It takes 123 days and 43 minutes to ride around the world on a bicycle. That's if you're fit, slightly mad and have a mind that can bend steel. I know that because Dunedin athlete, Andrew Nicholson confirmed it when he completed his lap in December last year and earned a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records.
"It was a two-fold thing," he offers. "Partly for the personal achievement of riding around the planet and a mate of mine died of cancer so this was my way to live everyday and support cancer research at the University of Otago."
Andrew raised around $10,000 for Te Aho Matatū: Centre for Translational Cancer Research.
I should point out that Andrew is no flash in the pan masochist. He has represented New Zealand in speed skating at three Olympics and has held two other Guinness World Records – both for speed skating in the '90s.
To achieve his record he had to ride 240km every day for four months without a break.
"I like cycle touring, but this was a race. The only rest I got was on the short legs in a plane," he laughs. "It was an all-day, everyday thing and it was really tough. I camped a few nights, but mostly I stayed with old speed skating friends around the world – conveniently scattered across the planet."
Andrew had campervan support from Perth to Adelaide, but said he was on a tiny budget so had to be resourceful.
"It was more of a logistical and emotional challenge for me than a physical one," he explains. "I had a lifetime of being an endurance athlete and my body could keep going. My legs kept working until I got to the later stages in Australia, but I never got sick – I survived quite well."
Andrew had to ride one bike for the 29,000km odyssey and had to head in a west to east direction to reach his goal and to stay within Guinness World Record guidelines, but some rerouted flights meant that he was "running out of planet" by the time he got to Australia.
"So across Australia I had to loop around to get my distance up," he recalls. "Even in New Zealand I had to loop from Invercargill through to Queenstown to get a few extra kilometres in – it was quite hard to coordinate it all."
During his journey he went through four sets of tyres, three chains and two bottom brackets.
"The closest I got to not finishing was in Russian Georgia, when my bottom bracket – the bearing between my cranks, fell apart. That's not the sort of part that you expect to break, or expect to locate a replacement easily – especially in Georgia. By some miracle my New Zealand helper managed to track down the one Shimano importer in the capital Tbilisi. I still had 300km to get there and about 24 hours to do it and to get it replaced on a Sunday night before my flight the next day. We happened to get the right guy and he spoke great English and was very supportive of my trip – he gave me the bottom bracket off his own personal bike – it happened to be the same. He saved the day, really. That day was heavy with traffic, had head winds and I thought it might have been over."
Andrew said it was a close race against the previous record of 125 days – he was at times ahead of it and other times behind.
"I averaged 300km each day across Australia and that helped me close the gap," he admits.
He said he wasn't likely to do a victory lap anytime soon, but had his eye on some lenghty local loops of 400km-plus and would be roping in some mates just to "get a taste" of his recent ride around the world.
Will there be any new records on the horizon?
"Maybe one of the eating ones – most cheeseburgers in a minute perhaps," he laughs. "No, how can you top that one?"
How good has that north swell been? Well, don't expect to take a break this week with this looming.
See you at the beach ... Derek
PS Our friends at Skinnies are a wildly creative bunch – check out their latest production.
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