Olympic rower James Cracknell is well known for his epic challenges: he's completed the Marathon Des Sables, raced to the South Pole and rowed, cycled and swam from the UK to Morocco in aid of Sport Relief. Yesterday the keen cyclist set out on another gruelling adventure: to cycle, run, row and swim across the North American continent in just 18 days.
His 3,600 mile trip will mostly be completed by bike and 2,500 miles of it will be along the famous Route 66 highway, but there's an 80-mile run in Death Valley, 265 miles of rowing across Lake Erie and a final 15-mile swim to the Statue of Liberty thrown in for good measure.
James is sponsored by Merida and will be using a variety of bikes for the 2,500 mile long bike leg due to the varied terrain and road conditions of Route 66. The majority of the time will be spent on a TimeWarp time trail machine but he'll be breaking out the Scultura Evo for the more mountainous sections. The crew will also be taking along a super light O.Nine mountainbike for a 30 mile section of Route 66 which is not rideable on a road bike.
To get a better idea of just how difficult an agenda James has set himself this time around, here's his 18-day schedule (beginning Thursday 15th July).
Day Event Location Distance
1 Cycle Santa Monica Pier, CA 263 miles
2 Run Death Valley, CA 80 miles
3 Cycle Jubilee Pass, CA 250 miles
4 Cycle Kingman, AZ 250 miles
5 Cycle Holbrook, AZ 250 miles
6 Cycle Albuquerque, NM 250 miles
7 Cycle Amarillo, TX 250 miles
8 Cycle Oklahoma City, OK 250 miles
9 Cycle Tulsa, OK 250 miles
10 Cycle Springfield, MO 250 miles
11 Cycle St. Louis, MO 250 miles
12 Cycle Indianapolis, IN 250 miles
13 Row Toledo, OH 85 miles
14 Row Cleveland, OH 100 miles
15 Row Erie, PA 80 miles
16 Cycle Buffalo, NY 250 miles
17 Cycle Binghamton, NY 250 miles
18 Swim Manhattan, NY 15 miles
The challenge is being featured on the Discovery Channel in October, and you can also keep up to date with James' progress live via his Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/JamesCracknell. We'll keep you updated here at road.cc too. Best of luck James!
"but I had just been stuck for 50 mins, I didn't want to be held up any further"
You had a frame!!?!! Luxury. I started out with 4 twigs and 2 tennis balls...
If that driver still has a job after that then Sainsbury's should be held criminally liable when he inevitably kills someone...
We used to have one but the wheels fell off...
I haven't visited the tweet about this, I suspect it would make me very angry at these people and I would not be able to avoid taking issue with...
Unfortunately effective negative reinforcement is even more lacking than positive reward for Doing The Right Thing......
if only they would stick to burgers, insted of getting involved in town planning.
I doubt the horses in the new forest or dartmoor get cyclist training. But they seem completely indifferent to cyclists. So what are the horse...
exactly. Unless there's something that stops them (oh, wait, black boxes..)
You're right about the bypass though, it makes it much more pleasant to ride through the town at any time of day, including the old road north out...