Toronto-based adventure cycling company offers “unforgiving,” “magical” Antarctic bike package

Do you have about $70,000 kicking around? Because if so, and if you’ve got an equally-robust sense of adventure to balance out your bank account, a Canadian adventure cycling company has announced the ultimate expedition on two wheels.

The ride, Toronto’s TDA Global Cycling announced earlier this week, will take the intrepid across Antarctica, all the way to the South Pole.

Scheduled to roll out in December, 2016, it’s a well-timed itinerary. With summer happening around that time of year in the extreme southern hemisphere, it’s certainly not the worst time to be cycling through Antarctica, as cycling through Antarctica goes. Twenty-four hours of daylight keeps things on the moderate side, with an average temperature of 20 degrees celsius. The winds are strong, of course, but ideally, they’ll stay at a participating rider’s back.

The bike expedition itself, traversing the most southerly place on the planet, seems nothing short of incredible. According to TDA Global Cycling’s website, it will take a participating squad of 30 cyclists from the 89th parallel to the geographic South Pole — 111 kilometres in all, an 18-day journey across the frozen, windswept flats of Antarctica. Called “The Last Degree,” the journey, TDA Global Cycling claims, is the first expedition to the South Pole ever attempted by fat bike — with being part of the historic first a big part of the appeal.

Since the organization came together a little over ten years ago, the Canadian company has specialized in exactly that kind of ambitious, adventurous cycling. During its history, 1,300 people have embarked upon two-wheeled journeys along corridors like the Silk Route, from Beijing to Istanbul, or the North American Epic, from Anchorage, Alaska south to Mexico City. In all, 60 countries have been explored by bike. In describing the appeal of such an adventure to, say, the South Pole, president Henry Gold called such rides a near-spiritual, sublimely larger than life experience.

“Many people do this,” he said, speaking to Metro News, “because it’s a way of recovering from bad experiences, like breakups such as breakups or death of a loved one. But many more just want to experience the joy of riding a bike the longest way possible.”

For those riders, though, it won’t be as simple as just saddling up and rolling out. Citing safety as priority, the organization puts the thirty-strong squad through something of a boot camp in preparation. A week’s mandatory training on Lake Winnipeg in February precedes departure to Punta Arenas, Chile, the site of four days of further preparation, gear inspection and shakedown. Fat bikes loaded and ready, the squad then flies south to Antarctica’s Union Glacier base camp. Days later, acclimated to the environment after another thorough round of training and test rides, the adventure begins.

“The cyclists,” the event’s website reads, “will have an opportunity to experience firsthand the unforgiving but magical Antarctic landscape. They will be rewarded with the satisfaction of completing what was, until now, simply never done.”

More information about the adventure is available online.