PROFILES

Dr Julie Smith

Dr Ann Smith

Douglas Victor Smith

Ann

"If life is an illusion, wake me up before I die,
if I am already dead -
I will prepare for life in
whatever shape or form it may take."

SOLARWINDS
A tomb for the living
Click on images to enlarge

(Port)

(Starboard)
June 2011

Why cycle across a continent?
(May 2011 by Julie)
As a family we have always taken on challenges in one form or another (e.g. studying for a PhD, building SolarWinds - a 42 foot catamaran, cycling, running marathons, kickboxing, etc.) and have never sat back on our achievements as there is always an even higher mountain to climb.

In recent years, my father, Victor and I have taken more of an interest in adventure cycling, but this is not something new as my first long distance cycling trip was at the age of fourteen (1982), when we cycled from Swansea to Chesterfield (UK) covering 240 miles in thirty-six hours.

Pedalling for two
In 2006 Victor came up with the idea of cycling coast to coast across France to mark his 60th birthday and to complete a challenge, which he initially started in his early twenties. The cycling route that we chose to take was from the north-western city of Le Havre to Montpellier (630 miles / 1,014 km) on the Mediterreanean coast. As I wanted to take my 7-year-old daughter, Ann along for the experience, we gave ourselves a month to complete the distance.

As Ann was far too young to cycle at the time, we came up with the solution that Victor would do the cycling, while she sat behind him on the tandem (resting her feet on foot rests). Yet, in spite of my father making the trip more difficult for himself, we completed the bicycle ride in two weeks rather than a month and then went on to add a further 400 miles (644 km) by cycling to Marseille before returning to Montpellier to catch our flight home.

Since the France cycle trip turned out to be a brilliant experience, two years later, in 2008 we took on a greater challenge and this time the three of us cycled (unsupported) 2,641 miles (4,250 km) across the USA from Cape Canaveral, Florida to San Diego, California in 60 days (no rest days). This cycle trip, however, was far more demanding and definitely in a league of its own! From the start, not only was it literally a race against time (as our visas limiting us to 90 days in the USA), but also by choosing to do it in summer and the hurricane season, this meant that we ended up having to dodge hurricanes and deal with the intense heat (110°C) of the Sonoran Desert in Arizona.

One of the great cycling frontiers
Yet, after cycling across the USA and saying I would never do another gruelling coast to coast cycle trip, I have decided (after taking a year to consider it) to take on another cycling challenge with my daughter and father. Our next goal, when Victor is an old aged pensioner (65 years of age) this year, is to cycle across Australia - Perth to Sydney in September 2011, where distances between towns during the Nullarbor crossing can be up to 119 miles (192km).

The first 14 days of the France and USA cycle tours......
Please click on the images below to see details of these cycling adventures.

                       France                                                               USA
   

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