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Science

To The South Pole By Bike 48

Posted by timothy from the are-those-bugle-boy-jeans dept.
buzzdecafe writes "Doug Stroup is attempting to ride his bike to the South Pole. Follow his progress here: Iceaxe.tv or read the article about him on Wired, including a pic of the bike. He's pulling over 100 pounds of supplies on a sled behind the bike--as well as carrying his own waste. Why bike to the South Pole? Hell, why not? Riding a bike in subzero temperatures in constant danger of losing your life sure beats my job."
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To The South Pole By Bike More

To The South Pole By Bike

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  • I wanna take the bike to the sand dunes. I wonder how it handles a good downhill.
  • Riding a bike in subzero temperatures in constant danger of losing your life sure beats my job.

    Except for the bike part, it sounds alot like working in a colocation facility!

  • Bike to the south pole? (Score:5, Funny)

    by moc.tfosorcimgllib ( 602636 ) on Thursday January 16, 2003 @05:29PM (#5097607) Journal
    This guy is kind of a wuss, isn't he?

    I mean, if *I* were going to bike to the south pole, I would at least start from home instead of antartica.
    Why not just say: "Guy plans on biking 50 miles in sub-zero temps, hopes no to die". This would have been kick-ass if would have risked mexico, panama, the amazon, just to come close to biking in sub-zero temperatures.

  • Some random comments (Score:4, Interesting)

    by devphil ( 51341 ) on Thursday January 16, 2003 @05:36PM (#5097673) Homepage
    as well as carrying his own waste.

    For the standard lazy /. fucker who won't read the article, he's not doing that because of some weird fetish. It's SOP in Antarctica; the article only mentions it to point out that the weight load on the bike will increase with time (like every other Antarctic team has had to deal with).

    Er, no, wait... he's consuming the food he's carrying, so weight load should remain more or less constant. Okay, I don't know why the article bothers to mention it.

    Riding a bike in subzero temperatures in constant danger of losing your life sure beats my job.

    Perhaps you should consider skydiving. Unlike every other sport I can think of, where you die only when something goes awry, in skydiving your death is guaranteed the instant you jump out the door -- unless you do something to change your situation. Any sport where you die by default every time you play, and it's up to you to fix that... yeah.

    • I'm not 100% sure about this, but I believe most parachute-packs that sports-divers use have altimeters and "auto-eject" when they reach a specific altitude.

    • Re:Some random comments (Score:5, Interesting)

      by joshuac ( 53492 ) on Thursday January 16, 2003 @06:01PM (#5097899) Journal
      ---snip
      awry, in skydiving your death is guaranteed the instant you jump out the door
      ---snip

      Not quite; you could be thrown from the plane unconcious, if your emergency chute is setup correctly the automatic activation device will go off once you've passed a certain altitude a bit too quickly :)

      So if you don't do anything, death is pretty much unlikely.

      Otoh, if you do end up doing something incorrectly (deploy your main chute incorrectly getting lines tangled, don't inspect all gear carefully before using) then yes, you could easily die; a half opened chute could slow you down enough to convince the emergency activation device all is well, but may still be plenty fast enough to kill you.


      • My understanding is that the automatic activation devices are still rather rare. Not from lack of supply, but from lack of demand.

        • By law (in the U.S.) students are required to have an automatic activation device, and any pro would carry one as a matter of common sense, although the law for pro's only says they need a backup chute, they legally can jump without an automatic activation device (assuming his friends would even let him get in the plane like that).

          Skydiving is an extremely safe sport; flying in an airplace is much more complicated than driving in a car, but so much attention is spent on aircraft maintenance and crew training that it is quite safe; people die all the time in cars. Riding a motorcycle is simpler than solo-skydiving, but so much attention is put towards safety in this sport (imagine taking your motorcycle apart, inspecting, and reassembling before every outing) that accidents in skydiving are rare (and almost always caused by someone deliberately trying to bypass the safety systems for a bigger thrill).
    • Depends if the waste consists of just #2 or he has to include #1 also. Just #2 you will get some weight increase because it will contain fluid in addition to just the lunch. If he has to carry #1 also it will be just a huge increase. Remember he'll likely get drinking water by melting snow & ice. But even just #2 contains a lot more fluid than the food making up the solid component origionally contained.
      • According to the Antarctic meteor researcher I know, you have to pack out everything that will not degrade by itself. Feces won't decay when frozen, so you have to bring them with you. You can pee on the ice, because the urea breaks down under solar UV and decomposes into carbon dioxide and ammonia; since it degrades just fine, leaving it is SOP.

        I don't know why people don't use solar heat to freeze-dry the turds (to lighten them), after which you could burn them. In the 24-hour light of Antarctic summer this seems like a no-brainer.

  • Hmmm.... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Possible candidate for the Darwin Award.

    Man rides bike to south pole and becomes popsicle treat for native wild life.
  • i like the bike better than the ski sails that those three guys tried to use.

    though parts for the bike might be a pain in the ass to deal with. i would be interested in what parts on the bike break.

    wonder if the bike has a belt or chain? that seems like some serious technology. i wonder how bad his boots are going to get chewed up by pedals or if the pedals and boots are going to just grind away at each other.

    • Re:bike sounds good (Score:2, Informative)

      by step ( 5607 )
      i think that the chain is the major weakness. i've had the pleasure of riding with Dan Bull [iditasport.com] (organizer of the iditasport multisport races in alaska), and when temperatures reach -20F it doesn't take much to kill a chain link. you need to be very careful with changing gears. by the way, i don't think he's using a belt drive as suggested by another posting; the front chainrings look pretty standard on the picture.

      other parts, such as tubes and tires, actually hold up fairly well. i doubt he'll have to deal with a snakebite anyway...

      what totally surprised me was that the bottom bracket shells broke on my bike. it's a carbon fiber frame, and the bottom bracket is mounted through steel shells that are glued to the frame.. either the glue went brittle, or there was too much stress due to different expansion coefficients. bottom line: if you're rinding in extreme temperatures, composite materials may not be the best idea.

      when it comes to boots, bunny boots [armygear.net] are the way to go. you don't really need any SPD or other pedaling system, and those boots are awesome in really cold conditions. in fact, the metal parts of the SPD pedals would make a perfect thermal conductor from the outside (pedal) all the way to the shoe's insole (where the adapter is mounted), no matter how much insulation you wrap around the shoes. cold feet are guaranteed!

      • You sound 'in the know'.
        So...those tires seem big enough, and the environment there safe enough, that you could fill them with hydrogen, or at least helium and lighten your ride a bit.

        So I guess the weight difference would just be so small even in those gigantic tires that the idea is worthless?
        • weight difference aside (i doubt it would be noticeable), the problem is that all rubber tires do lose pressure over time.. not only due to leaking valves, but by diffusion through the rubber itself. for example, latex tubes are stronger and more puncture resistant than other materials, but they leak significantly.
          in triathlon races (where you often have to check in the bike on the day before the race) you'll find a lot of people pumping up their bikes on race day morning. not because they've forgotten to do so, but because the overnight pressure loss really is noticeable.

          so, the point i'm trying to make is that as far as i know those gases also diffuse through rubber tires very easily, so that you're bound to lose much more pressure over time than with plain air. which translates into higher rolling resistance as the pressure drops, and more stops to pump the tires back up.

  • Wouldn't it make sense to have bigger tires on the bike? Not only for handling terrain, but it would take a lot less pedaling.

    • Re:Small tires (Score:3, Informative)

      by hcdejong ( 561314 )

      The small diameter can be compensated for with appropriate gearing. Bigger tires that are this wide, are very heavy. Too heavy, I'd expect.

      The tires need to be wide so the bike will ride on top of the snow, rather than plough through it.

    • less pedaling, means pedaling harder...

      Humans are more efficient (in terms total work done before exhaustion) if they are doing more repetitions of a motion with little load, instead of a few repatitions at high load. Look at Lance Armstrong, he pedals at about 120 strokes per minute to maintain his speed, he could go in a higher gear, and pedal slower, but his legs would burn out sooner...

  • Let me guess... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Deagol ( 323173 ) on Thursday January 16, 2003 @06:36PM (#5098158) Homepage
    ...this guys funds this excursion by harrassing people for two dollars, right?

  • Dumb and... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Bob Vila's Hammer ( 614758 ) on Thursday January 16, 2003 @09:25PM (#5099225) Homepage Journal
    I keep remembering the bike trek made by Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne. As I read the passage about this man carting his own waste through the tundra, I can only imagine his toil being not unlike Lloyd and Harry's when they first arrived in bitter Colorado. In their disquieted and inimitable words I find the response: "Just go man, just go."

  • Man crawls to south pole... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by cornice ( 9801 ) on Thursday January 16, 2003 @09:56PM (#5099367)
    It's this kind of thing that makes me wonder why anyone cares. I bike. I bike a lot. I just can't see why sombody would take a bike to the south pole when hiking or skiing would work so much better? It's like race walking. It's different. It's hard. It's contrived. I can dream up any number of hard, death defying contrived things to do. That doesn't mean they are worth doing. There is a reason this expedition is self funded.

    • Re:Man crawls to south pole... (Score:1, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Because some people enjoy 'ice biking', as we call it.

      I live in a climate where winter is very long and temperatures are typically below 0F. I love biking in the cold. I even own a set of studded tires for biking on ice and snow. I live near a smallish lake and often ride across it. Great fun.

      I think what this guy is doing is pretty cool, but to be honest if any decent cyclist had the money they could do this. It's really a matter of funding and getting the proper equiptment.
      • I love biking in the cold. I even own a set of studded tires for biking on ice and snow. I live near a smallish lake and often ride across it. Great fun.

        I've done that. You're right. It's big fun. It's also fairly effecient as long as you can maintain traction and your chain doesn't get too gummed up with snow. I can ride a stock bike (with studs) on ice and snow and actually travel fairly fast. If the ice is not smooth then it's a better form of transport than skating. The bike being used to travel to the south pole is far from what you and I are talking about. It adds so much weight and mechanical complexity that I fail to see any benefit. Maybe I could make roller skates with giant studded tires and get my name in Wired too.
  • Wake me up when the POGO STICK to the south pole expedition gets under way.
  • there's gonna be some poor driver stuck behind this slow bastard beeping away... "drive your bike on the shoulder damnit!"

  • The Iditabike [google.com] is a bike race in winter in Alaska at the same place than the more famous Iditarod (dog sled race). I have some friends who took part several times, with custom bikes using 2 or 3 wheels welded together.

    A few years ago a group tried to bike to the North pole. It was probably the shortest lived expedition of the history of polar adventure: after 2 hours they were turned around by the soft snow.

    A friend of mine tried biking on Antarctic ice and gave up quickly. He was using a normal mountain bike though (he also tried a custom sail sled). This guy seems much more prepared and I wish him good luck: the snow in the center is often crusty with a soft underlayer... Yes, I've been there [gdargaud.net].

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