Not everyone can say they’ve cycled through cities, across borders, time zones and cultures – nonetheless at 80 years old!
For Robert Fletcher, an octogenarian adventure cyclist, there’s no ride too big to take on. Hailing from London, ON, and now living in Costa Rica after retiring from a career as an educator, he puts everything into riding. For the last five years Robert has organized road bike tours across Costa Rica and Nicaragua for his family and friends. But he has also taken on some amazing rides on his own: he’s ridden 300 kilometres from Amsterdam to Rome in a month; done the 1500-kilometre Garden Route in South Africa in just 18 days; and even rode from Anchorage to Mexico City covering 10,400 kilometres in four months.
On the heels of entering a new decade of life, Fletcher is now chasing a new adventure: a Guinness World Record.
After watching the show The Long Way Up, where the series characters ride their Harley Davison motorcycles from Argentina to Los Angeles, Fletcher had an idea. To celebrate his 80th birthday, he decided that he wanted to ride from Alaska to Panama City all on his e-bike. To top it off, the idea to chase a world record popped into his mind. After his application was accepted by Guinness World Records for the longest motorized bicycle ride, he started to prepare himself and to surpass the current record of 8,029.2 kilometres.
Cycling Canada was able to chat with Robert in between two legs of the journey to chat about his experience.
How long did it take you to plan the trip?
I would say from the first of February 2021, when I first started to get the idea that I was going to be 80 and I started to think about what to do and came up with some ideas.
When I saw the series Long Way Up, that’s where I got the idea to do the same, but with an electric bike.
What was the biggest challenge you faced?
As far as bike riding goes, it was pretty smooth. But having to be so regimented to the calendar, having set dates over your head doesn’t allow a lot of freedom within the timeframe to experience any illness or even mechanical problems. We had to keep moving. I had to travel back to see family, I was doing press interviews and Facebook Lives and make sure I was taking time for rest days.
The border crossing into the Latin America countries were also time consuming. As a cyclist, it would’ve been easy, but it took up to four hours to finalize the paperwork because I had a minivan for support and a tent trailer that they had to inspect.
Photo credit: Robert Fletcher
Is there anything you would have done differently?
One of the things that I would change for the South American section is planning more time to cross the borders and making sure we get there early enough to avoid having to ride in the dark, because we got trapped a couple of times having to ride 10 or 20 kilometres in pitch darkness.
We also didn’t anticipate a hurricane and to have to stop to wait it out, which made us have to stay a couple of days to make sure it was safe to keep going.
Were there harder days?
Not physically, but there was a mental challenge when I had to ride in a section that was not documented anywhere. I was trying to do as many new roads as possible to avoid repeating the ones I had done before. Crossing San Diego, we tried this new route and leading up to it, my stomach was turning because I hadn’t heard of anyone else crossing it with a bicycle. Once up there, the days were long. There were no towns, no stores, the temperatures were reaching 44 degrees. But it ended up being my favorite memory of the whole trip because of the scenery, the desert, the lack of people. It made me nervous at first, but it turned out to be my favorite memory.
But even with the few challenges, I look at it the same as getting up to work. I wake up at 7am, I eat breakfast and go on a ride for five to six hours. I have a couple of beers after and I keep telling myself, “Wow, I get to do all of that again tomorrow. I am the luckiest guy in the world.” I get to ride 130 different routes in 130 days so I can’t say there was a real challenge, even though the days can be long. It’s a total experience, meeting new people, different cultures and languages. It is really special.
Did anyone accompany you?
When I put the project together, I knew I would need somebody to ride with me all day, just to keep me company. Everyone who was there with me had a different skill that ended up being super useful. We had someone who could speak Spanish, which helped when crossing borders; someone else was filming; we had a project manager who was in charge of booking hotels for the crew. They were doing the hard days with me.
Photo credit: Robert Fletcher
How were you welcomed in the cities where you stopped?
It was amazing, people would stop and want to take our picture. I had a sign on my back that was describing the project and people seemed to be really inspired. I wanted to motivate them to get outside, to get on a bike and tell them that they could do the same thing. I was amazed by the interest that young people had in what I was doing.
The sign really drew attention to us, people would honk and wave at us. They would stop us and give us gifts, some people made us lunch, a guy even offered me a big jar of peanut butter to take with me. The police was also incredibly friendly. They would escort us in areas where traffic was dense, some police officers even invited us to try their mountain bikes back at the station.
What was your favorite part?
My favorite part was the finish, getting to Panama because it was the job well done. It was planned, it went successfully, we were basically on schedule according to what we planned. We were only four to five days late. It was a good feeling of having accomplished what I’d set out to accomplish and reach the goals that I wanted to reach. It was by far the most exhilarating part that I find, lifting the bike above our heads there in Panama City.
Photo credit: Robert Fletcher
What will you change for the second part of your trip?
This time around will be much different. I won’t have to buy the equipment I had to buy – a car, a tent, staff. My wife will be coming with me to act as a project manager and we will try and get different people to ride with me. The route is completed and planned, and there will be 20% more climbing than the first leg, which is exciting because it will be physically challenging.
What would you want people to take away from this trip?
There’s a stereotype in media that makes people think that life is over after 65 years old, that older people have to rely on others to take care of them and I wanted to show that this isn’t necessarily true. I wanted to demonstrate that life does not end after retirement. I’ve had other riders tell me how good it was to ride with me, that I was inspiring them to keep going even once they retire.
The people I met along way – and they can be triathletes, they could be climbing mountains – they don’t get any recognition. Their family and friends probably think they are crazy for setting goals like these. They’re not high paid professionals, they’re not Olympians. They are doing it for the love of the sport, for the endurance and for the culture. The best people you can meet along of the way are amateurs, who get no credit for their work and who do it for no other reason than personal fulfillment. That’s what I want people to take away: if you have a crazy project, do it.
Robert Fletcher will be leaving for the second leg of his journey on July 4, 2023. He will be departing from Cartagena, COL, and is planning to set foot in Ushuaia, ARG, on December 5, 2023. Follow his journey on his blog or on Facebook.
Photo credit : Bojan Uzicanin
Photo credit: Bojan Uzicanin
