Erstellt am: 19. 12. 2015 - 13:41 Uhr
Cycling to the South Pole
A Reality Check Special with Maria Leijerstam. On the 27th December 2013, Maria became the first person in the world to cycle from the edge of the Antarctic continent to the South Pole. Hear about her amazing journey by clicking on this webplayer.
The White Ice Cycyle
I guess for you, like me, Christmas tends to follow a normal pattern, shopping, Christmas markets, gluhwein, eating lots of food, opening presents and trying on new socks!
Well, two years ago, Maria Leijerstam did something really special over the festive season. She became the first person in the world to cycle to the South Pole from the edge of the continent. Not only that, she beat two guys making a similar journey at the same time.
She also set the new World Record for the fastest human powered coast to pole traverse. She completed her journey in 10 days, 14hrs and 56 minutes.
In fact, this very day, 19th December, two years ago, Maria had stopped her cycle and was looking up at the Transantarctic Mountain range contemplating one of major hazards. How to safely cycle up and down those mountains?
I was just looking up some facts and figures about the Transantarctic Mountain. Its one of the longest mountain ranges on Earth. If you are heading to the South Pole from the Ross Ice shelf, you can't really avoid the mountains, the highest Peak being around 4,500 metres. Adventurers like Amundsen and Scott took a route through the mountain range in their quests to get to the pole. But its clearly full of dangers.
The Polar Cycle
A custom-built cycle called the Polar Cycle helped Maria secure her record, while her rivals chose standard upright mountain bikes. They took almost 4 weeks longer than Maria to reach the South Pole.
Amongst other things, I wanted to know about the conditions and how do you keep cycling in the toughest of weather situations and topographies to reach the South Pole?
Maria:
I think the wind is one of the biggest challenges. Because there’s very little precipitation in Antarctica, it rarely snows but what it does do is blow snow around, so it feel like it’s snowing and it (often) feels like there’s a snow storm. So the wind is just ferocious and it blows from the pole out. Therefore, whichever way you approach the pole you are going to have a headwind. For 10 days, I was just cycling into wind which, on some days was calm, but on the majority of days, it was just strong wind.
There were (in fact) two days of just very strong wind where I had to have my head down and just focus on trying to turn those pedals to make some distance.
With wind comes cold. On the plateau, it was well below minus 40 degrees with the wind chill. On the Ross Ice Shelf, it was very pleasant at about minus 15. But as I climbed up through the mountain range, it got colder and colder. Luckily I love the cold, so I quite enjoyed it and I had all the right kit and gear so I was able to protect myself from the elements.
If you want to find out more about Maria's amazing feat, just go to her website whiteicecycle and you'll see more pictures and descriptions of how she achieved her goal.