Ride! From Ultra–cycling Rookie to Racing Across America

At his brother's wedding in 2002, 30-year-old Josh Kench sat with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other and announced that he was going to do the Coast to Coast. His pronouncement was met with derision and laughter, but he's proved his doubters wrong. Josh won the 2010 Ultra-enduro Lake Taupo Cycle Challenge, covering a mind-numbing 8 laps of the 160 kilometer course in 55 hours. That was only the start of it. In June 2011, this 39-year-old Wellington plumber lined up at the start of the Race Across America-a 16-day racestretching from California to Maryland. This is the inspiringstory of how an ordinaryguy became an ultra-endurance athlete and decided to take on the world.