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Kristen Bellmer's journey to creating the largest GPS art by bike
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Sep 3, 2024
Follow Kristen Bellmer’s incredible 2,925-mile journey through Europe as she creates the largest GPS art by bike, a tribute to her late dog, overcoming challenges along the way.
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I am Christy Felmer and I am the Guinness World
Record title holder for the world's largest GPS
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art by bike. In total, I rode 2,925 miles, which
is 4,707 kilometers. I took this record on because
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I had seen articles about people biking GPS art
and I knew that I could do it if I just had the
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time. Unfortunately, my dog passed away, so I
didn't have anything keeping me in Minneapolis
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And also, I wanted to do this in memory of
my dog, so I drew him in shape of a dog
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About a month before this trip started, I was
in a cycling accident and I hurt my shoulder
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so I couldn't actually bike. So, I wasn't
able to bike again until a couple days before
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my flight. My training was as I was riding,
really. It took days, weeks, probably to get
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the image right. So, there were places that I knew
I wanted to go in Europe because part of it was I
1:12
wanted to bike in this part of Europe. And I
wanted to start in Amsterdam because it's like
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the home of cycling. And then from there, I knew
I wanted to go to Brussels and Paris. And then I
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had these friends in Switzerland and one in
Germany that I wanted to visit, so I needed to
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somehow connect all of them. So, I was just going
through Google stock images of dogs to like, okay
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what should this be? How can I connect these? I
ended up making the dog's foot longer to include
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my friends in Switzerland, like the butt bigger to
get my friend in Germany. And it was really cool
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because I wasn't planning on seeing a lot of
things and then suddenly I'm going by brine falls
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I started on May 1st and I finished on July 4th.
Generally, my rhythm was I targeted about 100
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kilometers a day and then I would bike for six
days and take a day off. And usually that rest
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day corresponded with like, I'm in Paris and
then I'll take an extra day to explore Paris
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The hardest part was probably the border of
Germany and Czechia. I thought I was done with
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the mountains when I finished the Bavarian Alps
and then I was surprised that there were mountains
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there. And plus it was raining and the wind
was pretty bad when I was there. Yeah, I wasn't
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mentally prepared for those mountains. Still
feels a little surreal. Not something I ever
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thought I would actually achieve. My friends and
family are all really happy for me and excited
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Most of them have never met a
Guinness world record holder before
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