The Craziest Man I Know

Eric Larson is a truly insane man.  He came to Surly a while ago with a plan to ride a bike to the South Pole.  From the edge of Antarctica directly into the heart of its warn chewy center, he will ride a Surly Moonlander, through 750 miles of ice, snow and the never-ending blaze of the sun.

That’s the first thing that really struck me when I spoke to him about it.  The sun won’t ever set over the course of his journey.  He’ll ride, eat, drink, set up camp, cook, blog, change flat tires, then nestle up in his cozy sub zero sleeping bag and go to sleep in full daylight.  Light like high noon.

It makes me realize how much I take things like darkness for granted.  I like the dark, it’s fun to hide in, ride bikes in and especially sleep in.  But Eric Larson will have no such extravagancies.  Except for the bike riding, that he’ll have.

Eric is planning on becoming the first person to ever ride a bike the whole journey.  You may remember (if you’re into such things) last year a woman rode a beach bike and paraskied across the continent, though she spent almost all of her time on the skis and very little on her bike. Larson is doing it all on the back of a Moonlander; and I for one think that’s super fucking cool!

He’s spent a great deal of time training and preparing for the trip.  You can read all about his preparations, exploits, the specifics of each leg of his journey and even follow along with him, here: http://www.ericlarsenexplore.com/

Here are some cool training pictures he sent us.  Make sure you follow this guy, it’s sure to be quite a show.