after this happened, I knew that I needed to get into a practice of being in my body more. So, I began walking and running more frequently.

I grew up in Vancouver, Canada. Vancouver is a very, very gray and rainy city in the winter months. The sky is permanently gray. I think it was February, and it was getting dark at like 4:00 or 5:00 PM. It was just miserable. I remember walking down Commercial Drive, which is this main strip in the neighborhood where I grew up. It’s a street that’s very eclectic. But it was also a street that had seen me grow up, since I had grown up in that neighborhood. So as I walked through it, I was nurturing myself just by saying, Hey, remember? Look over there. That’s like where you took theater lessons as a kid. Look over there, that’s where you went swimming. Do you remember this park?

I would look around and just remind myself, Hey, you’re taking a step right now. Hey, this is an area that you know. Even though it was gray and raining and cold, I appreciated seeing the familiar storefront displays, things that I felt had been around my entire life and were kind of there to remind me that it was gonna be okay, that they had always been there and that they would always be there.

What had gotten me to this cycle of anxiety in the first place was thinking that everything needed to be solved. Every problem in the world was a socioeconomic, geopolitical issue that needed our brains, and we needed to think it through. When you’re forced to exercise or when you’re forced to be in your body, it’s harder to get existential and it just brings you back to the present moment.

When you run or walk, your only job is to put one foot in front of the other and to breathe. That feels really powerful. And, when I run to this day, which I do especially when I’m feeling anxious and especially when I feel like my OCD symptoms are gonna come back, I make a point to run and I set little tiny goals for myself. I’ll say, Hey, just run to that tree, run to that leaf, run to that garbage can. It makes it a lot more manageable, and forces me to just focus on what’s immediately in front of me.

The hardest part is getting out the door. And that’s just what I remind myself every time. I just say, That’s all you have to do. I don’t force myself to do anything else. I say just get out the door and see how it goes.

Caro Rolando is a journalist with a passion for telling stories that challenge the status quo. She is one of the producers working on The Daily Rally. You can learn more about her at .

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Erick Cede帽o shared his story with producer Shweta Watwe for an episode of The Daily Rally podcast. It was edited for length and clarity.

I was on a gravel road鈥攈ot, dirt was in my face, in my body. It鈥檚 105 degrees. In a way it was beautiful to be out there because I haven鈥檛 seen any cars. But I鈥檓 thirsty, I was hungry. I鈥檓 in a place that I鈥檓 outside my comfort zone.

My full name is Erick Cede帽o. On social media, people know me as the . I live in Santa Monica, California. I鈥檓 an outdoors professional, I鈥檓 an explorer, and a full-time dad.

About 14 years ago, I decided I wanted to see the U.S. by bicycle. I wanted to see the landscape. I wanted to meet different people from different towns, wake up in different places every morning. I have done that in every single state except Alaska. On the last expedition that I just completed I went from Missoula, Montana, to St. Louis, Missouri. I was retracing the expedition of the 1897 Bicycle Corps. In 1897, the Army was testing the bicycle to see if they could use it as a method of transportation. So they recruited 20 Black soldiers to do this expedition. The whole trip was 1,900 miles.

I knew about this story over 12 years ago, but six years ago I went deep into learning more about each of the riders, learning about the historical route, learning about the bicycles that they rode. This expedition in 1897 was taken because of the diverse landscape and the climate. So when I started in Missoula, it was about 44 degrees. Three weeks later, I was in Nebraska and it was 105 degrees. Also, the gravel roads of Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Missouri鈥攖hey鈥檙e so diverse.

These guys in 1897 were bikepacking on single-speeds, and I wanted the world to know because they were not given the dignity that they deserved while they were alive. And I wanted to retrace as close as possible that historical route because I wanted to see what they went through and the challenges that they encountered. And I encountered similar challenges. One in particular was the landscape. I was in the backcountry of Nebraska, and up until that point I鈥檇 done Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska. I knew that if I could push through, I could get onto the next side, which was Missouri, and then I was in St. Louis.

This is the Sandhills of Nebraska, which was the toughest part of the 1897 expedition. There were a few farms, and a few tractors were passing through. There were some corn fields, and it was 105 degrees. Water was really hard to find. I would travel sometimes an hour without drinking water. I had to drink my saliva. And I remember just sipping little by little. The sun was coming down and I was still about 30 miles from my destination. And I knew that I was gonna be traveling at night. I was thirsty, I was hungry. I thought that I wanted to quit.

I started thinking about why I was doing this trip. I wanted to pay homage to the 1897 expedition of the Bicycle Corps, and I also wanted to tell their story. What kept me pushing through that pain of being thirsty, hungry, physically tired was that I knew that they didn鈥檛 quit, so how could I quit?

Not until I got out there and realized the routes that they were traveling did I see how strong those guys were. I also learned a lot about myself. I know how strong I am and I never knew that until this expedition. That鈥檚 pretty cool to know that I could push through. I just had to breathe. And I鈥檓 like, I鈥檝e been here before. Maybe not the physical space, but I鈥檝e been through challenges that have pushed me to get to where I was. And I just told myself, I鈥檝e been here before.

I always tell people that traveling by bicycle teaches you to be comfortable outside your comfort zone. And that鈥檚 always in my head, always being comfortable outside your comfort zone. There鈥檚 always gonna be challenges, but those moments shape you to get to the other side. And the other side is where the magic happens.

Erick Cede帽o is a professional explorer who travels by bicycle. His bikepacking trip along the historic route that the 25th Infantry Buffalo Soldiers took in 1897 is documented in the short film . You can find him on Instagram , where he shares his many adventures.

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