I love looking at it. Imagining all the different places we could go. One night we happened upon the question “if we were to ride our bikes around the world, where would our route go?” The thought drew us closer to the map, annotating arcs across continents, noticing places we’d like to include and places we’d never really thought about.

It was the seed of an idea that was ready to dig in roots.

When I started trawling the internet to find out what other people had done I immediately noticed a pattern in the names – they were all male –– whaaat, no women? I hadn’t even anticipated people would be rolling out to set world records, noticing one didn’t even exist for a woman got me more excited. Challenge accepted!!

And so began the countless hours pouring over blogs, researching routes, and corresponding with experts around the world.

The route requirements set out for a Guinness World Record (GWR) provided a structure for me to begin laying down our route, we needed to:

1. Start and finish at the same location
2. Cycle in one direction (East to West or West to East), with any considerable distance in the opposite direction being discounted from the overall distance
3. Cycle a minimum of 18,000 miles (28,970km) and travel a total distance the length of the equator (24,900 miles or 40,075km)
4. Ride through two approximate antipodal points (opposite points of the planet)

We decided we should find a way for people around the world, particularly those who might find their circumstances wouldn’t allow them to undertake such a global adventure, to vicariously experience the whole thing with us. And this arm of our adventure became known as Ride To Learn – an adventure learning program streamed into classrooms all around the world with kids being inspired by our adventures and learning about the origins of t-shirts, shoes and bicycles through the stories we shared and the resources we provided. We built a team of educators and advisors who would be setting up interviews along our route.

So, both our sponsors and our education team would be very influential in planning our route.

We were also open to the fact that we needed a general arc for our route and to allow for minor adjustments on the ground.

Our plan was to ride 120km a day, 6 days a week, equating to ~700km a week and 10-months to complete the journey. Additional days off the bike for any reason would need to be caught up.

So, our route markers for the GWR requirements:

1. Start and finish location – St Kitts & Nevis, West Indies
2. Direction – West to East
3. Cycling distance – 29,025km
4. Approximate antipodal points – Rosario, Argentina (32.85°S 60.63°W) and Gaoyou, China (32.85°N 119.37°E)