Electric bike rider aims to reclaim record
Cyclist travelling across Canada to raise awareness about sustainable energy
Danny “Hurricane” Halmo was guaranteed to turn some heads as he pedalled out of Saskatoon on Wednesday.
Dressed as the Flash, astride a modified silver electric bike, Halmo is 51 days into his crosscountry journey — which began in Langley B.C. on Aug. 28 and is expected to end in early 2019 in Halifax — to bring awareness to sustainable energy.
“It’s really about freedom,” he said. “The main thing I’m doing is showing people that these bikes can do a lot more than you think … If you were to drive an electric bike to work only on the nice days, you would save enough on your fuel costs that you could buy a brand new bike every year.”
This journey is also an attempt to regain his Guinness World Record for the longest journey on an motorized bicycle — a title he previously held for a short time in 2013 before an American cyclist topped Halmo’s 6,721 kilometre record before the certificate even arrived in the mail.
The current record, now held by a different American cyclist, sits at 8,209 kilometres. He plans to up that number significantly to 10,500 kilometres.
“I’ll settle for 9,000 (kilometres) but I don’t want to just beat him by a little wimpy amount — I want to beat him bad,” Halmo said with a chuckle. “All the records before this have been done with a chase vehicle, so doing this unsupported will make it even better.”
The bike — a basic Genze model that cost about $1,800 and can travel around 30 to 80 kilometres on a single charge — and its accompanying trailer are a constant work in progress with hundreds of hours already invested, he said. The majority of the trailer has been upcycled using an old towable children’s chariot that has been extended using part of a children’s swing and wire baskets he found next to a dumpster.
Halmo uses solar panels to power his turn signals, GPS transmitter, camera and phone charger; the bike itself is powered by four batteries. He used his stop in Saskatoon to start preparing for colder weather, picking up a few additional batteries before he sets out on the next leg of his journey.
“Cold weather severely affects the speed and range (the bike can travel,)” he noted.
Halmo is partnered with the Saskatoon-based company Sun Country Highway, which has installed electric vehicle charging stations at Peavey Mart locations across Canada.
“Ninety-nine per cent of the Sun Country chargers are free,” Halmo said. “We have the world’s largest electrified highway system. There’s over 4,000 free chargers all over the country and you can actually drive across Canada in an electric car for free.”