On this blog I like to bring to your attention people of note; people who have done extraordinary things. One of these people is Heinz Stücke a man who so far has biked 368 861.474 miles in 48 years of cycling which is enough distance to circle the earth 14.83 times. 14.83 times people. That is insane. You can visit his site to see the approximate route he to, and it is staggering. Here are a few of his exploits from his wiki page:
- In the Atacama Desert of Chile, he was hit by a truck.
- In Haiti, he was chased by an angry mob.
- In Egypt, he was beaten unconscious by soldiers.
- In Cameroon, he was detained by the military for “slandering the state”.
- In the United States, he was abandoned by an automobile driver who stole all of his supplies after offering him a ride.[2]
- In Indonesia, 1974, he suffered a serious bout of dysentery.
- In Zimbabwe, 1980, he was shot in the foot by rebels.
- In Mozambique, 1995, he was attacked by bees while bathing in a river.
- In England, 2006, his bicycle—the same machine he rode from Hövelhof in 1962—was stolen from his campsite in Portsmouth. (The bicycle was recovered the following day in a local park.)[1]
Needless to say the man has lived more than a lot of us can hope to. Hats off to him for daring the impossible.
Albany Bicycle Coalition 