Chris Lally and Danny Beech R&A International Scholars 2015 Final report

In March 2015, we were awarded a £6000 scholarship in order to attempt

to set the World Record for the fastest time to cycle the length of the Pan-

American Highway. After additionally gaining a £5000 scholarship through

the Alex Richardson Award, we had sufficient funding for both of us to attempt the feat. Over the

next 4 months our lives became almost solely dedicated to preparing for our mission - a 14000 miles

journey through 14 countries from the most northerly point of North America to the most southerly

tip of South America. We trained hard, changed our diets, sorted new bikes, booked flights and

became Amazon.com’s favourite customers. On July 28th at 19.43pm local time at the gates of the BP

oil field in Prudhoe Bay, Alaska, our journey began.

In the beginning…

‘Prudhoe Bay is a long way from Fife. It certainly feels like it when you’re standing on the shores of

the Arctic Ocean with your best mate, two road bikes and a bag of ham sandwiches you pieced

together at the airport. It is not a very desirable location. Lying 300 miles inside the Arctic Circle, it is

basically just an airport, an oilfield and two small lodges. 8 months of the year see Prudhoe covered

in ice, with temperatures dropping to -50 degrees Celsius and several weeks of complete,

unrelenting darkness. It defines the words remote and isolated. On the North American continent,

this is as far north as roads go. I say roads, there is in fact just one, and most touring cyclists would

prefer to use the word ‘track’. The Dalton Highway is a monster; 414 miles of gravel follow an oil

pipeline through the smoky wilderness, from tundra to mountains to immensely steep undulations

before eventually entering the inevitability of human beings and civilisation. We knew that pushing

our heavy road bikes through this first stretch was going to be seriously tough, especially with the

uncomfortable, bumpy gravel surface. If there’s one word that distributes sharp, unpleasant, pin-

prick impulses around every inch of our bodies, it’s gravel. It’s slow, it’s painful and there’s no

escaping it.

The long road

Chris at the startline in Prudhoe

My memories from those first few hours of the Panamericana will stay clear in my mind for the rest of my life. There are nine bears in town, be careful boys. These are the first words we hear after landing. With no chance of shelter for 250 miles and no chance of surpassing the tundra before the following morning, we are on our own. To make matters worse, my bear spray has been confiscated by US customs. We’re terrified, we’re nervous but we have no choice, we must ride south. At 19.43pm at the gates of the BP oil field, with 24 hours of daylight to pedal into, the clock starts ticking. I remember feeling an incredible sense of elation in those first few miles, probably more so than at any point on the entire journey. I just zoned out, turned the pedals and smiled to myself that this ridiculous idea was really happening. For a few minutes I forgot about the bears, I forgot about the distance that lay before us. We were actually cycling the Pan-American Highway. Our bikes had survived the journey, neither of us have been injured or become unwell - finally it was between us and the road. Gradually however, as each mile sign passed, the joy subsided and was displaced by the numbing reality of the task that lay before us. Sitting at home the map is only small, the distances look tangible and the endpoint looks reachable. Yet out here, pushing through the Alaskan gravel I feel small, insignificant, I feel hugely inferior to the magnitude of the earth and the length of this monstrous, snaking highway.’ An excerpt from ‘Panamericana: a wee bike ride’

St Andrews alumni and friends We tell people that we cycled the Americas unsupported. This is completely untrue. Were it not for the efforts of the University of St Andrews and their alumni network, we would have been on a very disappointing flight home at the beginning of September. Firstly, we’d like to reach out a huge thank you to the St Andrews development team and their international connections, in particular the work of Varan Houghton and Phil Pass. Varan was instrumental in helping us in the early stages of our project, securing contacts for us in Alaska, Colorado, Guatemala, Panama and Chile – in La Serena and Santiago. This meant that we had people to meet along the way and crucially, 3 resupply points (Colorado, Panama and La Serena.) Phil secured the postage of our 3 packages to these locations. It was an incredible boost for us to have these meetings to look forward to along the way.

The two packages waiting for delivery to

Panama and Chile

Firstly, up in Fairbanks, Alaska, we unfortunately did not quite work out a meeting with St Andrews marine biology graduate Sarah, but her advice regarding Alaskan roads and the route was much appreciated, as well as her donation to Headway. 4 weeks later, reaching our first resupply point in Colorado felt like an incredible achievement - we’d said many a time that we would be happy to have made it that far. Here, Sharron Gallagher and her family greeted us. Sharron is a friend of a St Andrews graduate who had heard about us through an appeal to alumni. For her kindness and benevolence to two complete strangers we are ever indebted. Colorado was our first clothes wash and change of parts and an essential resupply before we reached the Spanish speaking world.

The following day, in Denver, we met with Stalker Henderson whose father had studied at St Andrews and set up a huge web of connections between St Andrews and the USA.

Our meeting with Sharron Gallagher

and family in Berthoud, Colorado

Meeting Stalker Henderson in

Denver, Colorado

After a colossal battle through the raging heat of Texas and a terrifying border crossing into Mexico, we met with my grandad’s former Phd student Salvador, or Uncle Sal as he became known. He looked after us for the evening and put us at ease in Central America. His regular phonecalls and humour throughout the trip kept our spirits high.

Our next stop was in Guatemala. I was unwell that day having been sick with food poisoning all night, much to the disgust of the unfortunate hotel owner. Climbing from 0 to 1500 metres with no food to reach Guatemala City was utterly exhausting but our reward at the top was a meeting with Dr Neville Stiles MBE of the Guatemalan Olympic Association. Neville had spent a year at St Andrews doing a Phd in International Studies. He gave us an escort through the busy streets of the capital, looked after us for the evening and organised our exit from the city with the Guatemalan Track cycling team - an incredible experience.

Central America was a ridiculous time. We were crossing borders every couple of days, racing through some slightly sketchy, very sweaty, yet incredibly scenic countries. On 9th October, day 74, we reached Panama and were greeted by the delightful Ballard family. Their daughter, Isabelle, studies Maths and Psychology at St Andrews. The Ballard’s had received our package full of parts

Uncle Sal welcoming us to Mexico

with a small shot of tequila

The Guatemalan track cycling team

with Neville (left hand side)

and after taking pity on us, let us stay at their house for 2 days before our flight to Colombia. They were very generous and without them we would never have been able to change parts and rest up before the South American stretch.

Rested and rejuvenated, we cruised over the Andes reaching peaks almost 4000m about sea level. Peru was a desert from start to finish as we cycled approximately 3000miles through the dry stuff. It was a relentless pilgrimage through a dull, unforgiving landscape. It didn’t get any easier as we headed into Chile towards the famous Atacama Desert before we finally reached the fabled city of La Serena and the awaiting Ireland Family. Nothing made us happier than the sight of a red haired tattooed Scotsman standing on a street corner, smoking a cigar. Jonny Ireland was a former paratrooper in the British Army and his numerous brilliant stories gave us a huge boost. His wife Carolita was a Spanish graduate from St Andrews and it was lovely to share stories of our times in the town. This was our last set of new parts before the final push to the end of the world.

Huge thanks to the Ballard family for

looking after us in Panama City

A great evening in La Serena with

the Ireland family

We just had one last stop we needed to make. Back in June 2015 we had spoken to Ian Lally, a school councillor at Nido de Aguillas international school in Santiago. Following one of the toughest sections of the trip as we attempted to cycle 500km in 2 days directly into a brutal headwind, we arrived at the school with minutes to spare. We had agreed to give a presentation to 500 students about our trip as well as a question and answer session about the University of St Andrews. Despite our limited preparation time, the talk went well and we had lots of positive feedback. Hopefully we will have inspired some students to apply to the University or at the very least to aim high in life and believe they can achieve anything they set their minds to.

We even made the local papers in

Chile!

A few pictures from Santiago and

our presentation

Headway and fundraising As mentioned earlier, £5000 of our funding came from the Alex Richardson Award. Alex was a St Andrews student who tragically died of a brain injury in 2009. We decided to cycle in aid of Headway, the brain injury association and are still to this day in regular contact with them. They are an incredibly hard working and dedicated charity that not only help in the recovery and rehabilitation of people who have suffered from brain injuries, but also to aid these patients post-hospital to live the best lives possible. Additionally, they are strongly involved in brain injury prevention and have cycle helmet campaign, making Headway even more relevant for us. We are proud to have raised over £7000 for their cause so far.

Chris’ Highs and Lows

Highs

From herding bison in British Columbia to descending from 3800m to sea level in the Ecuadorian

Andes, the challenge provided many incredible experiences I will never forget. It is difficult to pick

one memory which stands above all others as my highest point, but for the sake of this report I will

choose the day when we completed North America and crossed the Panama Canal. Getting to

Panama was a huge milestone in so many ways. Firstly, it is the end of North America and we could

Impressive skills with a tailwind in the foothills of the Rockies

officially say we have cycled a continent, which is pretty cool. Secondly, we had survived the wildlife

of Canada and the USA and the cartels of Central America, so how much harder could it really be

through South America? Finally, our bikes were pushed to the limit on the roads through Central

America and were starting to make progress almost impossible. Danny was suffering at least 2

punctures per day through Mexico and with no new tyres until Panama all we could do was patch

old withered inner tubes. By the time we reached Panama over 500 miles later I had a thumb sized

hole in my tire which punctured every 20 minutes. This was possibly the biggest cause of friction

between us, causing a lot of stress and many sleepless nights. Upon reaching Panama we were

greeted by the Ballard family, who welcomed us into their home and let us be 22 year old students

for a couple of days before flying to Columbia. They also had new tyres waiting for us - ‘hallelujah’.

This gave us time to reflect on how far we had come. Having overcome mechanical failures, illness,

language barriers and some of the most dangerous countries in the world while still being in with a

chance to break the record, I really started to believe we could complete our mission.

Lows

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there were one or two low points on the trip. These came in many forms,

first came the loss of dexterity in our hands due to the freezing temperatures in the far north and

south. Then there were the unyielding head winds of the great planes and the pacific coast of South

America, made 100 times worse by the fact we were in the desert so with every turn of the pedals

we would be lashed across every inch of our tired bodies by razor sharp sand. This often led to

uncontrollable outbursts of rage directed at the wind.

Our tracker as far as Cartagena,

Colombia

For me though there is one challenge which stands above the rest. Whilst still in Canada I contracted

a parasite called Giardia, which causes a condition known as beaver fever. The symptoms are

uncontrollable diarrhoea and terrible flatulence. I cycled for approximately two weeks thinking the

problem was with my diet or some sort of food poisoning. In this time the condition only worsened,

as you can imagine cycling over 100 miles per day whilst not eating properly and feeling ill every

time you eat is unsustainable. This completely ruined our so far excellent progress. Perhaps the

toughest part was that I didn’t want to let Danny down as the pressure of going for the record was

always weighing on our minds. Eventually though, enough was enough, we weren’t making progress

and I had to go to hospital. This taught us a valuable lesson that we couldn’t just cycle through illness

as you aren’t going to get better while pushing your body to the limit every day. Overcoming these

challenges has shown me that no matter how large the hurdle, if I keep going, eventually I will get

where I want to be.

Funny times

Despite giving everything on the road, we still found time to have a laugh. Here are some of

our favourite pictures from the trip.

1) Halfway through Canada, my tent pole snapped. It subsequently proved very difficult to find

a suitable replacement 1 man tent. I ended up having to buy a bivvy bag which wasn’t even

long enough to fit me in. In the colds of the Rockies this wasn’t funny for long and after a

spending a night with a sleeping bag covered in ice, this soon had to be replaced.

2) Chris’ facial hair seemed to have the power to cheer us both up in any situation. Our picture

with our Colombian friend Andres really displays the sweaty sideburns at their best.

3) My flexibility or lack of it was another constant source of entertainment and here’s Chris

poking fun at me in Cali, Colombia.

4) Although we passed many, many bars, we didn’t get the opportunity to go into many. The

Cabin Creek Bar was in one of the most remote, beautiful towns in Montana. One of the

The time came to stop and recover

in Buffalo, Wyoming

beauties of this trip was that we got to explore the non-touristy remote places and meet

local people.

5) The vending machine picture is after a brutal 140 mile day through the heat of Texas. We

didn’t quite make it to a town, but found a service station where Chris was desperately

scrapping together change for a bar of chocolate, much to my amusement.

6) The final picture was probably the funniest moment of the trip. About 30 miles from the end

in Ushuaia, I managed to lock myself into a toilet cubicle and couldn’t get out. This wasn’t

the first time that I had managed to get myself into this predicament on the trip. Chris

almost had to finish cycling the Americas without me but thankfully I managed to rescue the

situation. The toilet cubicle remains locked to this day.

Figure 1

Figure 2

Figure 3 Figure 4

The World Record Attempt

At the end of the day, our main aim of this project was to break the World Record. Unfortunately,

we were unsuccessful, missing out by 5 and a half days, but we can’t say we didn’t give it everything.

On our previous cycling trips we had planned what mileage we would do each day and where we

would stay each night. However, we soon found out that the schedule we had set for the Pan

American Highway was not achievable. The first five days were a baptism of fire on the steep gravel

tracks and through the isolated bear-infested wilderness of Alaska. Despite this, we managed to

match the average mileage of the current record each day. This mileage soon became known as the

Napier number, named after Scott Napier = the current record holder for the Pan American

Highway. Once back on paved roads we managed to build a healthy margin (at its peak we were

approximately 5 days ahead in southern Canada.)

Unfortunately though, beaver fever reared its ugly head as we travelled into Middle America and

completely obliterated any margin we had on the record. As we edged ever closer to the equator we

Figure 5 Figure 6

had less and less daylight hours until we were starting to struggle to reach our allotted minimum

mileage. On top of this we both agreed that we just needed to survive through Central America as

there is no way we would break the record if we got kidnapped or knocked off our bikes. Upon

reaching Panama we looked at the miles in front of us and the time left on the record. After a wee

bit of maths we thought it was still possible, but it would mean smashing the record for South

America and averaging 130 miles per day. Columbia brought an exciting new start to the adventure

on a new continent and we made excellent progress through the Andes. Arriving on the barren

coastline of Peru we were absolutely flying, going hell for leather cycling into the night, making real

progress on the record. Unfortunately the cycling gods dealt us a cruel hand in the form of wasp.

Danny was stung in the eye by a wasp not far from Nazca, although painful at the time we thought

nothing of it but overnight Danny’s eye swelled, he looked like he had been 10 rounds with

Mohammed Ali. He couldn’t see and therefore couldn’t cycle - the roads in Peru were dangerous

enough with two eyes.

This was the final nail in the coffin for the Pan American Highway Record as the amount of time we

needed to make up was unrealistic. Despite missing out on the full record we still gave it everything

in the final stretch and managed to put in our biggest day (172 miles) and week (1087 miles.) This

monumental effort was not in vein as we completed South America in 53 days and 14 hours, some 4

and a half days faster than the current record.

Many thanks We are both incredibly thankful to the R&A and the University for this opportunity. Very few individuals are lucky enough to be given a chance to attempt something like this. We said in our

initial application that this would be a life-changing experience. We were not wrong. The Pan-American Highway has given us an unforgettable adventure and a lifetime of stories. We can say without question that this experience has influenced our perspective on the world and what we will choose to do with the rest of our lives.