Halfmoon Bay's Bruce Gordon has beaten the Guinness World Record for fastest solo global circumnavigation by bicycle, doing it in 153 days - 10 days faster than the previous record holder.
"I feel pretty good about it. I'm happy that I made it. Ten days sounds like a big gap, but really over the course of 153 days that's a pretty narrow margin and it's a lot narrower than I expected," Gordon said. "I was pretty boastful about thinking I could do it averaging 200 km a day and doing it in something like 125 days, so I'm almost a month later getting home than I thought I would be."
Gordon rolled into his driveway in Halfmoon Bay on Sept. 23 at 8:30 p.m., marking the end of an around-the-world journey that started there on April 8.
The home stretch came with some unexpected surprises for the record-breaking biker. Some friends from the biking community and Gordon's son Julian met him at the ferry terminal in Langdale to ride the last 40 km together.
"That felt great. It was really nice to have that. I think it spurred me on," Gordon said.
Once leaving the highway and travelling along Redrooffs Road Gordon saw even more support.
"There were groups of people stretched along Redrooffs, waiting for us and cheering for us as we went by," he said. "A whole bunch of kids with lights on their bikes had rode down past Sargeant's Bay and were all on the side of the road cheering."
Once he reached his destination, Gordon was surprised again to find a huge gathering of friends, family and neighbourhood supporters waiting in his driveway, ready to throw him a welcome home party.
"I was inundated by excited people who had hundreds of questions and that were all congratulating me. I was really surprised to see my mom was there, so I think the first thing I did was give my mom a big hug," Gordon said.
The celebration was a fitting end to a 29,000 km ride that was sometimes difficult for the 48-year-old cyclist.
As the weeks stretched into months, Gordon said he found it difficult to pull himself out of his hotel room bed and start riding in what were sometimes ugly weather conditions.
"The toughest part was definitely jumping on the bike and getting going. After that, 10 or 15 minutes later everything was cool again and I was smiling and happy to be out there," he said.
He has many memorable moments from the ride that took him through New Zealand, Australia, Greece, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain, England, the United States and Canada.
"Sometimes there would be 100 km that I would just be so in awe with the scenery and so amazed at the lack of vehicles on the road and the ease with which the bike rolled down that road with a tailwind and it would just be like a utopia or something, like everything you love about road riding was all just condensed into that three or four hours of stretch of road somewhere. And there are dozens and dozens of those that happened over the course of the entire ride," he said.
Australia was his favourite place to visit, although he enjoyed seeing all of the countries he travelled through.
"I would say for sure the most fun I had was in Australia, partly because of how friendly everyone is there," he shared. "The culture and everything is different enough to be really unique and exciting and yet similar enough, with everybody speaking English there and so many things are similar to what you would expect in America as far as being able to get around and communicate."
It was in Australia that Gordon had his only accident on the ride. While travelling down the road at dusk a kangaroo jumped out in front of him.
"I didn't even have time to brake. I hit him, went down hard on the right and slid along the ground a little ways," Gordon said.
His only injuries were a little road rash and a dislocated pinky finger.
"Other than that I didn't have any injuries at all, no scrapes or scratches. I never laid the bike down again," Gordon said.
His recumbent bicycle held up well during the ride and Gordon said he never had any mechanical issues to deal with.
"As a matter of fact I'm home on the same chain and drive train, same chain rings, same brake pads. As far as the bike goes the only thing that was replaced for the whole trip were tires and tubes, that's it," Gordon said.
Now that he's home and the around-the-world adventure is over, Gordon is getting back to work with his roofing company.
"I've got about a dozen calls to get back to as far as roofing goes so that's what I'm trying to do, jump back in there and get busy so I can start paying off my bills," he said.
Gordon will now compile all of his information to send to the Guinness Book of World Records to verify his new record.
"I've got to put the whole thing together, print it all out with all the evidence that I've gathered, all the proof of my route and my distances and anywhere where I've taken time to travel on a plane. That all has to be laid out in a clear concise way they can go over and verify. That goes off to them and then we all just wait to hear back from them and hear what they have to say. Once that happens then it will be official," Gordon said.
