An unusual bike race without the option of registering: "The Speed Project" in the USA entices with its invitations. But should you really accept this invitation ...?
It is probably the most unusual bike race in the world: "The Speed Project". Because: there is no registration, no information. Nothing. Participants only receive an envelope with the details a few hours before the race. The event was founded by Nils Arend, a German advertising expert who has lived in Los Angeles for more than 20 years. The 1,000-kilometre race from Los Angeles to Las Vegas is designed to help participants redefine themselves. Or find themselves again. Nils gathered inspiration for his race at a "Psychedelic Retreat" in Holland, at the "Burning Man" desert festival in Nevada in the USA and the "Cirque du Soleil" from Canada. The speed project drives the sponsors and people queuing up like crazy - after all, Nils alone decides who gets to take part and who does not. His Hollywood motto: "Don't try to call me, I'll call you."
On call: The Speed Project
Kai, one of the participants from Germany, felt like he was sitting in a time machine after the call, which catapulted him back to 2003. On Christmas Eve, the little boy simply didn't know what the Christ Child would bring him. An electric guitar? Or inline skates? Kai was all jittery, nervous and confused.
21 years later, he once again doesn't know what to expect. However, he is no longer sitting under the Christmas tree in Dresden, but together with the participants from twelve other teams in a pop-up store in Los Angeles. Everyone waits spellbound for information at the safety meeting. Because, according to the rules, all participants are travelling to the USA for a bike race without even the slightest idea of which bike they will need and what route the race will take. The only thing they know is that it will end in Las Vegas. And that all the riders will certainly go "all in".
So Kai, a former sports therapist for injured service personnel in the German army, opens the envelope with the instructions for "The Speed Project" together with Germany's best gravel biker Carolin Schiff and "The Vegan Cyclist", Tyler Pearce. Although instructions would be an exaggeration. Five checkpoints are scribbled by hand on a piece of paper, which they have to complete together as part of the "Ultra Rad" team. But how long is the most extraordinary and exciting sporting event on the planet supposed to last? Kai, Caro and Tyler get out their mobile phones and check which route might be the best. Because the only thing they have to keep in mind during the race in relay mode is to drive to the five checkpoints. The route they take from base to base, when and how often they take turns, is up to them. They expected to cover a few hundred kilometres of race route, but they ended up with 1,000 kilometres. 1,000 kilometres. Always! Full! At the! Stop!
Between myth and commerce
Welcome to "The Speed Project", the race that is shrouded in myth. Because: There is no homepage, no participant information. The BBC described the event as the "Fight Club" of endurance sports.
Founder Nils Arend is an endurance athlete and runner himself. When he had run all the usual marathons and was fairly fed up with them, he ran with a friend from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. 340 kilometres in one go. He then founded "The Speed Project" for runners. What ran the fastest were the companies that wanted to sponsor this sensational event. However, only one person decides. Nils Arend. True to the motto of the legendary TV series "Kir Royal": in is in.
However, Nils does not want to be a classic event organiser. The 44-year-old, who set up an advertising agency in the USA with 150 employees and clients such as Google and Nike, sees himself as an idea generator. "In the end, I'm just the one who gives the athletes the best, most beautiful and most exciting moments," says the man who has been travelling the world as a nomad since selling his agency in 2019. Arend has already organised dozens of running events with his five-person organisation team.
But what makes "The Speed Project" special? According to Arend, the race should be unlike any other. "The race - which is also pretty tough and dangerous - is intended to help people redefine themselves as people or find themselves again," says the creative spirit.
Which way is it going?
But why cycling now, when running events are doing so well? "If there's one thing that's booming in the global recession, it's endurance sports," explains Arend. "And in this boom, there is something else that is booming more than anything else: road cycling." It is therefore no wonder that global players in the cycling scene such as the clothing companies Rapha and Pas Normal Studios or bike manufacturer Canyon did not hesitate for a second to send their teams to the first "The Speed Project". Strictly speaking, there are no participation fees, only a "commitment fee", which could be described as a "provision fee".
Arend recruited former professional cyclist and filmmaker Angus Morton as a sparring partner. Angus is Lachlan's brother. The latter, a former professional with Team EF Education, became famous in 2021 when he cycled 5,510 kilometres through France in Birkenstock sandals and raised 400,000 euros for the aid organisation "World Bicycle Relief".
The Canyon-supported team "Ultra Rad" with Carolin, Kai and Tyler is now competing for Germany. They are competing for "Rad Race", a small company from Hamburg that organises its own events and runs a bike shop, among other things. Manuel Neuer, goalkeeper for FC Bayern and himself a keen amateur cyclist, has been the majority shareholder of "Rad Race GmbH" since 2024.
Meanwhile, the three team riders put their mobile phones away after planning their route and set off on today's bike trip to Las Vegas. The initial plan was to ride out of Los Angeles together. But after just one kilometre, the plan is ruined: Tyler crashes into something. Everything is ruined: Front wheel. Rear wheel. Everything. So Caro and Kai continue the relay race in pairs for the time being, while the five support staff from the ultra team in the support vehicle try to get Tyler's heap of junk back on the road. At last, Kai thinks to himself, after 40 kilometres there is something like peace and quiet. And while he is thinking this, he passes an exit. The 31-year-old from Dresden brakes and turns, wants to speed across a car park, but overlooks a ground marking and flies over his canyon. He only realises a little later that he has deep cuts on his hands. Some 30 hours later.
The Speed Project: Pedalling and eating
He doesn't have time to lick his wounds anyway. Kai has to tile. And how! The plan for the three racers is to take turns on the track every 20 to 30 minutes. This means that one of them will be racing, while the others can "rest" briefly - as best they can on a 1,000 kilometre non-stop route. At the handover, they have to pass on the baton, similar to a relay race in athletics. However, the three don't pass a baton, but a soft toy. A frog, which they have christened "Thorsten". Why Thorsten? "Because we couldn't think of a better name in a hurry," says Kai with a laugh.
They don't have time to worry about cuddly soft toys with a built-in GPS transmitter anyway. The speed, which Kai describes as "pretty brisk", is gruelling. In fixie races, which Kai regularly competes in, he puts up to 1,600 watts on the pedals. During "The Speed Project", he pedals at an average of 260 to 300 watts. How can you imagine that? "When the suburban train threatens to run out in front of you, you sprint. That's roughly the pace we ride at all the time," explains Nils, who says he rides around 20,000 kilometres a year. So one sprint after another for 30 hours? "Yes," says the sports scientist.
Above all, such performances require a constant supply of energy. But what do the three of them eat throughout the race? Caro keeps topping up on gels and bars in quick succession, Kai indulges in peanut butter and jam toasts in between; the longer the race lasts, the more the trio infernale turns to the classic racing drugs of cola and jelly babies, i.e. sugar in every conceivable form. After all, the cyclists burn more calories than they can take in during this exertion. Professional cyclist John Degenkolb, winner of Paris-Roubaix and several stages of the Tour, once explained: "If you don't feed your body anything in the first hour, you'll lack it and you'll be mercilessly fuelled. The nutrition chain must never be interrupted." And that's exactly what the three of them stick to: pedalling and eating, pedalling and eating.
Between delusion and reality
At some point, it must have been after 500 kilometres, the context to reality became a little blurred, says Kai. He sat on his bike, registered the setting sun at Salton Lake, felt the shimmering heat above the road, observed the rabbits and snakes along the way. And the tarantula that calmly walked across the road. Suddenly the extreme - a 1,000-kilometre cycle race - felt completely normal. A mum riding a cargo bike on a Monday morning in Prenzlauer Berg with two kids in her basket could hardly be more normal. Kai says he wasn't sure at the time whether he was part of a Netflix series or watching Breaking Bad at home. Or to quote an ancient philosopher: "If you don't expect the unexpected, you won't recognise it when it happens," as Heraclitus recognised around two and a half thousand years ago.
Race to catch up
Another realisation came to Kai & Co. quite clearly at this point during "The Speed Project": they were relatively far behind in the race. Around 270 kilometres before the finish, the Ultras began to roll up the field from behind. They gradually leave one team after the other behind. Then it comes to a showdown in the Mojave National Preserve, a nature reserve. The US team of Matthew Wiebe, Emily Joy Newsom and Maude Farell extends its lead. Carolin, who won the unbound race in Kansas (USA) in 2023 and was thus able to call herself the unofficial gravel world champion, knows what tough races are.
The speed project, on the other hand, is somehow different - despite all the harshness. More like working together than against each other. She experienced the best moment when Emily said in the middle of the race that it was nice "that you were there". Despite all their friendliness, the Ultras from Germany didn't stand a chance against the "Pas Normal Studios" team in the end; the trio under the patronage of the Danish-based clothing manufacturer reached the finish line in Las Vegas first. Carolin says that the Americans are not human. "They're pedalling creatures from outer space," she says with a laugh. The day after the race, everyone has breakfast together and looks back on the race.
Calorie Express
Carolin Schiff will be remembered as the woman who can kick mercilessly long and hard. How hard? Very hard. "Almost nobody can break me," says the Bremen native with a laugh. She is the one who loves to sprint even after hours. In the race, Kai was the man who first wrestled up the climbs and then slammed down the descents like a skier. And Tyler "The heat is on" is the one who masters the endlessly long straights in the heat best. Just like the "Super Chief", the famous American railway train.
After more than 30 hours, the Super Chief and the two German ICEs roll into Las Vegas, largely unnoticed in the hustle and bustle of the show and casino metropolis. After 980 kilometres, 31 hours and 21 minutes and a total of 30,000 calories burnt. That's the equivalent of 250 milk slices or 40 pizzas. Quite a lot. Converted, each of the three had burnt almost 30 Wiener schnitzels. All in all, Carolin, who weighs 48 kilograms, ate 40 gels because her strategy with the avocado toast didn't quite work. "Then I gave my body what it needs for the whole season," explains Caro. Gels.
"Welcome to the theatre. To the theatre of dreams," is how organiser Nils greets them in Las Vegas. However, the three of them didn't feel like putting on a performance, they just wanted to sleep. Carolin was particularly good at this, sleeping for 16 hours at a stretch. But then it was time to step on the gas again, for example at the final party in the presidential suite of the "El Cortez" hotel. There was pizza and beer. And Nils? He was happy that nothing happened apart from a few grazes and a couple of flat tyres. He was also proud. Of his "super athletes" who had achieved superhuman things.
Unconventional sporting events such as "The Speed Project", which attract endurance athletes from all over the world, naturally also attract the attention of potential sponsors. But in this respect, Nils Arend remains true to his idea of not burning out his events in exuberant marketing hype. The discreet, not accessible to everyone, remains the defining style. Even billion-dollar corporations have nothing to say, regardless of whether you call Arend a million times or send him a million emails. He remains rigorous: "Don't try to call me. I'll call you."
Exception
The trio completed the first few kilometres as a team; after that, they took it in turns to cycle FAR FAR FAR Gravel sections could have saved many kilometres - but the cyclists stayed on the road to avoid getting stranded somewhere in the desert.
