Photo courtesy of Fernando J. Soto
Fernando Soto finished 3rd in the 2026 Mishigami Challenge — a 1,121-mile self-supported lap of Lake Michigan — in 3 days, 16 hours and 19 minutes. At mile 390 he had decided to quit. He rode the whole thing in TriEye The View with a photochromic lens, glasses he bought himself. This is his story, mostly in his own words.
At 7am on the Sunday of race weekend, Fernando Soto texted his mother that he was tired. Forty minutes later he texted her again: he was going to stop.
He was 390 miles into a 1,121-mile ride around Lake Michigan. His feet had started hurting at mile 200, hundreds of miles earlier than they should have. By mile 309 he'd been off the bike with his shoes off. He'd woken from a nap with a fever. At mile 401 he priced out every way home from Michigan's Upper Peninsula: a $2,000 Uber. No rental cars anywhere. A train the next morning. Then he asked his cycling club for a lift back to Chicago.
Four people talked him out of it.
What is the Mishigami Challenge?
The Mishigami Challenge is a self-supported ultra-cycling race around Lake Michigan: roughly 1,100 miles out of Chicago, up through Wisconsin, across the Upper Peninsula, down the Michigan coast and home. No support crews — riders resupply at petrol stations, and the clock never stops.
Fernando knows the lake well. He finished 2nd in 2025, which meant he started the 2026 edition with a target on his back — and a complication. A cracked frame had forced him onto a replacement bike he bought just 19 days before the start. Nineteen days is not enough time to dial in a fit for four days of riding. His feet paid for it.
The full account is in his fourteen-chapter recap, which is worth your time. The short version of the finish: Chicago at 10:19pm, 3 days, 16 hours, 19 minutes after he left. Third overall — three hours faster than his 2025 ride, in worse conditions.
What happened after he decided to quit?
He rode 731 more miles. The fix wasn't inspiration — it was mechanical and mental at the same time: he moved his cleats back to take pressure off his feet, and gave up on every goal except finishing.
Lake Michigan didn't make it easy. Two storms soaked him. At mile 529, two loose dogs came after him on an 8% climb — after 500+ miles, outsprinting them wasn't an option. At mile 990 the heat hit the high 90s Fahrenheit; he rode through it with a bag of ice stuffed in his jersey.
Why was he riding with a rear-view mirror?
Because of what 2025 did to his neck. Fernando finished his first Mishigami with neck pain from turning to look behind him — especially in the aerobars, where a proper shoulder check means breaking your position and your line. For 2026 he bought The View, TriEye's sport shield with a small rear-view mirror built into the side of the lens.
We should say this plainly: TriEye didn't sponsor this ride. Fernando bought the glasses, trained in them all spring, rode 1,121 miles in them, and wrote about it afterwards. We asked if we could share his story.
The dogs at mile 529 turned out to be the mirror's sharpest test — a climb, at walking-to-grinding speed, where turning his head would have cost him balance he didn't have:
"The View let me take quick glances behind me to see where the dogs were without fully turning my head or straining my neck."
— Fernando J. Soto, 3rd place, Mishigami Challenge 2026, as told to TriEye
Does a rear-view mirror work at night?
In Fernando's experience, yes — headlights show up in a mirror long before you'd expect. Much of the Mishigami route runs on the shoulder of open road, with traffic approaching from behind and long hours of darkness. He rode with a Garmin rear radar as well, which makes his observation more interesting, not less:
"In pitch darkness, I actually spotted approaching cars through The View before the radar picked them up."
— Fernando J. Soto
That's not an argument against radar — we'd call mirror plus radar two layers of awareness, and Fernando used both for four days. It's a reminder that a mirror is instant and continuous in a way an alert can't be. The stakes on open rural roads are real: NHTSA's 2023 data counted 1,166 cyclists killed in US traffic crashes, up 4% on the year before. A mirror doesn't change how drivers behave. It means the rider is never the last to know.
Two smaller notes from his ride. Rain: the lens handled the storms without streaking or fogging, which surprised him. And light: in 2025 he carried two pairs of glasses, one for day and one for night. The photochromic lens — which darkens and clears with the light — took that down to one pair for all four days. If you're choosing a lens for long rides that run into darkness, that trade-off is the whole game; our lens guide covers it properly.
The moment that stuck with us
At the last rest stop before Chicago, Fernando took the glasses off to wipe them down. A little later, rolling again, he needed to check for traffic:
"My body instinctively made a slight neck turn expecting to see everything through the mirror."
— Fernando J. Soto
That's what four days of a new habit looks like. The glance replaces the shoulder check quietly, and you only notice the habit when the mirror isn't there. Fernando put it more simply when he described training in them all spring: what he noticed was how little he noticed them.
Photo courtesy of Fernando J. Soto
What an ultra rider's setup tells the rest of us
Most of us will never ride 1,121 miles in one go — and that's exactly why an ultra racer's kit choices are worth reading. Everything that's merely annoying on a two-hour ride becomes disqualifying over four days, so what survives an ultra is the stuff that solves real problems.
Fernando's eyewear logic applies at any distance: a shoulder check costs you your line and, over enough repetitions, your neck; a mirror integrated into the lens costs you a glance. If you're weighing that trade-off for your own riding, start with do you need a rear-view mirror for cycling, or read how another rider — sport psychologist Dr. Jim Taylor — came to the same conclusion by a harder road.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Mishigami Challenge?
A self-supported ultra-cycling race around Lake Michigan — roughly 1,100 miles starting and finishing in Chicago, via Wisconsin, the Upper Peninsula and the Michigan coast. Riders carry or buy everything they need en route, and the clock runs continuously from start to finish.
How long did Fernando Soto take to ride around Lake Michigan?
3 days, 16 hours and 19 minutes for 1,121 miles in the 2026 Mishigami Challenge, finishing 3rd overall — about three hours faster than his 2nd-place ride in 2025, despite storms, loose dogs and high-90s heat.
Did TriEye sponsor Fernando Soto?
No. Fernando bought The View himself after finishing the 2025 race with neck pain from shoulder checks, trained in the glasses through spring, and rode the 2026 race in them. TriEye asked for permission to share his story afterwards.
Do rear-view mirror glasses work in the dark?
Approaching headlights are visible in the mirror at long range — Fernando reported spotting cars through The View before his rear radar alerted, during night sections of the race. A mirror and a radar work well together: the radar warns, the mirror shows you what's actually there.
What lens is best for a ride that runs into the night?
A photochromic lens, which darkens in sunlight and turns nearly clear in the dark. It's the reason Fernando carried one pair of glasses in 2026 instead of the two he carried in 2025 — no lens swaps mid-race, no second pair in the bag.
Fernando's full recap — fourteen chapters, from the cracked frame to the 10:19pm finish — is on his site. Read it. Then go ride something that scares you a little.
