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To The South Pole By Bike
buzzdecafe writes "Doug Stroup is attempting to ride his bike to the South Pole. Follow his progress here: Iceaxe.tv or read the article about him on Wired, including a pic of the bike. He's pulling over 100 pounds of supplies on a sled behind the bike--as well as carrying his own waste. Why bike to the South Pole? Hell, why not? Riding a bike in subzero temperatures in constant danger of losing your life sure beats my job."
This guy is kind of a wuss, isn't he?
I mean, if *I* were going to bike to the south pole, I would at least start from home instead of antartica.
Why not just say: "Guy plans on biking 50 miles in sub-zero temps, hopes no to die". This would have been kick-ass if would have risked mexico, panama, the amazon, just to come close to biking in sub-zero temperatures.
For the standard lazy /. fucker who won't read the article, he's not doing that because of some weird fetish. It's SOP in Antarctica; the article only mentions it to point out that the weight load on the bike will increase with time (like every other Antarctic team has had to deal with).
Er, no, wait... he's consuming the food he's carrying, so weight load should remain more or less constant. Okay, I don't know why the article bothers to mention it.
Perhaps you should consider skydiving. Unlike every other sport I can think of, where you die only when something goes awry, in skydiving your death is guaranteed the instant you jump out the door -- unless you do something to change your situation. Any sport where you die by default every time you play, and it's up to you to fix that... yeah.
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
...this guys funds this excursion by harrassing people for two dollars, right?
Method of processing duck feet
I keep remembering the bike trek made by Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne. As I read the passage about this man carting his own waste through the tundra, I can only imagine his toil being not unlike Lloyd and Harry's when they first arrived in bitter Colorado. In their disquieted and inimitable words I find the response: "Just go man, just go."
--"The perfect example of the man of action is the suicide." - William Carlos Williams
It's this kind of thing that makes me wonder why anyone cares. I bike. I bike a lot. I just can't see why sombody would take a bike to the south pole when hiking or skiing would work so much better? It's like race walking. It's different. It's hard. It's contrived. I can dream up any number of hard, death defying contrived things to do. That doesn't mean they are worth doing. There is a reason this expedition is self funded.
other parts, such as tubes and tires, actually hold up fairly well. i doubt he'll have to deal with a snakebite anyway...
what totally surprised me was that the bottom bracket shells broke on my bike. it's a carbon fiber frame, and the bottom bracket is mounted through steel shells that are glued to the frame.. either the glue went brittle, or there was too much stress due to different expansion coefficients. bottom line: if you're rinding in extreme temperatures, composite materials may not be the best idea.
when it comes to boots, bunny boots are the way to go. you don't really need any SPD or other pedaling system, and those boots are awesome in really cold conditions. in fact, the metal parts of the SPD pedals would make a perfect thermal conductor from the outside (pedal) all the way to the shoe's insole (where the adapter is mounted), no matter how much insulation you wrap around the shoes. cold feet are guaranteed!
The small diameter can be compensated for with appropriate gearing. Bigger tires that are this wide, are very heavy. Too heavy, I'd expect.
The tires need to be wide so the bike will ride on top of the snow, rather than plough through it.