17924km: Sofiane Sehili Trans Eurasia Bike check.

Sofiane Sehili has made headlines in recent weeks after his attempt the set the TransEurasia cycling record ended up with a stint in a Russian jail. Despite his brush with the law for an illegal border crossing and subsequent failure to take the record, he still took on an epic journey across 2 continents, 17 countries, 9 time zones and covering 17,924km.
 
So what bike and equipment is needed to take on such a challenge? We sat down with Sofiane to find out.

‘I used the Bombtrack Hook EXT Titanium frame as the basis for the build. Its lightweight, durable and the comfortable ride qualities that Titanium offers was perfect for such a long journey. Added to that I used a Shimano GRX Di2 2x groupset, it’s a setup that’s been super reliable for me and so it was my first choice for the record attempt. With the wheels I wanted something that was fast as I’d predominantly be on the road, but still strong enough to deal with bad surfaces and occasional off-road riding. The HUNT Limitless Adventure were perfect giving me some aero benefit whilst being robust enough to deal with the abuse that a long-distance journey entails. They also worked perfectly with the 38mm Rene Herse Barlow Pass Tyres I used’

No front brake!

‘Mechanically everything ran smoothly until I had a near miss with a car in Kazakhstan. I was clipped by the wing mirror and ended up crashing hard. My left shifter was damaged meaning that my front brake stopped working and I was unable to shift the front mech. Unfortunately, I was unable to repair it despite ordering new parts as they were held up in customs and I had to continue the journey in the small chainring using only the rear brake’

‘Aside from the crash damage I lost the tubeless seal on my front tyre for a couple of weeks which meant a lot of time wasted patching inner tubes, but eventually I was able to source a replacement. The wheels were faultless and are still running true and smooth despite all the distance and I used the same chain and cassette for the entire trip’

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