When Payson McElveen rode across Iceland in a single pull a few years ago, he found something in that effort that’s not present in his racing career and immediately knew he wanted to follow it up with something in the same vein. So he dusted off his globe, and after an immense amount of planning, he put together a monster route across Tasmania, spanning 360 miles and nearly 35,000 feet of climbing — most of it on dirt — and set out to ride the whole thing straight through. And while the physical effort to do so was immense, Payson does an incredible job of telling the story through the lens of self-discovery and finding something different in this form of cycling than what he gets out of racing.

TOPICS & TIMES:

• Recent race results & changing approaches (3:51)
• “Crossing Iceland” & The follow-up, “Crossing Tasmania” (6:37)
• Emma Flukes & local knowledge (11:44)
• Planning the route (18:03)
• Scouting and pre-riding (29:23)
• The ride (32:10)
• Racing mentality & switching that off (36:33)
• Payson’s takeaways from the ride (45:50)

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