February 2, 2001

12:21 PM

Odyssey 2000 has finally ended but many of the riders had complaints (and one person even lost a leg in Sweden).
posted by gluechunk (4 comments total)

Whoops. I apologize for the vagueness in the initial link text. I hit Post before realizing that I should have described Odyssey 2000. Basically, a bunch of bike riders paid $30K for the opportunity of riding around the world in the spanof one year. There were various troubles in the first half of the ride but a big event occurred in China when riders were asked to pony up another $3,000 if they wanted to complete the group ride. Some did, some didn't.
posted by gluechunk at 1:23 PM on February 2, 2001

I sort of admire TK&A for even trying to pull this off, but the whole thing sounded like a logistical nightmare from day one. Not only do you have to do complete advance route research, but you then have to verify the routes just days in advance of when your tour is going to go through if you want to have any chance of ensuring the safety of the participants. You only have to mess up once--your cyclists wind up sharing the road with a bunch of logging trucks--and it all falls apart.

My advice to TK&A in the future is make sure all of the people who sign up for the year-long trek have already ridden those kinds of distances every day for a month. Cycling 80 miles a day isn't for everyone, even those who can do the distance a few times a week. After a month on the road, most people will know if they can stand it for a whole year, particularly if they have to ride in the wind and rain for days on end.


posted by xiffix at 2:07 PM on February 2, 2001

Man, if I had a nickel for every time I had lost a leg in Sweden....
posted by Optamystic at 3:17 AM on February 3, 2001

This comment maybe tells you all you need to know about this outfit.
posted by normy at 12:30 PM on February 3, 2001