An emergency room doctor and an air ambulance doctor, Louis Snellgrove and Lloyd Collier from the United Kingdom, are on their way to setting a Guinness World Record for round the world tandem cycling, all in the name of two charities: Spinal Research and the Brain Foundation, who support The Miami Project to Cure Paralysis research efforts.
Their world record attempt started on August 7th, 2018 – cycling around the world on a tandem bike to raise funds for brain and spinal cord injury research. The team will start the United States of America leg of their amazing challenge in Miami, Florida after cycling from Australia through 22 countries including Siberia, Mongolia, India and the Europe. They will complete the final leg travelling across the United States from Florida to San Francisco.
“We have encountered many trials and tribulations on our journey so far, being hit by a truck on our first day, robbed at knife point in the Gobi Desert of Mongolia, coming face to face with a Siberian brown bear in the Russian wilderness, knocked off our bicycle by a selfie taking motorcyclist in India, to name but a few,” said Louis.
The intrepid doctors are fully self-supported and hope to complete the whole challenge in around 300 days. The current record is 320 days according to Guinness World Records
“We expected the cycle to be physically and mentally challenging,” says Lloyd who was inspired by his late uncle Alun to undertake this challenge. “Despite spending 30 years in a wheelchair because of a spinal cord injury my uncle achieved so much, and this has spurred me on to make the most of my life and achieve as many of my goals as possible.”
The riders have encountered many trials and tribulations on their journey thus far including; being hit by a truck on their first day, robbed at knife point in the Gobi desert of Mongolia, coming face to face with a Siberian brown bear in the Russian wilderness, knocked off their bicycle by a selfie taking motorcyclist in India to name but a few.
In Miami the riders are going to visit a few research labs at The University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Miami Project to Cure Paralysis to discuss the state of research. Over the year’s Spinal Research has supported The Miami Project’s Dr. Mary Bunge, Dr. James Guest and Dr. Monica Perez, among others.
The riders can be followed on the web via World Tandem and on social media at @WorldTandem.
Spinal Research is the United Kingdom’s leading charity funding medical research around the world to develop effective treatments for paralysis caused by spinal cord injury.
Spinal Research raises money to fund research into clinical treatments including vital scientific research such as clinical tools to better understand the injury, and for the devastating effects on daily living such as breathing, hand movement, and bladder and bowel control.