“I had to go,” said former President Theodore Roosevelt of the expedition that nearly killed him, “it was my last chance to be a boy.” Roosevelt had charged up Brazil’s River of Doubt with the same verve and bullish enthusiasm he tackled everything else in his life. He was the one, after all, who preached to his fellow Americans from his “bully pulpit.” He preached to them of a “strenuous life,” rejecting the path of “ignoble ease.”

I certainly could not claim my friends and I would be facing anything like the headhunting tribesmen T.R. faced up the Amazon, or man-eating piranhas. But we would be facing another dangerous breed—New York drivers. Yes, I told my incredulous wife, we’re going to go to Sagamore Hill, Theodore Roosevelt’s family home. And we’re going to do 500 miles in one day.

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