The world’s largest Strava art is finally finished

The world's largest Strava art is finally finished

Seven countries, 7,237 kilometers, a dog as a passenger, and the biggest bicycle ever.

Arianna Casiraghi and Daniel Rayneau-Kirkhope sold their car and set off from Italy in July of 2019, by bike of course, riding 550 kilometers to the start point of a project they wanted to complete to prove that bikes are a viable means of completing such a journey. The idea was simple: Draw the world’s largest bike, an enormous example of Strava art with a huge swath of western Europe as their canvas. Do it to prove that any journey, no matter how long, can be done by bike.

From Vy-lès-Lure on the eastern edge of France, they traced the seat tube north, drew a saddle around Belgium, then rode the top tube back toward Paris. The handlebars curled around to Versailles, the fork dropped down toward the Massif Central. The rear wheel stretched from Zurich to Frankfurt, 400 kilometers as the crow flies and much farther if you’re sticking to ETRTO spec.

On board for the entirety of the trip was Zola, a Lagotto Romagnola and Very Good Dog who only got diarrhea once, tucked into a cargo bike custom designed and built by Rayneau-Kirkhope.

Breaks for a knee injury and a pandemic slowed progress, and the trio pegged total time at 131 days. In that time they climbed more than 74,000 meters (242,000 feet), rode through part of a European winter and an entire summer, ate 35 kg of pasta, and had, incredibly, only one flat.

This week, they finished. The feat surpasses the Guinness World Record for the largest GPS drawing (a 7,163.67 km marriage proposal from Yasuhi Takahashi in Japan in 2010. The question was reportedly greeted with a “yes.”). It is, as far as we know, the largest drawing of a bicycle in the history of humankind.