2026 New York CITY Century
Grand Marshal
Credits: Tiger Stripe Media
ABOUT
This year’s NYC Century Grand Marshal, Shawn Cheshire, is a US Army Veteran and a 13-time Paracycling US National Champion. She represented the US at the inaugural Invictus Games in London and the 2016 Rio Paralympics. Shawn has focused on breaking social norms for the blind and is the subject of the award-winning documentary, Blind AF, which will be available to stream, October 28th, on Amazon Prime, Documentary +, YouTube and more.
In 2021, Shawn raced her single bike, non-tandem, from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic Ocean (3600 miles in 60 days). Followed by the Tour Divide in 2022—a 2700-mile mountain bike race on a single bike from Banff, Canada to Mexico. Most recently, Shawn became the first blind person to hike across the Grand Canyon, without a sighted guide.
Shawn will be around the NYC Century Rest Stops and also at the Finish Festival, and is looking forward to meeting the cyclists.
Documentary
SYNOPSIS
A blind female Paralympic champion and multiple world-record holder sets out to become the first blind person to ride a single, non-tandem, bike across the US – 3600 miles in 60 straight days – while confronting painful truths about her past that she’s spent a lifetime trying to outrun.
Blind AF documents this historic test of the human spirit, and resilience in the face of fear, to tell a multi-faceted story of trauma, transcendence and healing power of self-belief.