How it all began:
It's December 2004, temperatures are dropping and road bikes are being greased up for their annual highly deservered winter sleep. Only a few will dig up their mountainbikes to claim some miles of training even when snowflakes cover single tracks with huge layers of white powder. Every cyclist, including die-hard mountainbikers ease their heart rate for a while. Time to close down 'bike year 2004' and to welcome fresh ideas for the new year. And this time we're not thinking small...
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In a warm living in southerly Maastricht, two nearly graduated students, Frans van den Bouwhuijsen and Victor Niemeijer, shake hands. Both of them enthusiastic road bikers and mountainbikers have spun their cranks more than once, but are nevertheless still hungry for that ultimate cycling kick. Thoughts wander to distant places that hold the challenge of the extreme. Which country bedazzles us with outrageous scenery, mountains and high plateaus, can make us defeat hypoxia, let us conquer infinite stretches of provocatively sloping terrain, but above all let the adrenaline flow freely through our bodies?
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"Thoughts wander to distant places that hold the challenge of the extreme."
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The answer to that question can be found below the equator: Chile! Crossing Chile from north to south means defying the driest desert on earth, gasping for oxygen on the Altiplanos of the Andes, attacking the eternal rain of the Camino Austral, and parrying the icy winds of Tierra del Fuego, over a monstrous distance of 4000 miles. Take a look at The route and admit it's not your average, ordinary bike ride. And we have the ambition to complete the challenge within one hundred days.
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"defying the driest desert on earth, gasping for oxygen on the Altiplanos of the Andes, attacking the eternal rain of the Camino Austral, and parrying the icy winds of Tierra del Fuego"
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September 2005 we're supposed to have finished our studies and at that time the bike panniers will be packed. The 'Chili Challenge', as is the name of our expedition, will have a charitable goal as well. We preferred a project within the country itself aimed at street children. We have found such a project with the organization Maria Ayuda. We hope to engage as many people as possible in the project, in which case we can realize something meaningfull for the streetchildren of Santiago de Chile by means of sponsoring.
