Riding 75,065 miles in a year
This story has popped up quite a bit recently but one of the best links I’ve found about it is this piece by Jack Thurston who gives an interesting background to Steve Abraham’s attempt to ride more than 75,065 miles in a year. Why? Well in 1939 Tommy Godwin set the long distance record at that figure and no one has broken it since. Having achieved this he then joined the RAF and went to war.
Steve is something of a legend in Britain’s small and low-key long distance cycling community. Raised in a cycling family, by the age of 13 he was already doing 100 miles rides and got into the audax scene in the early 1990s. In 2007 Steve set a new Audax UK points record, riding 23,834 miles in a year, mostly on weekends and during holidays as he was working full time. One of the many remarkable rides that year was the “Great Triangle”: from Milton Keynes south to Dover in Kent, then west to Land’s End in Cornwall, then up to the northern tip of Scotland and back to Milton Keynes. A total of 2,100 miles that took Steve just nine and half days. Oh, and he rode it all fixed wheel.
To achieve this he needs to average 205 miles a day for an entire year! It’s quite a commitment and there’s something about it I really admire, mainly due to it being slightly bonkers. He’s started already and can be followed on Strava and also has a site where updates are being posted by a series of helpers. There’s also a live satellite tracker.
..Steve is encouraging people to come out and ride with him, to provide moral support and a little shelter from the wind. Tommy Godwin’s record ride was paced for several months by a team of elite riders from Raleigh, so any help Steve gets out on the road will be perfectly within the rules. Godwin’s ride became a national event, something that was shared with cyclists up and down the country. Steve wants to do the same on his ride.
I’d love to join one of them at some point to offer support and help ease the strain on the front for a few miles for him. I also love this picture of his flat in Milton Keynes. Go Steve!
