Difficult Times

With the tough weather (rain and winds) Arvid has been facing, he’s been forced to ride longer days to keep up with the record pace. Like in 2011, this has resulted in fluid retention in his legs. If you’ve read the book, you’ll know that it feels like he is pedalling underwater when he’s retaining fluid. This results in sluggish RPMs, a loss of power, and decreased speed. If he’s forced to bike with fluid retention, his average speed drops by 5-10km/h. That loss of speed would guarantee falling behind the record, no matter how many hours in a day he cycled (unfortunately there’s a ceiling of 24 hours).

In order to combat the fluid retention, there are two possible methods: time off bike, and raising the feet. This allows gravity to bring the fluid back out of the legs. Arvid’s taking a 2-hour sleep with his legs almost straight up.

This is early in the ride to be dealing with this problem. Please keep him in your prayers, that he would experience renewed energy and that the fluid would drain quickly.