Most people who yearn for adventure go for a weekend hike, or to vacation in an exotic country, or maybe take up a new extreme sport. Matti Pihlaenen and Jeremy Penman decided to think a bit bigger. The two friends, both second-year students at the University of Ottawa, are aiming to bike every stage of the upcoming Tour de France route this summer in the same number of days as the real competitors.
The Tour de France is a prestigious annual bicycle race, which covers approximately **2,200 miles throughout France and its bordering countries. Lasting three weeks, the race attracts cyclists from around the world to compete in daylong stages, which are timed and totalled to determine the overall winner.
Pihlaenen and Penman, both 19-year-old Ottawa natives, will travel to France and begin their trip June 30, three days before the competitors. They will then spend the next three and a half to four weeks on their bikes, tackling an average distance of 200 km per day across the French landscape while camping each night.
“We’re hoping to do it in 23 days. If we did it in 25, I wouldn’t be mad. We have a couple grace days,” Pihlaenen says. “We’re doing it unsupported, so stuff could happen.”