 Right in front of the Toya, Chantay's snail. Yes, yes. All right, let's do it. Hi, Amelia. Amelia, my girlfriend's here. Hi. That's Amelia. All right, here we go. I signed all these for you. So we're going to have to get out nice to them. Hi, Amelia. Amelia, my girlfriend's here. Hi. Amelia, my girlfriend's here. Yeah. I signed all these for you. Yeah. Look at that. Oh, look at that. Amelia, my girlfriend's here. Hi. Amelia, my girlfriend's here. Hi. I signed all these for you. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. I'm working sunglasses on. We're like, I'm going to go there. I'm going to change the world. And I know how to do things. And I've done all these wonderful things in my life until this point. And I'm going to go to this small village in Honduras. And I'm going to be a superstar. But that's not how things work. You know, you can't go with an American mindset to a completely different country and culture and think that what works here, where I lived in Boulder, will work there as far as making progress. And I was a youth development volunteer, so I was tasked with working with young people. And I'd worked with young people in Boulder for a lot of my life, Mexican immigrant youth. To be able to help and give back in that way. So I figured Honduras would be somewhat similar, but it's an entirely different culture. And it took a long time to really become trusted in this community. It took many, like almost a year. And I remember thinking, God, this is so frustrating. Like nothing, I'm never gonna be able to do anything here. Like I came up with all these huge hopes and dreams. And I don't feel like I'm making an impact at all. Like I'm trying to organize meetings with the community and I'm trying to do stuff, but nothing seems to be working. And it was very difficult. After going from living in the United States, living in Boulder, everything I did, I could make happen. But down there, it was a struggle. Everything was really hard. And I had to slow myself down to a different pace of life. And I realized that some of the little things were the most impactful, always, with the kids. And so I had a whole neighborhood of young children that I worked with, but more than anything, the biggest impacts I had in this community were just being like an older brother, mentor type person to these young people. And over time, the kids immediately thought I was pretty cool because I was like energetic and weird and much different. I looked like the guys that they saw in American movies. The parents were always like, who is this weirdo hanging out with my children? You know? But so the kids were on board right away. And the biggest impacts I had weren't the big projects that I did. After a while, I raised money, we built a school, we did some big projects, but the little moments in Honduras were the most impactful by far. And that was just hanging out with kids after school. I turned my little house, essentially, into like a youth center where kids could come after school and hang out and have fun. My mom set down a whole bunch of arts and craft supplies and we would do drawings and the walls were covered with drawings and paintings that the kids would make. And we would sing and dance. The girls in my community loved to choreograph dances. And I'm like some old goofy, dorky guy that can't dance at all, but they're like trying to show me all these different moves, sometimes in my backyard. Also we would have bonfires in the weekend and the kids would come over. Roasting marshmallows was something they had never heard of. They were like, why on earth are you sticking marshmallows into a fire? That is not something that Hondurans knew about. So they would come over and I wanted to create these special moments with them because for me, those were like some of the most impactful moments when I was a kid. Like the simple moment, roasting marshmallows. And so they loved coming over on Saturday nights and making a fire and we'd sit around and we would roast marshmallows and just hang out and talk and dance and goof around. And those are the biggest impacts I think I had on my community compared to like building a school. Like those are the things that the kids still remember today. They write me messages on Facebook. Ryan, do you remember when we used to do the fires in your backyard and goof around and dance and we would, you know, roast in marshmallows, something they don't do and they haven't really done since then? And you know, and when I think back, that's the stuff that makes my heart happy, those small moments, giving kids piggyback rides, swinging kids by their arms. Like I had a bad back in Honduras because kids were constantly climbing on me. I was like a human jungle gym. It was really special. And we'll get to the book, I promise. I just love talking about my kids in Honduras. But I talk a lot about that in this book. I talk a lot about those magical, special moments. And this adventure was a long time ago. This was in 2005. Why now, is there a book? Why did it take me so long to create a book? You know, why was it important to me? And finally, as we all know, during the pandemic, we all got a little bored. You know, we were looking for things to do. And I, you know, I had this YouTube channel and I was trying to find content weekly to entertain people. And I essentially just ran out of content. And I was like, oh man, what should I do? What kind of video can I create this week? And I remembered, Ryan, you've never gone back to the old videotapes that you filmed when you rode your bike home from Honduras. You never made anything with that footage. I had once made like a short five minute little trailer. And that was like the first thing I ever edited in 2005. But that's the only thing I ever made with that footage. And there was so much more footage that I had never even seen. So I finally logged all of that footage and started looking at it again. And this is 2021, looking at that footage and seeing like this adventure for the first time with new eyes, a new perspective. Now I'm a grown man. When I did the adventure, I was 25 years old. And so that's really what inspired this. So I go, I go through all the footage and it brings up all these wonderful memories, one of the most impactful experiences of my life. And I made like a long hour and a half long documentary about my ride home finally after, you know, at the time, 16 years of finishing that ride. I think a lot of you have probably seen that video. After I make the video, I'm thinking, I need to finally create this book. I need to write this book. And so then I dig into another treasure trove of memories. And I had very detailed journals of every step of the way from that ride home from Honduras. And I went back into those journals. And again, I had not looked at those journals since I had written them. And it was opening up just so much that I had completely forgotten about. Not just the moments, not just the landscapes that I wrote about the feelings I felt on my way home. I didn't know what I was doing. I had just finished the Peace Corps. I had no idea what my next step was in life. Up until that point, I always knew my next step. You go to eighth grade, then you go to high school, then you go to college. Like I always knew my next step after the Peace Corps. I had no idea what I was gonna do with myself. Yes, I had a college degree, but I wasn't sure I wanted to be a traditional journalist. I had just spent two years in Honduras and it was an amazing experience. Maybe I wanted to work in international relations of some sort or work for an NGO, save the children, something like that. I didn't know. So I knew that the best way to think about what to do next in my life would to be to give myself a lot of time. And so I gave myself the gift of time. I don't know how many of you know how far away Honduras is, but it's very far away. Honduras is central America. I get this question, I'm sorry if it sounds like elementary, but people are like, Honduras, wow, how did you ride your bike across the ocean? I'm like, no. Honduras is not in Africa. There's no ocean between Honduras and Colorado. But I was like, okay, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna ride my bike home. I had this crazy idea, because if I ride my bike home, I am gonna have plenty of time to think. And everybody here who rides a bike or runs knows that that is the primo thinking time. When you're sitting on your bike or you're going on a long run, for me, I don't listen to headphones or anything. So I'm just thinking. I don't get distracted by anything. And I wanted to ride all the way home, which sounded like a preposterous idea, but I knew that it was just like, it was my calling. Like it wasn't like scary to me. It was just like, okay, this is my next step. This is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna ride my bike home. I'm gonna think for eight hours a day, for about three months, I didn't know exactly how long it was gonna take to get home. And when I get home, I'm gonna have life figured out. Right? Because I'm gonna have all this time to think on my bicycle. And that was my mindset going into this adventure. Yeah, and that's essentially what was the inspiration for doing this. And of course, adventure. I wanted to ride my bike. I wanted to explore Latin America more. I just spent two years in Honduras. My Spanish was really good. I wanted to keep going on this adventure of life. I thought it was the best idea I've ever had. There's one person who really did not think it was the best idea I've ever had. And she might be sitting in this audience right now. My mom. And so this is all part of the book. Talking to my mom, pre-ride, explaining to her why this is so important to me. And on her end, being like, hell no, get on that airplane, get home, do not put me through this. And I get now, at the time I was like, mom, this is my goal, my dream, you have to support me. Now, as I'm older, 17 years on, I realize why my mom was so worried and so scared. She's a single mom of four kids. We're all she has. The thought of her young boy riding in the middle of nowhere for three months, I get why that's scary. I get it. You know, I don't have kids of my own, but I understand why that would spook a mom or a dad or a family member. So I'm sorry, mom. My mom had beautiful brown hair before this ride. Yeah, of course, I always tell my mom the truth. No, I did not tell my mom the truth. That's also in the book. I kind of like smoothed it over by saying that I was riding with a couple other people in the Peace Corps, which was not a complete lie. There actually were a couple other people riding to California after they finished their service in the Peace Corps. They were my friends. So that's in the book, but I only rode with them for maybe a day and a half. Yeah, and then I was on my own. And then I thought, okay, I don't wanna stress my mom out too bad. I'm gonna try to smooth this over. Maybe if I invite one of my friends down from Boulder to come meet me, that'll make her feel better because I'll have a friend there. And if anything goes wrong, I have a friend and it's always better to travel with a buddy, right, buddy system. So I invite my friend, Jeff, who's the rowdy mofo of all my friends. And my mom is like, that does not make me feel better. Jeff is not somebody that I trust with you riding home from Honduras. He's gonna get you into more trouble, which is funny because Jeff is actually a very careful person. So yeah, sorry for all of that, mom. But that's all in the book. I talk about all these moments. And this is what I rediscovered in my journals, is the internal struggle I had with really wanting to do this, but not really having the support that I thought that I needed or wanted. But then doing it anyway because I was really following my heart. I didn't do this to drive my mom nuts. That was not the main goal. The main goal was to have time to think about life and go on the adventure of a lifetime. And in an adventure of a lifetime, it was. Every single day on this trip, I met wonderful people. People who brought me into their homes, who fed me meals, people who had never seen a white guy in real life because I'm talking about, I was in the middle of nowhere, Mexico. I was not in these resort towns. And they're like, oh my God, what does this guy do? What? None of this makes sense that there's a white dude on a bike here in my town right now. And I roll up speaking pretty good Spanish because I just spent two months in Honduras. And I talked to people towards the end of the day. I'm always looking for a place to camp. And I would talk to locals. Hey, is there a safe place to camp? And first of all, they're like, what? You're doing what? Okay, yes, there is a place to camp here. And then immediately I could see in their head, they're like, you don't need to camp. You can just stay in my house. Like I have plenty of room. You can sleep on the floor. We can feed you a meal. And that happened almost every single day, the entire way home. And that warmed my heart to no end. Because if you think about Mexico, if you grow up in the United States, what does the media tell you about Mexico? That it's a dangerous narco land full of people who are gonna rob you or murder you, right? And there is some truth to the dangers of Mexico. But there's dangers anywhere. But I had spent over two years living in Honduras. And I knew these people are good people. I am not worried about getting robbed. I'm not worried about this stuff. It's gonna be great. I'm gonna roll up into these towns. I'm gonna be speaking my Spanish. And I'm gonna be eating bean burritos with everybody. Every single night all the way home. And that's kind of how it went. People ask me if I had any scary experiences. Not one. Not one scary experience, the entire way home. It took 87 days to get home. And every day was a beautiful experiment in human nature. Because every day I had to rely on people. Like yeah, I can take care of myself. But again, I was 25 years old. This was my first time going out into the world on this level. In Honduras, I lived in a home. I had the Peace Corps to kind of protect me. Now I'm on my own. But what I realize is there are so many good people on this planet. Most people are looking out for you. And if you watch my channel, if you see my videos, you'll see that in almost every single video I've ever made. People helping me out. If things go wrong, they help me fix my bike. They bring me into their homes during a snowstorm. Every video. And it's not like I'm specifically searching out these people. They're just out there. Humans are good. And I get a lot of emails from people who watch my content. And they say things like, oh, I live in the United Kingdom. And I watch the news. And to me, your country seems really scary. And I don't ever want to go there. But then I watch your videos. And you show me an entirely different side of the United States. Small town of America looks amazing. Look at all these wonderful people taking good care of you. And I say, yeah. I mean, that's pretty much how it is. And that's how it was all through Central America and all through Mexico. There are good people everywhere. And so I really love using my platform on YouTube. And now this book to highlight the best of humanity. It really is important to me. Because we live in a world now where there's a lot of division and there's a lot of just ugly behavior, frankly. And it's out there. There's no doubt it's not true. I mean, you should see some of my most obnoxious YouTube comments I get from people. I mean, you would think a guy like me who's very happy and very positive and makes positive content would get people always saying nice things. But no, people will find a reason to tell me why I am a horrible human being. Social media. Social media. Yeah, yeah. A lot of you know this stuff. LaToya here. She has a wonderful, I'll talk about her later, but she has a wonderful channel on Instagram. She talks about all the things she does in life as an athlete and she gets so much mean. People are just being meanies. Why are people meanies? You two people watching this, stop being meanies. Amelia, she is a giant's following. She gets a lot of stuff from people. You know, and I'm saying stuff because I don't want to say the other S-word because I know kids watch my videos. You know? Yeah. Where should I go next? So I'm on the ride, best experience of my life. Every day, you know the movie The Grinch Stole Christmas, right? We know how that all goes. And he's a real big jerk and he's trying to ruin Christmas for these people. And towards the end of the story, his heart is cracked open and he realizes the magic of humanity and kindness and generosity and his heart starts growing. Remember that scene where his heart broke, boom, boom, boom, boom. And that's how I felt every day on this bike ride. My heart got bigger because I met so many wonderful people every single day all the way home. And I was like, man, I love this. I love meeting these people because it makes me feel good about being a human. What? Oh yeah, you want to hear about that? No. And again, that's kind of what inspired my YouTube channel. I wanted to make a channel where I got to share these people's stories. And I share a lot of these people's stories in this book. If you want to hear some gross stuff now. I got, have anybody heard of Botflies? So Botflies are parasites and they burrow into skin, sometimes on animals in heads. And mosquitoes lay these eggs. They sting you like a mosquito would. But at the same time, they're also laying a Botfly egg in the little hole where they suck out the blood. And unbeknownst to the host, a fly larva starts to grow. So I was in the Belizean jungle camping out and it was a really cool night. It's all in this book. Hanging out with all these kids having the time of my life. And I'm getting just destroyed by mosquitoes. But I had been living in Honduras for years. So I was used to just getting mosquito bites. And the next morning I wake up and there's mosquito bites all over my body. I'm like, oh man, that's sick. Well, whatever, you know, I was focused on the bike ride. And three weeks later, all the other mosquito bites had gone away like mosquito bites do. But there were two mosquito bites that did not go away. And they were right here on my bicep. And they got bigger. And these mosquito bites started to look infected and there was like this bloody pussy stuff coming out of the hole in the middle. Has anybody, you all have eaten dinner already, right? You're good to go. You're good to go, right? And so I see that I'm like, wow, that's really weird. And they started to kind of hurt a little bit and they were like swollen, like a big zit or something. And, but I didn't have time to like deal with it. I'm on this bike ride of a million other things going on and I'm just riding my bike. And then another week went and I was sitting on a dock in Zewatanejo. Has anybody ever heard of that town? It's on the western side of Mexico. If you watch Shawshank Redemption, remember that movie? At the very end, when he gets out of jail, he goes to Zewatanejo, Mexico because it's a beautiful paradise place. And so I'm on a dock in Zewatanejo, Mexico and I'm sitting there watching a sunset. It's beautiful. I'm feeling so good about myself. The ride is going great. And I look down at my arm and in the hole where there used to be blood and pus, this little white worm starts sticking his head out of the hole. Like, you're like alien, like, you know? And so I freak out. I'm like, oh my God, it did not expect like a thing to be coming out of that hole. And so I run back to the hostel where I'm staying and I run in the door and my friend Jeff is there, the guy that I'm riding home with. And I'm like, Jeff, there's worms in my arm. He's like, oh my God, oh my God. And he's like, we gotta get him out. Of course we gotta get him out. So we sit down and being 25 year old boys, we're like, let's pour alcohol on him. That'll get him out of there. So we start pouring tequila on the wounds, thinking that that is going to get the worms to come out of my arm. It didn't work, but we took shots, which was great. And then at this point, we're gathering a crowd in the youth hostel, people from all over the world. And they're like, oh my God, stay away from the American. You know, he's got parasites. And so then we're like, okay, well let's maybe, let's heat up some tweezers with a match and then try to like burn it out. And so we do that for a little bit and that doesn't work, it's just like, I'm just burning the hell out of my arm at this point. And then we try to start like pinching, like getting like a little tip of the worm and like pulling it out, but that didn't help. You know that game, whack a mole, like when you go to arcades and you like hit the mole and it goes down too fast and you never get there in time? That's how it felt with this worm in my arm. If I ever got near the hole, it would suck in. You know, it's nature, nature wants to survive. They're not gonna make it easy on you. And so we spend the whole night trying to get this worm out of my arm and it doesn't work. Next morning, I go to a little like hole in the wall doctor in Mexico and I'm like, hi there doctor. I have worms in my arm. Can you help me out? And he's like, I have only seen this on the Discovery Channel. Like, he's like, I don't know what to do. I don't really know what they are. He's like, I can cut your arm open and take them out if you want. And I was like, nah, like let's not cut my arm open. Like I'm focusing on the bike ride. I don't wanna have open wounds on my arm but he does say one thing. He's like, you might be able to put like a piece of raw meat on your arm overnight because the bug, the worm will go from your arm to the really tasty meat. And I was like, that's a great idea. So I'm a vegetarian but okay, I go to the market and I buy a slab of meat and that night I duct tape it to my arm. And in the next morning, you know what happened? I woke up with a piece of rancid meat on my arm and the bugs were still in my arm. It didn't work out at all, it didn't work out at all. So at that point, I kind of like gave up, I surrender. The doctor also said he's like, I don't think they're really gonna harm you. They're just gonna mature and grow into flies and then they're just gonna leave your arm. And I was like, okay, that's fine, whatever. Focus on the bike ride. Keep going north. Home is north. I wanna be home by Christmas. So I keep on riding and you guys, do you want me to keep talking about this story? This is the best part of your story. You're like, oh, humans are great, humanity's great. We love your heart growing, but tell us about the bugs, right? So about a week later, I'm sitting in a park in Uruguapan, Mexico, which is the capital of avocados. This is like the state where all the avocados come from in Mexico. And I'm sitting in Central Park, Jeff's in the hotel and I'm messing with the wound. And I was like messing with it every day. You know, in high school, I had a lot of zits on my face and so I got really good at popping zits and I used to sit in front of the mirror and pop zits into the mirror and everybody knows this. I'm not the only one. So I'm good at popping things. And so I'm messing with it. And every time, like I told you, I would get near it, it would kinda suck in. But today was a good day. Maybe it had grown enough to the point where I got a good grip on it. So I'm squeezing it and I'm like, oh, wow, I've never seen this much of the bug out of here. And so it's like kinda bulging out a little bit. I'm like, yeah, yeah, sucka, I'm gonna get you. Squeeze in it, squeeze in it, squeeze in it. And it's coming out a little bit more and it looks like a big maggot. That's what they are. And so I'm squeezing, squeezing, squeezing. And then I put so much pressure on it that it popped and all the spluge went over my face. And I remember sitting in this park and these women are sitting across from me and they're like, they're like, what is this gringo doing? Desecrating our beautiful town park. And so that's how I got rid of one. And he died at he, I don't know if it was he or she, or they died in that moment. And that was pretty funny. I went running back to the hotel and telling Jeff and he was so proud of me. And then the other one didn't come out until I crossed the border in El Paso. So it was in there for a really long time. And it didn't really, they didn't hurt, but I could feel them every now and then, feel the one, like they moved. I could feel like, oh, you know, that's a little weird. But again, focused on the bike ride. It came out in El Paso, Texas. I was again, squeezing it really, really hard. And this time it was like really mature. This sucker was like big. And I was sitting, we had gotten a hotel room and we would just cross the border into the United States. It was a big day, you know? And we were sitting in this hotel, we're super comfortable, we're loving life. And I'm squeezing, squeezing, squeezing. And just like the biggest zit I ever popped in high school, this was like 10 times that. And it shot out onto the headboard, boom. And it looked like I took a strawberry and hit it with a hammer. It was that much gelatinous material that shot out of my arm onto the headboard. There's a giant photo of it in here in the book. Just kidding, there's not. There is a YouTube video with it, yeah, YouTube. I didn't put the photos of that. I mean, I have, here, let's see if I can show. So this, this is gonna be hard for you guys to see, but this is my arm right here. And those are the wounds right there. I refrained from putting the bloody guts of the bot fly into the book. And so that is how I got rid of the second bot fly. So essentially you had two pets. Yes, exactly, yes. So he wasn't a bot fly? I wasn't, yeah, yeah. Yeah, see mom, I had bugs with me. That's a very good point, Latoya, yeah. And I actually, I wrote an article. Dave, can you grab one of these articles? I wrote an article about it. We'll talk about it, I'll show you somebody. So I brought some articles from home. So my very first job in journalism, so I got a degree in journalism, went down to the Honduras, lived for two years, wrote my bike home. I didn't work in the world of journalism until this ride. This ride was the start of it all. And Dave is gonna bring up one of these. And so I wrote these articles, and these articles also are what helped me write the book. Here we go, this one is doing battle with bugs. And this was by far the most popular article of the entire series. Kind of like it's the most fun story you're hearing tonight. And so I wrote these articles every week on the way home. And my mom actually hooked me up with the job. She was, yeah, you were, I don't know if you remember this, but she, was that some sort of a cocktail party or something and she met somebody from the Daily Camera newspaper in Boulder, and she's like, my son is riding his bike home from Honduras. Maybe he can write articles for you. And they were like, okay, that sounds like a great idea, because that's unique and we need content. And so that was my very, so then they reached out to me and I'm like, we heard from a little birdie that you were doing something pretty interesting. And that is how I got my first job in the world of journalism. And guess how much I got paid to write these articles. You know, yes. Is that cause, that's how much you get paid today to write articles. Yeah, $50 an article. I wrote eight articles. I made $400. So when I got home from the bike ride, I was rich. For two years, I was a Peace Corps volunteer. You don't make money as a Peace Corps volunteer. They give you enough money to live like on the level as the locals. But when you do get home from the Honduras, they give you what's called a readjustment allowance so you can like get on your feet again and rent an apartment or whatever. So I had $6,000 plus $400, which was great. You know, and I was rich, I was 25 years old and I started living immediately in mom's basement. And I thought that I would live in mom's basement for like a few months until I got things going and figuring out life. But I did not move out of mom's basement until I was 30. You guys aren't laughing. You're like, oh, that's sad. Well, you're in New York. I mean, some of us at the basement. Yeah, exactly. You know what, I thought of starting a group called the Mom's Basement Alliance and started a group of all the people across America or the world that live in mom's basement because there's a lot of us that have gone back and spent time with mom, right? Jacob, do you live with mom? Right on, man. Jacob and his mother came here all the way from Pennsylvania. Thank you. Yeah, so I'll talk a bit about the moment I got home and then we can open it up to questions and make this fun and eat burritos and talk about butterflies and stuff. So the moment I got home until this day has been the best day of my life. So I was in Honduras for two years. I decided to ride my bike home. The bike ride takes three months to get home. And just like any adventure, I don't know if I'm actually gonna get home. You know, maybe I'm gonna get injured and have to fly home or something's gonna happen. So I don't truly believe that I'm gonna get to mom's house on my bicycle until the final day. Because every day, you never know what can happen out there. So finally, the night before, it was December 14th, I was spending the night in Golden, Colorado, which is the home of Golden Coors beer and Amelia. But at the time, Amelia was in high school. Sorry. Call it, call it, okay, whatever. So I spent, I'm spending the night in Golden, Colorado and finally I can let my guard down because I'm only 20 miles away from Boulder. And it's like, oh my God, this is actually going to work. I'm gonna ride my bike all the way home from Honduras. And the next morning, my brother came to meet me and one of my favorite high school teachers came to meet me to ride together. So we'd have this like triumphant group of people riding into Boulder. And I remember waking up that morning and it was seven or eight degrees. It was very cold. It was December 14th. We had been battling really rough winds for the previous two weeks, you know, in Colorado, like winter time, the Sushinook winds. Wind on a bicycle is really not fun, especially when it's freezing cold wind. Most of the ride until I crossed the border was fun, but then it got cold and windy and it was not fun anymore. And so finally I'm like, okay, I am getting home and this feels so good. My brother's with me, my favorite high school teacher is with me and we are gonna ride into Boulder. And I'll never forget, you know, you've been to Colorado, the toy's been to Colorado. We have blue bird skies like nowhere else, no clouds. And we get on the highway 93 from Golden to Boulder. And I'm with my brother. I got all my people right there. And I start coming up over the hills and I see the Flatiron Mountains, which are the famous mountains in Boulder. You hear me talk about them all the time. It's the logo on the 600X bicycle. I love these mountains with all my heart. So I finally see these mountains and that to me is home. That is it. I'm like, oh my God, I might be freezing cold and my hands are numb, but like, I'm here. I'm gonna do this. And we're riding together, getting closer, getting closer. And it's like, you know, in the movies or whatever, when somebody like is crossing the finish line of a race or something, you're like, God, yes. Like, finally I can like breathe easy. It's gonna happen. I crest the final hill and I looked out into Boulder Valley, my home, the place where I was born and raised, where my mom raised four of us. Maybe I'll cry, maybe I won't. We'll see. I'm coming down the hill and I see a group of people off to the right hand side and one of them's waving a flag and I'm like, what's all this about? And I get closer and closer and I see that it's my mom. And all my best friends to meet me there after this monumental journey. And it's amazing that I still get choked up talking about it because it was 17 years ago. But it was such a beautiful feeling. It's a feeling I'd never had. Like I just said, it was the best day of my life. Like I'd finally ridden my bike 4,000 miles from Honduras to Boulder. I had worked in Honduras for two years living in this tiny village with these wonderful kids. And now I'm finally home. And I get there and my mom's there and some of her close friends and my close friends and it was just, it was just like a warm embrace into a finish line of 100 mile ultra. And they were all there waiting for me. And it was such an amazing feeling. You know the movie Big Fish where the father has all these tall tales about living this fantastical life and his son gets really annoyed with him because he doesn't believe any of it. And he's been hearing these like stories all these like, dad, stop with these tall tales. And that's kind of how I felt in that moment. It was like, all my people were there. Just like at the end of Big Fish, all these people that has been talking about to his son were there. And it's like, oh my God, you're all here. And it was really an incredible moment. And some of them are dressed up goofy. The Thursday night cruisers were there. You know, one guy is dressed up as Santa Claus. It's December 15th. And it was just the most wonderful feeling I've ever had. One of the most wonderful feelings. And there's my mom. And I give her the first hug, of course. And she grabs me and she goes, don't you ever do this again? Yeah. And at the time, I was like, I won't, mom, I promise, I promise I will never do this again. But we all know that story, don't we? My mom's hair got whiter and whiter. Yeah. And then, you know, we have this wonderful greeting with everybody. And then a lot of those people were on bikes. So now we had like a train. It's like a force-gump moment when he's running across America. Now I have all my friends on bikes. Dream come true. We ride into Boulder. And that was it. And that moment, I thought to myself, I want to find a way to keep on doing this for the rest of my life. I want to find a way to tell stories. I want to find a way to make a living telling stories. And a lot of that is in this book. Like I said, at the beginning, I went on this ride to figure out life, to find out what the next step was. I had no idea that the actual act of riding a bike and traveling and talking to people and writing articles and telling stories was going to be my career. But that ride is what created my career that I do today. The stories that I share on YouTube with all of you. And I feel like the luckiest guy in the world. But maybe luck's not the right word because it's not luck. It's been a ton of work to get to this point. I mean, only in the last two years would I say that I am financially independent in a way that's like what most adults do. I've had a very cheap life where I didn't ever need to make a lot of money. So I didn't, you know, I've never, it was just like, it was just really hard to figure this all out. And it feels good to be here. That's what I'm trying to say. I'm here, I'm here. I made it, I did it. And being here with all of you is a reminder that it's working. Like it's like I have a connection with you. You wouldn't be here if we didn't have this connection through YouTube and through videos and through storytelling. So thank you again for being here. It really truly means the world to me. And I talk about this on my channel a lot. But I wouldn't be able to do this without you. A lot of you are also Patreon supporters, which helps me immensely to do what I do. Priority, they are an incredible partner to help me continue doing what I'm doing. They see value in the stories that I tell. And I feel so incredibly grateful. So let's open it up for questions. Tina, number one. That's a very important question. OK. Two. Two questions. We have a mic. Oh, we have a mic. So this is just so the people. That's important. Yeah, not. And that would be a good question. It's worse and worse and worse. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. How big was the town in Honduras? Honduras. The town where I lived, La Esperanza, was about 14,000 people at the time. So as far as the town goes, it was fairly big. It wasn't like a village in the middle of nowhere. We actually, you know, we had one paved street. Hey, pretty good, huh? But I lived on the very edge of town. So I lived a more village life because I was kind of away from it all. That's a lead up to where the hell did you get marshmallows? Yeah, yeah. These are great questions. Yeah. So they had a store in Tegucigalpa, which is the capital of Honduras. Isn't that a fun word? Tegucigalpa. That's a fun word. Do you guys remember Elf? When he's getting drunk in the mail room, and he's like, Fernando. That's how I feel about Tegucigalpa. They had an American store. And you could buy peanut butter and marshmallows and all sorts of other crap that you'd get in America. But only, of course, rich Honduras would go there. Because a bag of marshmallows is very expensive. So I would save up my money. I got paid $60 a month. That's how much money I lived on down there. $60 a month. That's a lot. Yeah, yeah, down there it was compared to a lot of the people. Well, I should not spend it on the marshmallows. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Right on. Any other questions? Latoya, what's that? So two-part question. Mo, is separate questions. One, on average, how many miles did you tackle a day? Good. Good question. I would say an average 70-ish a day. Some days more, some days less. And really, it's an adventure. And if I met wonderful people at mile 30 and they're inviting me in, I tried to really take those moments to be like, this is the magic of travel. I don't want to be in such a rush that I miss all these moments. So there were some days that were like that. But I would say, we could crank out a lot of miles. It seems like so far. Yeah, you know. You're an ultra runner. It's not that far. It's far, but it's not. It's not, exactly. And I had a trailer that I pulled behind my bike with all of my gear, camping gear, food, and all that stuff. And I would camp on the side of the road. So my second question is, I would say, as a fellow storyteller himself, did you ever have a story or stories that you actually came across where you just kept it for yourself? Man, that's a very good question. And I get this question a lot just in my daily, my adventures, not just that Honduras adventure. Because what I do is tricky. Like, I get paid to tell stories. And my brain, when I'm on an adventure, is always working. I'm like, I'm out here. I have cameras in my hand. I want to capture all these magic moments so that I can share them with my audience. But that's really hard, because I also want to be there present with myself in these moments and really enjoy it. And I always tell people, the adventure is the priority. Priority? No. Numbers. Is that your new tagline? Yeah. He wants royalties for them. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Adventure is the priority. The one you're doing. The one you're doing. I'm paying for it. And then, um. Contract. Number two is sharing that story. So I really want to be there and experience it myself, because that's the most important part. And so there are times where I put the cameras down, and it's just for me. You have to have those moments on these adventures, because otherwise, it'll just make you crazy. You know how it is. You're always filming stuff. There's some other content creators here. Like, you have to sometimes just take a breather and chill and just enjoy the moment for yourself. Yeah. That's a really good question. Thank you. Yeah. So you talk a lot about how the ride kind of helped you in your next chapter and got you to the next stage of your life. But how did it also help you summarize and conclude what you did in Honduras? You guys have got a great question tonight. You know, I really got to think about the work that I did for those two years. Honduras was a challenge. It was a struggle. Up until that point in life, everything was not easy. But I could accomplish pretty much anything I wanted to do. And then I got to Honduras, and it was hard. And I was lonely. And I was far away from home. And I was speaking a language that was not my native tongue. And I was an outsider. I looked different. People looked at me like, ah, you know? And so that was all a struggle at the beginning. But the ride really helped me to realize that kind of what I said at the beginning, what I accomplished were the little things. I went there with these grand ideas of building schools and really changing the world for the better. Two years, that's so much time. I'm going to transform this place. But really, at the end of the day, I was the one who was transformed. Of course, all these children that I have experiences with, we had a wonderful time together. And I was like a big brother to a lot of them. And I still am. I've been back four times since I finished my service, because it's really important for me to maintain these relationships with these kids. These kids were like my kids. I was protective of them. I loved them like a brother, and I still do. So yeah, the ride really helped me realize that it's the little things. And that helps me going forward in life. It's maybe, with this Western mind we have, we always think of like, I'm going to accomplish this. And I'm going to be rich. And I'm going to be a TV host. I'm going to be on national TV, whatever. These are all my dreams early on. But I'm like, you know what? My life is amazing. My life is amazing because I have great friends. I live in a great community. I have a healthy body that can take me wonderful places. And I get to do things like this. Like this is the best part of life. Like yeah, I haven't made much money, but that's okay, right? Like I'm rich in a lot of other ways. So thank you for that question. All right, good evening. Sorry, I'm giving hats to question askers. Askers. Tina, anybody else that I missed, ask a question? Well, now you better start formulating one. All right, good evening. My question, well, Brian from Brooklyn wanted to know, what was your diet during the trip? And then the second question I had was, what were some mantras that you had in your head each day or that fueled you to complete your trip? What were some mantras or something that you mind some? I think you said monsters. I'm like, I had both flies, not monsters. So the first question again was diet, yes. So I ate a lot. So every morning in Mexico, you probably heard tortillas, right? They make fresh tortillas every morning. They're like five pesos for a whole kilo, which is a lot of tortillas. I would go and buy these fresh tortillas. And when you get them hot off the press, they are amazing. They are soft, and they are warm. And I would get those hot off the press, and I would put bananas in them and put jelly in there. And sometimes peanut butter. You could buy peanut butter in some bigger towns in Mexico. And I would make these, what I called, like power bars. They were like Mexican power bars. And this is actually in the book. And I love that. That was really good, because you get some potassium, and you get some sugary stuff, which is yummy. I ate, of course, a lot of street food. Tacos, bean burritos, all that kind of stuff. What else did I eat? Pretty much anything. Because when you do a bike trip, as a lot of you know, you're burning thousands and thousands of calories, and you are hungry. And so you stop in any store, or tienda, or whatever, and you're buying pretty much whatever's in your face. Donuts, Mexican donuts, those are also very good. As far as mantras that I said to myself, this is awesome in the book. Thank you for that wonderful question. You guys have heard of that little mantra where I go, no crashies, no flaties, no whammies, right? So that's where this all started, was in Honduras. And there was a point when I was riding through the Yucatan, and there was a hurricane up a little bit north of me. I wasn't in the hurricane, but I was getting all of the water and the rains from the hurricane. And it was rainy all day, every day, for a few days. And it was hard. It was very cold and miserable. And I was wet, and it was dark and just scary. And that's when I started thinking about this TV show called Press Your Luck when I was a little kid. And there was this little red troll guy that would run across the TV screen, and he was a whammy. And if you're playing the game on TV, you go, no whammies, no whammies, big money, big money, no whammies. And you hit this button, and you hope that you don't get a whammy. So in my mind, I'm like, no whammies, no whammies. In my mind, I was trying to ward off rainstorms and all that other stuff, like no whammies, no whammies. We got this. And that's how it all started. And it developed into no whammies, no crashes, which was a crash. It's kind of infantile, but no crashes, no whammies, no flaties, because those are the things that I don't want. And so every morning I wake up, no flaties, no crashes, no whammies. And so that's where it all started. You get a hat, good question. These are courtesy of priority. Thank you, priority. These are awesome hats. Thank you, thank you. Yeah. They'll keep your head warm on the way home. Yeah. Yeah. So some recurring friends that show up, like John and Mira. Yeah. Have you had any thoughts of a reunion tour with Jeff? Yes, that's a very good question. So if you look back at my videos, Jeff actually did join me when I did a West Coast tour from Vancouver to Cabo San Lucas. He joined me. He lives up in the Pacific Northwest. So he was with me for about a week up in Washington. So you'll see him there. Those videos are way different than what I make now. So they're short and you won't see a lot of Jeff. But so we did that together. I would love to do something again with Jeff. Because Jeff was one of my best friends, super adventurous, really fun, a wonderful mind that stretches reality in a lot of ways. And he pushes me to think in different ways. And those are the kind of friends that we want. And that's who Jeff is. And you'll learn a lot about Jeff in the book. When you buy it at priority.com slash user book. There you go. Yeah. All right. OK. YouTube, this is going to be hard to get them a hat, but um. The pain cave that is such a good teacher. Wow, what is it about the pain cave that is such a good teacher? Amelia? Oh, Marshall who? Marshall, thank you, Marshall. My girlfriend Amelia will answer that question. I don't know if you know Amelia's background, but she's a world champion obstacle course racer. And she knows the pain cave. Right? She knows the pain cave. I've learned a lot about the moments when I push myself, both mentally and physically. A lot of you have heard me talk about the little experience I had in the Venezuelan jungle when I was on a Discovery Channel survival show about 10 years ago, where they starved us for 30 days. That was without a doubt the hardest thing I've ever done in my life. Bike rides are hard. Ultramarathons are hard. That is next level hard, mainly because of starvation. We did not eat much food for those 30 days. And when we did have food, we were eating termites and grubworms, which look a lot like botflies. So I got my revenge on the larva kingdom. And it was so hard and so uncomfortable, and I wanted out of there so badly. In the moment, it was absolute torture. It was, everything about it was uncomfortable. At nighttime, we didn't have tents. We didn't have sleeping bags. We would a lot of times just lay on the ground and get rained on all night long and shiver. And if it wasn't raining, we're getting bugs buzzing in our ears all night and crawling up our sleeves and stinging us. And it was just, I could never relax for 30 days. It was so hard. And you know it's hard if I'm saying it's hard because you've seen me do hard things. This was like next level. Looking back on that experience, I find it to be very valuable now. In the moment, no, it sucks. I want it out. But now I look back and be like, that really taught me a lot about perseverance. And it goes to the mentality of doing hard things. Really, I'm a true believer that the human body can get through just about anything if our mind stays in the game. And by the game, I mean like positive. And how do I wanna explain this? It's just like, if your mind goes south, if your mind goes into a dark hole, then it's all over. And that goes for anything in life. If you're doing a hard project at school or work, if you kind of give up mentally, boom, you're done. But if you can like stay in the game, if you can stay positive, if you can see a little bit forward and like keep a morsel of hope in front of you and keep going towards that, that will keep you going through anything in life. I believe, I'm sure it's different for other people. But that's what really keeps me going. And so now when I do something like the Leadville 100, yeah, it's a hard race. It's that altitude, it's going to hurt really bad. But when I think about it, I'm like, this is not going to be that hard really because I'm gonna be running to these aid stations and people are gonna be giving me all this wonderful food and there's gonna be people like massaging me along the way. And it's like, they're taking care of you the whole way. And I know at the end of the experience, I'm gonna go into a nice warm bed. When I was in Venezuela, we didn't know when the adventure was going to end. Every day we'd wake up or like, oh my God, not again. And we're just like tromping through the jungle, miserable and starving. And so after having done that, now I feel like I can accomplish just about any hard thing in life. Thank you. Was it Marshall? Marshall, here's your hat. Here we go. Oh, but can you stand up and model that shirt? Look at that wonderful shirt. You've got the Ole-O-Le-O-Le shirt. Thank you. I promise I'm not a plant, but it was a- Yeah, yeah. Okay, thank you so much for coming to New York. I really appreciate your time. I have a related question. So I was wondering what allows you to stay so positive and enthusiastic about life even in the face of like really daunting adversity, like a really long bike ride or a pandemic or big challenges. So this is a question I get a lot because people are like, this guy's not for real. He can't always be this happy. He's, and I can't- Yes, he is. Yes, he is. Yes. He is. My quick answer is that, I'm a human just like anybody else and I have tough days where I wake up and I'm just not feeling right or I'm bummed about some project that's going south or there's so many reasons that I can, you know, be hard on myself about just like any human. We all, this is like a human experience. Like we're not always like psyched. There's no way. Right now in this moment I am psyched, but it's not always like this. I kind of lost my train of thought. But what I would say is like, how do I, what was the question again? How do you stay positive? How do I stay positive? Yes, I was like, I got so many things going on in my brain right now. I stay positive by essentially realizing how beautiful every experience is, even if it's hard. Like I might be out riding the Colorado Trail and like dragging my bike up a mountain in a rainstorm, which is hard and you know, kind of sucks at sometimes, but I get to do that. I have the privilege to be out there doing this. This is my job. This is an amazing experience. So as hard as it is, it's like, this is actually still pretty cool. Oh, hey, Didi, I didn't see you back there. My friend Didi's here. Hi, Didi. Sorry to interrupt. Yeah, and so it's like, it's never, it's like, there's always hope. You know, it's going to get better. Nothing is gonna suck forever. There's always something good on the other side. And so the answer is like, yeah, I'm not always psyched and happy. I have a pretty happy demeanor. Like my baseline is pretty high. And I say, a lot of that is because I ride a bike all the time. Biking makes you happy. Being outside makes you happy. Being in nature just makes you breathe easier, right? I talk about it all the time on my channel. If you've had a rough day, just go outside for five to 10 minutes and breathe some fresh air and look at the birds and look at a cool cloud and it's gonna like calm you down. And so I've, luckily I have that perspective. I'm sorry, Ryan, I gotta call you out on that. Okay. Not the answer. The answer is your mom. Oh yeah, it is. Hi. Yes. I do have the best mom in the world. And so after I rode home from Honduras, I know it was really stressful for her and I told her I'd never do these things again. But I've obviously done these things over and over and over and over. But I've made a promise to her that I will always try my hardest to call her or text her every night of an adventure so that she can go to sleep easy knowing that like, hey mom, I got camp for the night, I'm all good, I'm safe. And so I know that she can be like, okay, my boy's safe, he's good. And then every day I try to reach out and I stay connected to her in that way. It's like, I'm very close to my mom. We talk every single day. I see her almost every single day in Boulder and I am truly privileged to have a mom like her who dedicated her life to raising these four children. So thank you, mom. Yeah, with us, so yeah, exactly. So thank you, yeah. Do you want another? No, you don't get another one. No, that's good. Matt. All right, I'm still new to your story. Okay. You may just seem like this is your first bike packing trip this three month excursion. It actually was. It was, it was. So this ride home from the Honduras was the first time I ever had done anything like this. You know, and it was a dream of mine to do some sort of something like this at some point in life. And this was the great opportunity to do it when I was in Honduras. But yeah, I had no idea what I was doing. I had never, you know, I had camped a little bit but not a ton. You know, I had to learn about navigation. This is before cell phones and before GPS. I had one map that had Central America, Mexico and the United States on it. And I drew a line on it. I was like, oh, that'd be cool. And I wanna go to those beaches maybe and up here. And so I drew this line before I did the trip. And I was like, I'm just gonna stick to that line. And that's essentially how I did it. And in a lot of moments when I was lost, I would just talk to locals. It was another excuse to like connect with people. And locals the entire way were like, okay, well, you can take this road. There's less traffic here. And the truckers were also very kind to me. Truckers, Mexican truckers at least, really look out for other people on the roads. And they were always, I would see them at some of the truck stop diners where they're eating food. And I would stop and they're like, oh yeah, we saw you 50 miles back. What are you doing? You crazy MF'er. And we would sit down and they would show me like, oh, this road's better and this road will have less traffic and go on these toll roads. And it's, you know, so people helped me out the entire way. It's pretty sweet. I have a question for someone that's new to this. Where would you recommend for them to get into bike packing? DozerTV.com. No, I mean, there's a lot of ways. Bikepacking.com is a really wonderful website that has lots of information about how to get into this. And I get questions from people all the time who watch my videos and say, I've never done anything like this. I'm so overwhelmed by the thought of like traveling by bicycle and carrying all your own gear and finding water and filtering water and blah, blah, blah, you know, all that stuff. And I always tell people, just go on like one nearby overnighter near your house just to get a feel for it and just to see if it's something that you like doing. Cause then you get to learn like how to, you know, pack all your equipment and all your gear and how it all works and then build on that. And I would say most people who go on one of these trips are hooked. It's very rare that somebody does one of these trips and is like, ah, this sucks. Now, you know, I just saw Augie over here and I want to share a story. Augie, can you stand up really quick? Sorry to call you out. So this is my friend, Augie. I met Augie when I was riding down the West Coast from Vancouver to Cabo San Lucas. And I met Augie in Northern California with my brother, Ethan. And we were riding bikes and you guys were also riding bikes with your future wife who you didn't know at the time was going to be your future wife, right? Yeah, they were just friends at the time, sharing a tent every night. But seriously, that's how they, what they said. They were just friends, okay, whatever. That's not the point of the story. His wife is awesome. We're riding into a campsite in Northern California at some point and Ethan and I always had a good stock of beans. We always had beans and tortillas. And Augie was going to the same campsite. We weren't traveling together really. And he knew that there was a store near the campsite. And so he bypasses the store that's back here because he was like, I'm just gonna go to the store near the campsite so I don't have to carry all this food all the way. And so he gets to that store and the store is closed. So no food, it's evening now. They have no food. Then they see us in the camp spot and they're like, oh, you're the two brothers that are riding bikes down the coast. And they're like, man, we don't have any food. And I was like, oh dude, we got you. We have tons of beans and tortillas. And so I got to treat Augie and his future wife to a Ryan Van Duzer bean burrito marathon, right? Correct. And we've been friends ever since. Isn't that cool? I haven't seen him in years, but I met him in 2010 riding bikes down the West Coast. Yeah, yeah. Right on. Conrad. And so speaking of friends that you've met on the bike path, are you and John and Mira gonna get together again and do some riding? I'm definitely gonna meet up with Mira. Just kidding. I love John and Mira. Meeting them was another one of those serendipitous, beautiful moments in life. I met them in the middle of nowhere in Baja doing the Baja Divide in 2020. And this is an interesting story where life just plays funny tricks. In 2017, I attempted to do the entire Baja Divide, which is 1700 miles all the way down. It's a very difficult ride. Quick, long story short, I only made it about a thousand miles because it was so hard. And I quit. It was the first time I ever quit a bike ride. I'm like, I am miserable. I'm not having fun. I'm going home. And this is actually, it's in the epilogue of this book. I talk about that experience where I was the first time where I really faced defeat. And I was like, okay, I'm good with going home. So in 2017, I quit the Baja. And then I'm like, someday I'm gonna go back and finish Baja. 2020 comes along. This is before the pandemic. This is January. I'm like, okay, I'm ready to tackle Baja again. This is my nemesis. This is the hardest ride I've ever been on. I'm gonna go there and I'm gonna finish Baja, fly to Baja. And on my very second day of riding Baja, who shows up on their bicycle, John and Mira. And that's how I met John and Mira. So if I had finished Baja when I had originally thought of doing it in 2017, there's no way I would have gone back in 2020. And I would not have met John and Mira who are now very dear friends. And you guys all love John and Mira. And yes, I'm gonna travel to Southern Mexico in early January and meet up with John and Mira. And you will get to see Mira the Wonder Dog again. And they're continually the ride their bikes around the world right now. It's a pretty amazing story. And Mira is the most wonderful dog I've ever met. She's opened up my heart in a new way that I didn't know that I had this love for dogs. I love traveling with them. So thank you for that question. Let's go here real quick. Oh, microphone. Come on, microphone guy. Microphone guy. Sorry. I have my first marathon shoes and I've had a dozen since then. And every now and again, I still pull them out because they were the first to wear them. Do you still have the bike that you rode back from Honduras? You've got great, fabulous priority bikes now. Do you still pull out that old bike every now and again? Great question. You all heard that? Do I still have the bike? I do still have the bike, but it is now essentially like a decoration. So I rode that bike home from Honduras. Then I rode that bike across the country. I rode the bike from down the East Coast and the West Coast. That bike has thousands and thousands of miles on it. And it was my daily commuter in Boulder. That was my main bike. This is a bike that I bought for $500 when I lived in Honduras from an American NGO worker. I was in Honduras, my early stages of being a volunteer. And I knew that I wanted a bike because I love bikes. And Honduras doesn't really sell good bikes. They're really cheap, crappy bikes. And so I was in a bar, I met this guy, and I'm like, hey man, do you know where I can get a bike? And he's like, just so happens, I have a Trek 8000 and I'm leaving and I'll sell it to you for 500 bucks. So that's the story of how I got that bike. I wish I had a priority 600 though. Yes, I still have the bike, but in 2016 I was riding up a steep hill in Boulder. And it's an aluminum frame and the dropout, like the bottom tube that goes into the bottom bracket just cracked, it broke in half, completely in half. And so I started riding like, oh my God, there's something wrong with my bicycle. And yeah, that was the end of that bike. That was the death of that bike. There's a video about it. I still have it. I still have it, it's hanging up for my ceiling. Yeah, just like your running shoes. Yeah, that bike has a lot of sentimental value because it wasn't just the Honduras Boulder bike. It was a lot of my big adventures until that point. It's hanging from my ceiling. Yeah, thank you. All right, let me ask, let's go to somebody else. Let's go, yeah, come on. Let's see, here we go. Oh, sorry. Ryan, we all love your channel and we hope it goes on forever. Have you given thought to where you see yourself and your channel and your adventures, whatever they may be in the next five, 10 years? That's a great question. And this is the first year where I have questioned really where I'm going with all of this. It's been such a grind for so many years to go on these adventures over and over and over and over and create content and put it out there and put my life out there. This is the first year I really felt some burnout. And it was a weird feeling for me because up until that point, I'm like, this is so amazing. I'm on top of the world at all times. And this is the first year I'm like, wow, I don't. I had a trip planned to Mexico in early January of this year and I woke up the morning, had everything planned and I'm like, hey, just something's wrong. I don't feel it. Like I don't want to go. And that was a really foreign feeling for me to like just not want to do it, especially when everything was packed and ready. And so I've been wondering what is next and what does the future hold? And it's my book at dozerbook.com. No, I mean, I don't know. I'm always going to be a storyteller in some way, shape or form. I cherish my channel and the community that I've been able to create. I love interacting with all of you. Where that goes, I don't know. I'm 43 years old now. Can I be a 50 year old YouTuber? Like, yeah, can I be? Like it just, it seems, you know, it's like a kiddie thing to be a YouTuber. But maybe not, I don't know. I will always be a storyteller. I will continue my YouTube channel for as long as I can. And I, you know, maybe I'll do some more books. But I, you know, I'd love to maybe someday lead tours. You know, people ask me all the time, I remember we're going to take people on adventures and I would love to be able to do that someday. At this point, it's just too hard with my own content schedule and everything. Yeah, and I, you know, when I was a young boy, I always promised that I would become a millionaire and buy my mom a house. Because that was a single mom, four kids. We didn't grow up with a lot. And I was like, mom, I'm going to make a lot of money someday and buy you a house. Like that was my goal in life. And so once I make a million dollars, I'm going to buy my mom a house. But it's going to take a really long time. And a million dollars does not buy much in Boulder anymore. But when I have a basement, mom will be welcome in my basement. Yeah, that was a great question. Okay, I only have two of these left. So I'm sorry if you ask a question. Oh, sorry, you got one. Okay, then it goes to Satya, right? There we go, you give it to him. So one of my fears while bicycle touring is not knowing where I'm going to spend the night. Right? Did you ever have that fear since you went on a huge trip right from the get go? And how did you overcome it? I don't know where I'm spending the night tonight. No. I hope, I hope I didn't get kicked out of my hotel. You know, that's a question that I get a lot. And I always tell people when I did that Honduras ride, I didn't know every day I woke up, I had no idea who I was going to meet, what I was going to eat and where I was going to end up every single day. And it was pure adventure. And because of that, I had never felt so alive because you have to figure things out every single day. And our day-to-day lives, it's pretty easy. It's comfortable. We know what's going to happen. We go to work, you know, whatever. We come home, we make food, we go to bed, we watch some Netflix, we watch some Dozer TV, boom. But when you're on an adventure like that, you don't. And you have to have the confidence to just know that it's always going to work out. And it always does work out. There have been times where I'm like, toward the end of the day, and I'm like, I don't know where I'm going to sleep tonight, I'm in a big city and I don't want to hide in some strip mall or whatever. There's always situations that can be a little uncomfortable. But that's why I do adventures, is to be a little bit uncomfortable. And in a lot of those situations, that's when I rely on my fellow humans. I've knocked on a lot of doors in small town America. Hey, is there a safe place to camp here? At 9.9 times out of 10, people would be like, just stay in my house, you crazy guy. Like, and a lot of times it's like dads or mothers who are like, you're my son now, I don't even want to take care of you, because this is, I want to make sure you're safe. And so those are the moments where I really, again, like I see the best of humanity come out. But yeah, it can be tricky, not knowing where you're going to end up at night time. But on any event, most bike adventures I never know. There's sometimes where I'm like, okay, I'm 70 miles away from this town and I'm definitely going to stay in a hotel. Sometimes that happens, but it's not often. Thank you. Dave. There's a couple of people that want to talk to you, so I think we should limit it to two or three more questions. Okay, yeah. And make sure people can get some time. Yeah, okay, last question, last hat, you get it right there. Oh, boom, line drive. And I have a couple more things to give away. But we have to wrestle for them. Latoya's going to win. Yeah. Thanks a lot. Of course, like everyone else, I love your YouTube channel and I discovered the wonders of traveling during the pandemic through you. Thank you. I found a book. I think you might mention already in the previous answer that you wrote Epilogue, which obviously wouldn't have been possible, had this book been completed soon after. Very good. So that's actually the one of the things about this book that's a little different than the large literature of former Peace Corps volunteer, memoir or autobiographies or whatever. So I'm really looking forward to reading it. But besides the epilogue, which you added because of what happened recently. I have the perspective, yeah. Is there other things that because of the passions of time and the many, many other adventures you've done since then that you think you added to the book that might not have been and you had to come out right after you finished it? Thanks. Yeah, that was a great, that's a beautiful question in a lot of different ways. Yeah, I have a lot of, I'm glad that the book is coming out now as opposed to when I was 25 years old because I really put a lot more perspective into a lot of those moments. If I had written it when I was 25 and I came home and I had my journals here and I just popped it out, it would have been a cool adventure story for sure. But now it has a lot more heart. It has a lot more heart because of the experiences I've had throughout life and the people I've met and the hard times that I've gone through. So yeah, I think what I love about this book is that it's a look, it's a time capsule into 25-year-old Ryan's mind with a little bit of 43-year-old Ryan's perspective and wisdom on life. And it's not just an adventure story. I talk about my life as a Peace Corps volunteer in Honduras and my struggles and why working with these kids was so important to me. It talks about my childhood growing up in Boulder. It talks about my relationship with my mom and my father who I don't speak about a lot. And so those things would not have been in the book without 43-year-old brain working on it. So yeah, thank you. And I really, I hope you enjoy it. I am very proud of the book. It's exactly what I dreamed of. And it's here and it's real. And to hold it in my hand right here is really special. And to be able to someday share it with you very soon means a lot to me. Oh, there it is. Oh, look at that. All the deals aren't done. Holiday specials extended for a limited time. Yeah. Oh, and also, can we go back to the buy page? If you want to finance this book, how much is it? 81 cents a month. If you want to finance the book, that's not bad, right? It'll just take a couple of years. Yeah, it's on the site, excuse me, on approved credit. So if you have bad credit, it might be more like a dollar a month. The book is more expensive than your typical paperback book. And that's because I printed it locally. I printed it the most eco-friendly way possible. I'm using real people to do the distribution and sending it. And also the mailers, I spent a lot of money on the mailers, they're all 100% cycled paper that can be recycled in your curbside recycling. A lot of books when you buy from Amazon, they come in a plastic bag. We all know the evils of plastic in so many different ways. So this, I really made a huge effort to make this as eco-friendly and as mother nature-friendly as possible. There will be an audio version coming out at some point. I think I'm actually just gonna sit in front of my camera and make a four-hour YouTube video and just read it. I think that'd be actually pretty funny. I don't know if anybody's ever done that on YouTube, but I'm just gonna sit here. This feels like a bad idea. I like it. The dirt road is steep and bumpy beneath my two tires. How long will you think that'll take to read a whole book? Yeah, yeah, Dave, how long did it take you to read this? I will say that it was just a ton of fun. It was an absolute honor and pleasure to read it. The book was so much fun. Getting in the mind of 25-year-old Ryan is so different than 43-year-old Ryan. One of the big differences is you'll hear me talk a lot about alcohol and drinking and partying, which I gave up alcohol seven years ago. So that's definitely different. But it's just fun. Reading the book is fun and you're smiling. It's just like watching his videos. I mean, it's fun. His voice is so clear in it. You can hear him reading it as you read the book. It's a fun adventure just like his videos are and it has that energy and the learning about the determination, the relationship with your mom and the stress and her brown hair at the time. The amazing people you met along the way. And your story of perseverance, not only perseverance through the trip, perseverance to make your career and your life what you wanted it to be. And that's, I think, a story of perseverance that we can all take from it is, here's someone that brings good into the world, brings smiles into the world, brings his relationships into the world, surrounds himself with the best people. Prioritybiscals.com forward slash dozer book. It is for sale now. With any luck, it's gonna be in your home by Christmas, but we're not promising that. Yeah, it's still, it's getting printed right now in Boulder, Colorado. Right now, this is on the printing press with all that algae ink, not spewing toxins into the air. And I wanna say really quickly before I end, there's a drawing that you guys didn't know that you were in for a Priority 600X. Yeah! Yeah. Did I win? Yeah! Can I ride on him tonight? Yeah, you can ride, yeah. And the winner of the Priority 600X tonight is a young man, we don't know how young he is, but it's Jacob. You just won a Priority 600X. Yeah, Jacob! And if you don't know what the 600X is, it is the most amazing bike in the world. It's my dream bike. It's the bike that I designed with my friends. Where's Eddie? Maybe Evan is here. He's at a metal store. Oh, he's rocking out. I designed it with my friends here at Priority. It's an amazing bicycle. It has the Colorado. Oh, there it is. Yeah, there it is. It's an awesome bike. And this is my dream bike, and this is a collaboration with Priority that I am eternally grateful for. It allowed me to move out of mom's basement. Yeah. It's actually really good and I'm not. Oh yeah, Amelia has one, yeah. You guys watched the white rim video? Did you see what a champ Amelia was? You know how much crap I got from people in the comments like, did she break up with you after that? Were you looking out for her needs, Ryan? I'm like, she is tougher than me. Guys, take it easy. Yeah, anyway. You don't like heights, yeah. Oh, we have more hats. I didn't know we had more hats. Let's just give them out. Let's just give them out. Okay, we're just gonna give them out. Should I say goodbye to the YouTube audience? Yeah. We're gonna do some sort of a book tour in the spring, starting on the western side of the United States, and I'm really excited for that to meet everybody who lives out in those places on the western side of the United States, and we'll see where we go from there. Again, thanks to Priority for being part of all this. It seriously is a dream come true. Dave is a bit, my business partner, I guess, in a way, but more than that, he's my dear friend, and I'm so lucky to be able to work with somebody who I love as a brother. We tell each other that we love one another. How many people do you get to work with and say that? That's pretty special. We're friends first. Friends first, just like adventure first. That's right. We're lucky to have each other. We love you, man. It's a good partnership. Love you, brother.