100 Miles Into the Wilderness (cut short) | Day 3

What's going on? I feel really sick and I threw up all of my food last night. Did you throw up a lot? Nothing. I don't feel good this morning. I'm just wondering, should I not go? Should I just eat, make myself eat and drink and then just go? Or should I— Do you feel like eating? I did. You should not make yourself eat. And you should not go having not eaten. Alright? So long, campsite. Happy day. Day 3. I'm in the back of a truck. Day 3 of an epic bikepacking trip. It's where you pack all your gear. It's bikepack— it's backpacking. But with bikes. We'll have to catch up to yesterday. Our new finish line is 50 miles. We vastly underestimated the difficulty of these trails. Still got a big day ahead of us, 18 miles. And what I've learned on this trip so far is we have no idea what— some idea, but not really— of what these trails are going to be like. I do know there's roads at the end. Jonah's dropping out. It's sad I won't be able to finish it with both my boys, but I also get it. It very well could have been me. Very well could have been Josiah. He needs to drop out. I can't risk it for him. I've had to pull him out myself. I had to pull Austin out myself. These are very courageous men. I had to send Austin back for a tube. We noticed John's tire going even more flat, and we noticed the leak right here. Now, did we cause that getting all that out, or did we find a break before we left? I think we found a break before we left. We are a mile in single track. So much easier without the packs, right guys? There are sections we were able to climb we wouldn't have been able to climb with our packs. Pretty gnarly through here though, so we're walking our bikes 1 mile. Look at this edge. Don't fall over that way, Sam. Just saw his chain's getting noisy. Looking at it though, it's dry. Told Austin to oil the chains. I think he heard oil my chain. How's everybody else's chain? So I should have checked it myself. Everybody's chains, that's mountain biking 101. Stinging nettle patch on both sides. I called you like 5 times. Did You didn't answer for the first 4. What are you worried about, John? What? Yeah, what? No, I called you like 5 times. You didn't answer me. You only answered me like the 7th time. You said stop calling me, but you didn't answer me. Are you rushing him or are you making sure he's all right? Um, or a little both? Both. Okay, we're admitting to that. Hey, this is dream riding right here at Laurel Mountain. It's a very gradual climb, smooth trail. This is fun. I mean, the challenge is fun too, but in a different way. 5 miles, about an hour and a half in, doing fantastic. It looks like on the map there's a chance it might be this gradual up and down, and we've gone mostly up so far, so we're going to pick up the pace even more. We start going down. I believe we've topped out. At 36.5 miles. We started at 31 miles today, so 5.5 miles. I think we're gonna ride the ridge for a while, guys. We're still not to Camp 2. Let's see what this ridge is like. Uh-oh. Well, I don't want to go too far down because then you got to come back up. All right, that's cool. That's cool. Hey, maybe it's a gradual downhill. I'm gonna ride real conservative though. These boys are tired. I'm tired. And it's John's first time mountain biking. I gotta give it to them, they're doing fantastic. Everybody did great. The downhill was very short-lived. We're climbing again, but I'm not disappointed or discouraged because I know it's got to go back down. It's gonna be a long, rewarding downhill, hopefully soon. No more gradual climbing. Let's hike a bike. Almost carry a bike. Going to a new trail. This time, do you think we're going downhill? Yes, it's pointed downhill. Yeah, so I don't see any bigger mountains. Me neither. No mountains. We've been climbing for 7 miles. Camp 2. 2.5 hours to get here without pipe, packs, fresh. It would have taken us 5 hours at the end of the trip with packs. That would have put us at 8:30. It started raining yesterday at 7:30. We're on top of a mountain. It's very windy. I'm making a note in here: don't camp on the mountain. There was a campsite just below that was a lot less exposure. We would need to resupply at the gravel road and have and load up with something warm to sleep in at night. This would have been dangerous. Maybe not wildly dangerous, but dangerous. We would have been up all night probably sitting in ponchos. Surely it's downhill from here. No, it's not. What? Oh my gosh, it's a never-ending hill. Here comes— ah, technical downhill, but we'll take it. A lot easier without packs. We're on the Pilot Rock. All right, this is the kind of fun stuff right here. We'd have to walk this with our packs. Get off. There's no soft landings. One more shot. Give me one more shot. What? Come on! Yes, yes! That was good enough for me. Okay, we just opened up. We have hit the lottery. Smooth, wide. Wow! Whoa, I did it! Did you see that? That was a fun downhill, but we're going right back up about a mile to where we're going to take lunch. Supposed to be a view there. I've been saying this all day, haven't I? I'm hoping it's all downhill from there. This is what makes it rewarding, fellas. This is what takes the joy beyond the moment. I have lasting joy having done this. When you think about it, there's been 2 shortcuts we could have taken. Give a gift to your future self. Climbing this hill downhill from Pilot Rock. Lunch break. I think this is the moment. We're getting on an old logging trail here, and I think it's smooth sailing along this creek. So enjoy the moment. I don't see why you're not going to make it. We'll call this the Black Bear 50. Next year, the Black Panther 100. Wow, wow. Closing it out with some gravel. It is slightly uphill though. Kind of thinking it would be downhill. We're going up the stream. Oh, this is wild. The GPS with the map of this trip, been counting up this whole time, kaput. I think we've only got one more turn to where we're going. And we can figure it out. We've got an old-school map. Oh, pulled up. We're gonna definitely want some redundancy when we're on the trail, like another backup app that's different. Backup phone. What if something were to— if I would crash that phone or gotten wet? Up the creek without a paddle. Half a mile. It's gonna be uphill. Final stretch. Okay, we're gonna finish together, all right? So when we see it, we're gonna all get in the same lane. That's the finish line. We're committed to going across it together though. The Black Bear 50! It's 2:40, so not bad for not having any idea really how— what those trails look like. Dovetail, maybe shin guards next time. You're the only one who got it that bad. How did y'all say so? 3. Maybe we're shorter. I kept slinging my pedals and they would sling around and hit my shin. You're holding back on us. You're holding back some energy. I don't have much energy. I couldn't really bike another few miles up a hill, maybe down a hill. What are you doing? We're just resting. I was like, I can't believe— I said, I can't believe we're gonna see them soon. We're gonna limp over here. Oh my God, how do you feel? We feel good. Good. Oh, I see, I see Henry's excited to see me. I should probably— hey, you okay? Yeah, you could have made it another 50 miles. It was a good score. He wasn't really cheering for it. Getting shin guards next time, I'm adding it to the list. Really? You're gonna go to Slide and Rock? Yeah, but what if it rains? You might get wet. Yeah, that was a dad joke. Took 12 hours to go Goodness, 18 miles. How's Jonah doing? He's doing better. I gave him some herbs to, to maybe see if that is, you know, a digestion— he left the door open— something or other. So do you want to do a picture? Wait, if you're not going to do it next year, we're going to keep going. So he'll do it next year then. Okay. And Josiah, Jonah too. You guys got to— he can't get caught up in a girlfriend or anything. He's Gotta commit to us. Look who's here to get us. Look at that. I like those Bucky swim shorts. Are those Bucky? You ready to go swimming? Celebrate, we're going to go down Sliding Rock. Hey, have you woken up? Look who's here, look who's here. Papa's back. A little celebration, Sliding Rock. You want me to take you down that? No, that's what we got to do. Celebrate. How fitting. It's going to be refreshing. Is that what we're going to do? Want to go double? Hey, why do you want me to go if you're not even going to go down with me? I'm not going to go down, but I'll go after you. Oh, you want to go after? You want me to wait down there? So, all right, you get ready to get rinsed off. Yeah, you got dirt on your cheek. You did it. Good job, bud. You gonna go first? No. Why not? Because I'm scared to get my butt in a rock. Lily only likes two things. What is it? Horses and swimming. Even if I could pick between horses and swimming, I'd pick horses. Yeah, I know you would. I could pick between having horses and never swimming again. You would take horses over swimming? Yes. There you go. There goes John. Woo! First time. Woo! All right, they're making me go first. There it goes. Uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh, uh-oh! Jonah, how you feeling? I still feel pretty sick. We missed you. You're the strongest one. Yeah, I know. Weird to have you drop. Yeah, it was. We are all back together. We are safe and sound. Jonah, you're feeling better? Better enough to eat. Good job, lazy man's lasagna. Thank you very much. You're welcome. Since you weren't even here today or yesterday spotting us on the trail. We did it. La la la la la, let me be free.