I am a DUAL WORLD RECORD HOLDER!!!

Oh What a Night!!!!!

Mid December back in 2012

What a very special time for me

As I remember what a night……..

You know the rest of the words I am aware relates to a totally different context but last night was a special night for me and a few others.  Last night I found myself IN Fed Square in a sea of green tops and black lycra bike shorts.  We were all there trying to achieve something special and make history.  I was fortunate enough to take part in Futuride last night which saw a large group of cycling enthusiasts of all levels sitting on stationery bikes attached to generators pedalling to generate electricity.

A 'peloton' of 120 specially-prepared bikes, all fitted with generators, were positioned at Federation Square in the shape of branches of a giant Christmas tree (when viewed from above). Riders' pedal power illuminated individual Christmas trees that, in turn, formed the outline of the giant tree. At night, this was a spectacular sight (see picture below taken from a helicopter) and this alternative energy demonstration helped to illustrate the contribution we can all make to a sustainable future. Riders had to generate 80 watts of electricity to power their Christmas tree, several LEDs and a halogen light. The average Tour de France® rider can generate 350 watts for up to 60 minutes in a long hill climb. In a shorter sprint they might generate more power for a short time - about 450 watts. As we all found out, the more devices they need to power from their bicycle, the harder pedalling becomes.  For one minute we each had to pedal on the highest setting, which increased the resistance level of the generator, to power all three lights.  Thankfully it was only for one minute as it certainly showed us that our levels of fitness were probably not where we thought they would be.  It was also amazing to watch Cadel Evans during this minute on the stage as his legs were going crazy, which proves to me that he was taking this very serious and had worked up a good sweat as well.


Aerial View of the lights and cyclists.



After our 15 minute stint had finished we hopped off the bikes and made way for the next wave, of which there were 4, and stayed around to see if we were successful in breaking the world records of which there were 2 we were trying to break.  These records were:

• Most electrical energy generated by pedalling on bicycles in one hour (previous record 786)
•        Most lights lit by pedal power (previous record 10,000)

At the end of the hour, Fed square was lit up beautifully in the dark with all the Christmas trees and LED lights surrounding the bikes.  The gentleman from Guinness Book fo World Records came on stage to announce whether or not we were successful.  He informed us that we had successfully set 2 new benchmarks for these records, but then told us how much we had beaten them by.  Our quantity of watts for the hour was over 4400 and the number of lights we lit was 35,000 in total so as you can see we not only broke the records we smashed them.

Myself and team Captain Bec before the start

Picture of me on the big screen

The entire Fighting Back Team working through the mad minute

Whilst this is not something that I had to train for or was overly strenuous ( I would have struggled pre 12WBT) it is still a sense of achievement and the feeling of being part of something which filled me with pride.  It also nice to receive a medal afterwards stating that we were part of breaking the 2 records and my oldest son has taken my medal to school to show off to his friends and of course tell them his dad is a dual world record holder…….

My Medal to prove it.

To add to the good week, I had a 600gram loss this morning, which was probably not deserved.  I had a very indifferent week with my training and diet was not 100% especially with a few sneaky beers and wine over the weekend.  I will take the loss though as it might be karma because I think there were some weeks last round where I did work hard and never saw the result.  It is still a step forward and means I have lost 6kgs this round and 36.7kgs since I started.  Now to finish the fitness test and do my measurements, which I am really looking forward to.