Accomplished Australian cyclist and adventurer Kate Leeming want to answer this question. If she succeeds, she will be the first person, male or female, in the world to do so.
Bicycling Trade met Kate at the Ausbike show in Melbourne back in October, and started by asking the most bleedingly obvious question of all.
Bicycling Trade: Why do you want to ride to the South Pole?
Kate Leeming: A few reasons. I’ve always been intrigued by Antarctica and always wanted to travel there and in the past it hasn’t been really viable to cycle and now with developing this equipment we think we’ve got a very good chance. The other reasons are I’ve got an incredible education program for kids about leadership and also raising funds for AIDS in Africa as a response to my previous expedition ‘Breaking the Cycle in Africa’ and this is called ‘ Breaking the Cycle South Pole’ so you can see the relationship there.
Just developing the technology is just an incredible challenge. People ski and even drive to the South Pole but no one’s managed to do this.
BT: No one’s ever done this before?
KL: No. Several people have tried. Everyone else has been doing it unsupported so they’re carrying weight. I just decided to make this a supported expedition. I have an amazing team that I’m working with and together we believe it’s very possible. There’s a bit more testing to do yet. We’re going to add a ski, a very wide blade snowboard ski with the slit in the middle around the tyres with an adjustable height so that when the wheel sinks it adds a little bit more floatation.
Whichever way you go in the South Pole it’s at 3,000 metres elevation, so you have to go up.
BT: How many in your support crew?
KL: There four of all together, Eric Phillips, who’s Australia’s most recognised polar explorer and he’s guiding. He’s really totally into this. Then I’ve got Claudio Von Planta, an amazing Swiss filmmaker who’s done things like Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman’s Long Way Round. So he’s got BBC World News already wanting a six part series which is amazing but, we do need the funds. We’ve also got Phil Coates who’s a polar specialist filmmaker and stills photographer and good with communications.
We tested the bike for the first time and now I really understand what else we need. We’re developing other things like solar powered handlebar mitts, the boots are being custom designed with special materials. Once we’ve got the boots sorted then I’ll decide on the pedals that I need my feet attached to the pedal. Probably not by cleats because of the metal and the cold and also I’ll be walking at times. Just maybe straight old toe clips, which is fine by me.
BT: Super low gearing required?
KL: Yes. I insisted on an even smaller granny gear, which has been very useful. I guess the technique for going over snow or very soft conditions is that you’ve just got to keep a very low gear and just keep up the cadence, keep moving. At any time I just sink, bang, straight down so I need that low gear to power out of that.
BT: Is there any rules as such determined by anyone as to how much you have to ride or is it just like get there, whatever while you can?
KL: I think it’s just get there. It depends on the conditions. There’s no rules to that and if I have to push the bike 90% of the way I’ll still be doing it. Hopefully I don’t.
BT: How long do you think it will take?
KL: One to two months depending on the route and also the conditions.
BT: How many kilometres a day are you looking to achieve?
KL: If I can do 40 k’s a day it’s done easy. If I think I can average a bit more, I’d maybe want to try the longer route, I’ll be going eight to 10 hours, I’d imagine. It’s pretty serious, I’m probably going to be burning 8,000 calories or more, I don’t know yet. All of this stuff is quite untested.
If you’d like to see more photos of Kate’s snow trial rides and other updates then visit www.kateleeming.com
