Todd Balf, a former senior editor of Outside magazine, is an author and a contributor to several national magazines including The New York Times Magazine, Harper’s, Men's Journal, Yankee, and Travel & Leisure. His first book, the New York York Times bestseller The Last River, is the account of a fatal 1998 whitewater river trip in Tibet. The Darkest Jungle, also published by Crown, told the historical story of an American expedition and its disastrous Darien Gap crossing to pioneer a route for the Panama Canal. He first traveled to Panama’s Darién Gap in 1991—a memorably flawed crossing in which he and his companions traveled by foot, burro, and dugout canoe yet managed to see neither the Pacific nor the Atlantic.

Major, the story of the early 19th century Black bicycle racer who overcame racism to become a world famous superstar, was an opportunity to combine the author’s twin passions: history and cycling. Complications was the author’s first memoir, recounting his personal journey through spine cancer, paralysis, and his quest to walk again.

Despite a recent recurrence and a metastatic cancer diagnosis, Balf remains active and hopeful, riding thousands of miles each year to raise funds for cancer research for Dana Farber Cancer Institute.