Unfortunately, the existing record set by Lloyd Willis in 1994 did not clearly indicate where the attempt was started. It just said “Alice Springs Town Hall”, which ironically doesn’t exist at all. There is an Alice Springs Council located in Todd Street, and there is a Northern Territory Government House and the Alice Springs Courthouse on Parsons Street (which is a bit further north and therefore further to the finish line). Alex and his team decided to start from the second (further) option, just to be on the safe side, so the official starting point was the corner of Parsons Street and Hartley Street.

 

Since the route between Alice Springs and Ayers Rock Resort is kind of dull (there are hardly any landmarks, it is just the real Australian Outback), it wouldn’t have been enough to just write down whenever he passed such a landmark. Thus, I decided to additionally read the odometer every 30 minutes. Please find attached the Road Log Sheet for further details.

The route is quite simple to describe. Parsons Street leads into Stuart Highway, that goes south for about 200 kilometres. Leaving Stuart Highway, the next 250 kilometres go west on the Lasseter Highway until you reach Ayers Rock Resort (Yulara), which is nothing else than a huge campground with a couple of hotels around it. Yulara lies just out of the Uluru – Kata Tjuta National Park, where the traditional owners don’t allow any sporting competition or events since it is against their original beliefs.

 

The finishing point was directly in front of the Desert Garden Hotel which is the first hotel on the left when entering Yulara. There was a finish line exactly in front of the stairs that lead to the information centre.

 

Alexander Gepp started his record attempt at 02.30 am in the morning. There were two cars following him: one support car which supplied him with all the liquid and fluid nutrition he needed for the ride. And a camera operator car that was filming the whole record attempt. The communication was done via radio communication.

The weather conditions at the start were perfect, the temperature was about 22 degrees Celsius (71,6 degrees Fahrenheit) and there was a light north to north-westerly wind. Alex started pretty fast and did 70 kilometres in the first two hours, so he was already far ahead of his best case schedule that was based on an average of 30 kilometres per hour. The support car was going directly behind him and gave additional light with its headlights, which also attracted some animals to approach the street. A couple of kangaroos were standing next to the road and watching us.

At sunrise (at about 6 am), the coldest temperature of the record attempt (19 degrees Celsius = 66 degrees Fahrenheit) was reached and the wind changed to a southerly wind and it started to become stronger and stronger. Alex stopped for a short break, his support crew took off the lights of the bicycle, cleaned the bars and oiled the paddles and the chain for him and one of the support members put sun screen on his arms, legs and face.

While the camera team more and more concentrated on filming other stuff too (the surrounding landscape, dead kangaroos and cows next to the street and so on), Alex more and more struggled with the wind that had turned into a strong headwind. Furthermore, the last 50 kilometres were slightly going uphill all the time, which made it even harder for him. His cycling speed decreased to below 25 kilometres per hour, and he seemed to be very unhappy about the whole situation. When Alex left Stuart Highway after 204 kilometres and finally turned west into Lasseter Highway, he had fallen back exactly to his best case schedule. Once around the corner, this southerly wind of course turned into strong side wind. Soon Alex recovered both mentally and physically and he was going clearly above 30 kilometres per hour again, which soon brought him ahead of his best case schedule again.

At around noon, Alex again stopped for a couple of minutes. An oncoming road train (a truck with four trailers, length more than 50 metres) had left Alex in a huge cloud of sand and dust. Alex decided to stop and to clean himself off, sunscreen was put on again, he put a white shirt under his helmet to protect his head from the aggressive Australian sun and the chain and paddles were oiled again. By the way, the temperatures had already reached more than 38 degrees Celsius (more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit).

There was a total number of eight grids on the road. Alex always stopped and carried his bicycle over the grid. He told me afterwards that he once had a nasty accident with one of these grids and ever since then he has been extremely careful with such obstacles.

After one stop, Alex was pushed off by one member of the support team. I reminded both Alex and his support team that according to the Record Attempt Rules 12 a), “a competitor may not receive any type of push-off from another person…” and issued a warning here. I further told them that if they repeated this action again, I would have apply a penalty. The support team and Alex apologised and mentioned that they didn’t not think about that rule in that moment. This was the only (minor) violation during the whole record attempt, all the rest was done according to the UMCA Record Attempt Rules (sufficient light, public highway laws, support crew and so on).

Alex was able to hold his average speed of above 30 kilometres per hour for the next couple of hours. After more than 13 hours on his bike, he increased his speed again, the impressive Ayers Rock in sight. Alex explained that his new goal now is to break 15 hours. At this moment it was clear that he would easily break the existing UMCA World Record.

The camera team had left Alex in the meantime and drove ahead to the finishing point where they prepared everything for the finish. They put the big clock next to the finish line, a ribbon was put up, the last kilometres were marked on the street and together with the public relations office of Yulara, people were gathered together at the finish line to have a little audience when Alex arrived.

When Alex approached the last kilometre, it was already clear that he will even stay under 15 hours, so there was enough time for the support team to hand over both an Australian and an Austrian flag. Waving those two flags, Alex finally reached the finish line and received the applause of about 30 people (tourists and employees of the Ayers Rock Resort Management). The big clock stopped at 14 hours 56 minutes and 33 seconds, and the odometer of the pace car showed 451.8 kilometres (280.8 miles). I explained Alex and his crew that according to UMCA Record Attempt Rule 2 j) “the times for all records are to be rounded to the nearest minute, which makes this record 14 hours and 57 minutes (average speed: 30,17 km/h = 18.75 mph).