Mind x 100 = ?

Beyond I can't

If you don’t, you won’t

I got into riding bikes with gears when I was 12 years old.

The idea of riding 100 miles was incomprehensible to me.

Doing it didn’t seem possible.

I was the youngest kid in my class and slight, often told I was just skin and bones. I had never been a gifted athlete and I had little belief in my physical ability.

I loved riding bikes.

When I was 13, I tried to ride an extended 100-mile loop on day one of a two-day MS150 ride.

I rode in white Reebok tennis shoes with toe clips and wore a t-shirt and basketball shorts.

I ended up in the sag wagon at mile 70. After that riding 100 miles seemed less possible.

Cycling was not a normal thing for a kid in Kansas City, Missouri to be doing in 1989.

It blew my mind Christmas that year when my mom and dad gave me Look clipless pedals and Profile aero bars. I had no idea they even knew what those things were.

I was so excited on Christmas day that even though there was snow on the ground, I put everything on my bike, a Trek 400 touring bike with triple chainrings and friction shifting, took it to the front porch and tested my position.

Thanks mom and dad.

I kept riding.

I saved up $550 of lawn mowing money and bought a Schwinn Circuit, a racing bike, at Wheelers, my local shop. It had a steel Columbus SL frame, Shimano Sante components, Wolber rims and 19mm tires. No aero bars, except when I raced time trials.

When I was 15, my friend, Nick Krump, and I started a lawn service, The Yard Barber.

During the summer, we mowed three days a week, 10 hours a day, often in 100-degree heat with 100% humidity.

We both rode mountain bikes and talked about doing a 100-mile ride on one of our days off.

We knew that the old K-10 ran from a suburb outside of Kansas City (Missouri) to Lawrence (Kansas) and guessed that if we rode there and back, it would be about 100 miles.

This was a time before GPS.

There were no routes.

We didn’t even look at a map.

We didn’t do anything specific to train to ride 100 miles.

Nick didn’t have a road bike and borrowed a Cannondale that was too big for him from his uncle Mark.

We picked a day to do the ride, and when the day arrived it was sunny and hot. We put water in our bottles, got on our bikes and pedaled.

It took a while. It was easier than the first time I tried to ride 100 miles, but it was not easy.

We stopped for lunch in Lawrence.

I had an Avocet cycling computer, peak tech at the time, so I could see my speed and distance when I rode.

When we made it back to Kansas City, we were at 85 miles and had to ride around for a while to get to 100.

We did it.

After that, I knew I could ride 100 miles.

It was hard, but not so hard I couldn’t do it.

If you want to find out if you can do something, try it.

You might not make it the first time.

If you don’t try, you definitely won’t.

Try it.

If you want to do it, keep going.

Then you’ll do it.

Once you’ve done it, it won’t be impossible.

It will be another thing you’ve done.

And the next thing that you want to try will feel less impossible and feel more like just another thing you haven’t done yet.

Try it.

Then keep going.

You are the person who has never thought about doing it.

You are the person who is overwhelmed by the idea of trying it.

You are the person who thinks they can.

You are the person who thinks they can’t.

You are the person who won’t.

You are the person who does.

You are the person who has done it.

You are the person on the other side of it being done.

All the same person.