The more I look into this idea, the more I begin to think that this could be a first.
Yes, the interior highlands were crossed in the 1930's and 1950's by crazy cyclists. However, the Horace Dell was specifically crossing of the interior only (his diary shows he got a lift to the start), and the latter was a North to South crossing by Dick Phillips across the highlands; there's no mention I can find of starting and finishing at the coast, and even then that it was the furthest point. Not that I'm attempting to do any disrespect to the endeavours of both of those
The first solo crossing on foot, furthest North to South (NtoS) from Rifstangi to Kötlutangi unsupported, was apparently only completed in 2007. Which is very recent, and seems to suggest a few things to me:
1. If the first foot crossing NtoS was only 7 years ago, then the first bike crossing (which is surely going to come afterwards) may well not have happened yet.
2. Even if a bike crossing has happened, they probably used the roads and tracks. Most sane people would.
3. Even if that (possibly fictional) bike crossing didn't used tracks, was it unsupported, or did they use huts/hostels etc?
4. Was that (now highly fictional and not extremely dubious) bike crossing furthest NtoS?
5. Even if all of the above happened, was it on Fatbikes?
6. Perhaps I'm not taking this seriously enough.
Is it possible, even slightly possible, that no one has ever done this before? When you add up the factors above, the likelihood of it having been done previously (feel free to rule out point 5 as ludicrously prescriptive) shrinks considerably.
We live in a world where firsts are measured by minutiae and most of the great challenges are done. Our legacy is to find variations on the great achievements of previous generations. Has this variation been done yet? It seems like such an obvious one I feel it must have been...
But wouldn't it be awesome if it really was a first?
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