Rosarito to Ensenada

50-mile Ride
April 19, 2008

The Rosarito to Ensenada 50-mile Ride is one of our “Epic Rides” because it was our attempt to demonstrate that the elliptical bike prototypes we were building could be used comfortably over an extended distance.  You’ll see in the photos and video that Bryan rode the course on our “Charlie” prototype.  The bike performed flawlessly, covering the 50-miles at an average speed that exceeded 15 mph.  The event really proved the viability of the elliptiGO elliptical bike for extended endurance events and long-distance transportation.  

We have to admit, at the time we weren’t sure how Bryan or the bike was going to perform during the ride. Although he had put in about 700 miles of testing rides on Charlie during the three months that preceded the ride, the longest distance Bryan had gone at any one time was 35 miles. In addition, everyone we talked to who had done the ride mentioned that there were two notorious, never-ending hills on the course. Bryan hadn’t done much climbing during his training, so we weren’t sure how he was going to do on the hills.  We were also concerned about the ride being in Mexico with the uncertain road conditions and a recent spate of violence down there. As you’ll see, our fears proved unfounded and everything went great.

Our film and support crew, consisting of Livy, Pat, Doug, Nikki, Nellie, Bill and Chris, did an incredible job of getting us down and back and capturing the event in videos and photos. Since Bryan had neglected to put a memory card in the video camera before we started, the support crew provided emergency support to the film crew for a daring mid-course handoff of an SD memory card.

We finished the race in 3 hours and 16 minutes of ride time for an average speed of 15.1 miles per hour. We are confident that at the time, it was the world record for seatless, elliptically powered bicycles. Our total time was 4 hours and 3 minutes because it took us about 15 minutes to cross the start line and another 30 minutes to reconnect with the film crew at an aid station after we all got separated on the first big hill. That’s a story in itself - but luckily it was our only stop of the ride.   You can check out the video to get a better sense of what it was like and how the eliptical bike performed, especially on the hills.