In Belgium, Matthieu Bonne is a phenomenon: he has overcome several extreme challenges and always seeks the limits of what is achievable. Among other things, he has already swam 65 kilometers along the Belgian coast and completed eight triathlons in eight days on eight different Canary Islands. And now he accomplished a new challenge and immediately broke a world record: he traveled to America to cycle a whopping 3619 kilometers in just 7 days. It was tough though, he revealed afterwards: “This was the toughest thing I’ve ever done.”
Bonne covered an average of 517 kilometers per day, eventually breaking the previous world record by 29 kilometers. Per day Bonne spent about 17-19 hours on the bike, and on the last day even more than 20 hours. He also conquered at least a thousand vertical meters per day, and Bonne regularly had to deal with bad weather. This was a major setback because Bonne chose the location in the United States precisely because the weather in Arizona, where is challenge took place, is usually pretty fine.
“This is mentally by far the toughest thing I’ve ever done,” Bonne said afterwards. “Especially because of the bad weather conditions. It was also physically grueling. We had specifically chosen the location in Arizona because there is normally little wind and precipitation here, but you can’t control nature. If you can’t drive on because of that, you lose time where you could otherwise drive miles. But, the goal was to break the record and we succeeded.”
