Ravi Kempaiah has successfully broken Troy Rank's 2014 Guinness Book of World Records ride of 4443 miles. Ravi finished up at 5100.9 miles. Certification is pending from Guinness. Congrats.
Both of these young men are ebike enthusiast in the purest sense. Neither are self-promoters and use the experience to highlight the expanse and joy of ebike riding. Both derive from the STEM fields with Troy a young electrical engineer in Rochester, NY, and Ravi, now 32, a PHD candidate in Material Sciences, studying at the Univ. of Maryland.
While both of their rides were an effort of epic proportions, the story of their journeys are different in many ways. Many of us have followed Troy's journey through his video blog, and we awed and applauded his raw effort of a self sufficient grind to the finish. I call Troy's journey the Heartland Ride. Ravi will be documenting and posting his experience, apart from the blog on Crazy Lenny's web page. From my initial view, I call Ravi's journey the Big Sky Ride.
Troy rode from Rochester, NY to Colorado and back in August 2014. It was hot almost all the time. Storms were heavy with energy. He travelled the rust belt, farm belt, great plains, corn fields and many small towns and cities of a past era. His views and nostalgia was the ride itself and the people he met. Ravi travelled this past month, mid July thru mid August, 2016, from Madison, WI, through the upper northwest of Voyageurs NP, Estes Park, Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, Grand Tetons, the Olympic NP in Pacific northwest, and down the whole state of California, thru Yosemite, San Francisco, LA to San Diego to Stromer's headquarters. He had breathtaking views at a mind imprinting 25mph, which most of us dream about. Ravi did have some heat, storms and bugs, which he navigated with night riding as well as day riding. Troy rode mostly during the day.
Troy was completely self supported. He camped, repaired his bike, edited a video blog, washed his clothes and hauled tools and parts on his Extracycle U-hauler. Troy did stay at some hotels and at times with friends. He had no sponsors that I know of. He built his own bike with a simple 1000W ddhub, nice front suspension forks, separate controller and a 2kWhr battery, and a back up battery. Troy did all of his own charging. Ravi was sponsored by Crazy Lenny, a great ebike advocate! Lenny provided a support van and driver who drove ahead and waited with a fresh charged replacement battery for Ravi's Stromer ST2-S, 500W/983Whr, $9000 loaner bike. Troy's bike cost him about $2k. I'm not sure if Ravi camped or did hotels all the way.
Being self sufficient, Troy's bike weighed in around 110lbs, if I remember right. Ravi rode with a Topeak carrier and food, and weighed near 60 lbs I expect. The biggest equalizer, given the contrast of detail, is that Troy rode with a throttle and had to do minimal pedaling. Ravi's ST2 is a PAS system, which means he pedaled ALL the way, and had the physiological demands of calorie intake and physical exhaustion. Troy averaged about 25 mph and 25-30 Whr/mi. Ravi was more efficient with pedaling and less weight, averaging 22-23 mph, and estimated 15-20 whr/mi.
The Heartland vs the Big Sky epic record breaking rides. Proud of both and neither should be forgotten.
Good Rides,
The Smart Ped`aleck
You said you'd do it and you did!
