Urs ‘Grizzly’ Pedraita sets new record for circumnavigating the world

SWISS endurance rider Urs ‘Grizzly’ Pedraita has set a new record for circumnavigating the globe through each continent’s longest axis in 119 days and 21 hours.

That time includes the time his bike spent being transported between continents – unlike other records that don’t include transfer time. Actual riding time was 72 days and 13 hours and a total distance of 47,390 miles.

Pedraita completed the epic journey on board a modified Victory Cross Country Tour – perhaps not the obvious choice for a globetrotting adventure, although fellow adventurer Nick Sanders has also eschewed using more conventional bikes for his long rides – choosing instead to circumnavigate the globe on a Yamaha R1.

Nate Secor, Marketing Manager for Victory Motorcycles said: “This record is a testament to the durability, capability and dependability of our Cross Country Touring platform.

‘Victory Touring owners love to roll back the miles. If you asked them, they’d likely say there’s a little bit of Grizzly in each of them when they’re covering ground during their own journeys.’

Pedraita started his adventure from Daytona on March 11, riding 3,971 miles in six days and 14 hours to reach Panama City.

From there, he returned 2,088 miles to Santiago, Chile, loaded his bike onto a plane and flew to Australia, for six days and five hours’ riding 4,604 miles west from Sydney to Perth.

Then it was on to Cape Town and a 7,509-mile journey (13 days and 23 hours) north from Cape Town to Cairo to complete the African continent.

Next it was on to a ferry to cross the Mediterranean and land in Tarragona, Spain to cover 5,447 miles in six days and 23 hours from northern Spain to Gibraltar to North Cape (Nordkapp) in Norway.

Pedraita then turned East to ride through St. Petersburg, Moscow, Irkutsk and Vladivostok during an 11-day-7-hour, 7,280-mile journey across Russia, a four-hour and 249-mile tour through South Korea, and a five-day-11-hour and 2,989-mile ride through Thailand and Malaysia.

The final part of the journey began at Kuala Lumpur when the bike was loaded on to another plane bound for Anchorage before the final 6894-mile leg across North America finished in Daytona Beach.

At the end of the trip he exclaimed: ‘With this journey the spirit of the pioneers of the past has been re-established.’

‘There is no place for time-stops in this kind of adventure. This victory belongs to the team and is dedicated to my brother and my guardian angel, Emelie from Peru.’