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Permalink Reply by Thunder Snow on January 5, 2012 at 6:34am

Man, talk about Bike Winter! At those extreme temperatures, I wonder if the chain will get brittle and snap, or the oil and lubricants on the moving parts will freeze solid.

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Permalink Reply by S on January 5, 2012 at 7:29am

It's actually summer there right now.  I can't see trying to bike or get to the south pole during the antarctic winter.   The weather would be absolutely brutal and getting rescued if something goes wrong would be very difficult since airlifts aren't available even if you manage to get to one of the bases with an airfield.  Oh yeah, there's also no sunlight for most of the day so you'll need lights for the 18+ hours of darkness.

Thunder Snow said:

Man, talk about Bike Winter! At those extreme temperatures, I wonder if the chain will get brittle and snap, or the oil and lubricants on the moving parts will freeze solid.

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Permalink Reply by BruceBikes on December 30, 2013 at 7:42am

On December 27, Maria Leijerstam became the first person to cycle to the South Pole on a cool (no pun intended) tadpole recumbent trike.

(Makes me wonder what happened to Helen Skelton's attempt from the original post.)

Edit - Looks like Ms. Skelton did indeed reach the South Pole in 2012, but biked only 103 of the 500 miles.

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