Holger Seidel from Braunschweig, Germany wants to cross his homeland from the south to the north in a velomobile faster than anyone before. The 47-year-old has about 1100 km / 684 miles and 5 000 meters / 16404 feet in altitude to cover. The tour is planned for August this year and will start in southern Germany in Allgäu and will end at the Danish border near Flensburg. With his record attempt, Seidel wants to show that muscle-powered velomobiles can be an alternative to cars, for example for commuters, even over longer distances.
The record is currently held by Roland Schell who crossed Germany in 2017 in his Milan velomobile in 32 hours and 59 minutes at age 58. Holger will ride a velomobile of the same brand and although he is an experienced cyclist and has been riding a velomobile for 3 years now, he will have a hard time beating Roland. If you simply divide the distance by the expected time, you realize his average speed must be over 33 km/h or 20,5 mph, but that doesn’t include necessary stops for traffic lights, toilets, food supply, or unexpected repairs of the velo. So in the end he will need to ride with an average speed of 40 km/h (25 mph) or more.
Holger has been preparing himself in close cooperation with Velomobile World, manufacturer of Milan, and you can find more information about his attempt on their webpage incl. growing serial of vlogs from Holger where he describes different topics of the preparation. The first video can be found hereunder.
Holger, we all will follow you and will keep our fingers crossed so you push the boundaries a little bit farther.
