Monday, February 24, 2014

National Geographic Inteview

I'm often asked if it was worth it to bike to the South Pole. I half jokingly say getting interviewed by National Geographic made it all worthwhile.

Here is the interview: National Geographic Weekend

5 comments:

  1. Another great interview Dan! That is cool that National Geographic picked this up.

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  2. Great tale of endurance! Congrats on your successful journey, Dan!

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  3. What about Maria Leijerstam? http://marialeijerstam.blogspot.com/2013/12/maria-claims-two-world-titles.html

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    1. Here is the difference:
      1. Maria was on a trike not a bike. This is a big deal when traveling in Antarctica. You must balance on a bike, no balancing on the trike. Which is important because a trike has no minimum speed, the bike must keep going fast enough to keep balance. A trike would not be able to handle sastrugi. The three wheels on the trike trying to break soft snow would not work if not on a compacted road. I talked to her boy friend who was driving her truck. Based on what he told me, there is no way her trike could have done the real thing.
      2. Her route was less then 1/2 the distance about 300 miles vs 750 miles.
      3. Her route was on a compacted, marked road used buy the US Government to haul supplies to the South Pole. This road does not have to deal with sastrugi, and all the crevasses have been dynamited out and filled in. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Pole_Traverse
      4. She had a truck carry all her gear. Originally she stated that she was going to carry her own gear but according to her boy friend that didn't work and he carried her gear in the truck.
      5. When she needed a break she jumped into the truck.

      So in short it was not by bike and was a ride not an expedition. Her record claim has been declared a false claim by ExplorersWeb which is the authority on polar expeditions. http://www.explorersweb.com/polar/news.php?url=south-pole-update_1388156897

      Maria is the first to cycle to the South Pole. I am the first to do a bike expedition to the South Pole.

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