Officially, the event is a Guinness World Record attempt at the ‘Fastest time to cycle trans-Australia from Perth to Sydney (male)’ by 25 year old Western Australian, Chris Marris. The ride initially aimed to raise over $10,000 for the Royal Flying Doctor Service. This target has now been exceeded with a new target of over $15,000 having now been set.
The current official record, set in October 2006, stands at 8 days, 10 hours and 57 minutes, held by Australian, Richard Vollebregt.
Chris aims to make the crossing in under 8 days, starting on Saturday night August 28, 2010 (subject to weather).
The attempt will see Chris make the 4,000km journey across Australia on a road bicycle, calling on every muscle in his body and every ounce of determination in the process. He will be physically cycling for more than 20 hours per day, for up to eight days straight. Sleep will be a luxury for Chris, as he travels some 550km per day – the equivalent of Paris to Amsterdam or Perth to Coolgardie.
Chris plans to have cyclists or a scooter ride along side him during the attempt for support and safety which is well within the rules of the attempt as set out by Guinness World Records. Chris also plans on having a support vehicle (motorhome) that will accompany him for the duration of the trip.
The world record attempt will be equivalent to swimming the English Channel 14 times straight, doing 45 consecutive marathons, or enduring nearly 1 million pushups. Obviously the need for food will be great, with Chris expected to need 10,000 to 12,000 calories a day. That equates to around 7 weeks’ worth of food over a 1 week period. Other endurance cyclists report soreness in their jaws from eating so much.
That will be the least of Chris’s concerns as he battles sleep deprivation, arguably the biggest obstacle of the ride.
But for Chris all of this will be worth it, as he;
- Raises money for the Royal Flying Doctor Service, an important charity that provides life saving services in rural and remote Australia,
- Works towards fulfilling a personal goal and one of the toughest challenges he is ever likely to face,
- Gets fit, and encourages others to do the same.
Hope you get some good tailwinds on your journey. I didn’t get any!! I found l raised the majority of the funds for breast cancer research following my ride when l spoke at a variety of functions. All the best with your ride and the fundraising.
Wow! I wish you all the best of luck and have a safe journey. I crewed for a solo cyclist on the Race across America and it was a brutal challenge. Some of the biggest problems were Shermers neck, saddle sores, cycling over 18 hours without sleep, nutritional and psychological boredom and keeping the cyclist fully hydrated. We worked closer to 16000 calories a day with energy products like Perpeteum/High 5, high 5 uses the fructose transporters in the intestine as well as the glucose transporters so it can keep up with the constant energy demand a bit better. There’s also some caffeine in there to keep the muscles firing. We used hard food as well as the liquid diet, after a certain time our cyclist just wanted stuff like burgers and variety so we had to be imaginitive with the menu. We also monitored his liquid consumption and weighed him daily, his body weight went down quickly at first and then stayed steady once his body was in the groove. You guys should set up a twitter account, it would make following you a breeze. I can’t wait to see how you all do. Good luck, I’ll keep my fingers crossed!
Truly inspirational.
Having cycled from Melbourne to Brisbane I know less than half of what you will be going through, as I was really pushing it to cycle 2000km in a week.
So much wears out after five days in the saddle!
I’ll save up some coin to make a donation.
Kind regards
John
Hi Chris
I am in awe of your attempt. Best of luck with it.
I have posted about you on my blog, “the muse-ette”, so hopefully that might generate some interest, and donations, in Ireland.
Ronan
Oops, forgot the URL!
It’s http://www.muse-ette.com/2010/08/flying-cyclists-trans-australia-record.html