By NOEL MURPHY
PASSERS-BY might have been bemused to see a bloke dropping some 400 push-ups and spritely leaps up and down near the Queens Park bridge earlier this week.
Ben Henzgen’s talent for doing mass burpees in ridiculous time might be legend but it’s also solid training for an endurance race against the clock he’s hoping will place his name in the record books.
Later this month, he’s planning to set off around Australia on his mountain bike, riding some 300-plus kilometres a day to circle the country in just 45 days.
Henzgen’s had a bit of practice in recent times. He’s freshly returned from the US where he rode 57,756 km in several treks across the country and its wide open spaces and deserts. He crossed the Rockies “a few times”, the Mojave Desert in 44 degree temperatures, Minnesota in mid-40s with a heat factor in the mid-50s while en route to California – via Texas.
“It was more of a holiday with a couple of detours here and there. Last year I rode from Santa Maria, California to Des Moines, Iowa averaging 246 km a day,” he said casually.
“I was on a mountain bike but I was wearing a 12-pound weight vest plus my 25-pound pack plus a camelback of water.
“I won’t be carrying any weights on this ride so I should be able to do a little bit better. I’m aiming for 316 km a day. I’ll go one or two days with about fours sleep then every two or three days take a bit of a rest day.”
Henzgen plans to ride around Australia as a personal challenge but to also raise awareness about climate change and to encourage others to get themselves fitter.
A jazz musician, a bass player, with an applied science degree in firefighting, Geelong-born and bred Henzgen’s background is interesting to say the least.
He took off to the US four years ago, planning to stay a month. That become four years and nine months.
During that time he earned his degree, financed by a music scholarship, wrote off his cousin’s car, became a collegiate athlete, embellished his hide with 23 tattoos, played in US AFL championships twice, worked with the US Navy, as a fisherman in Alaska and on a bison farm, woke in a hospital bed with his jaw wired shut after a big night out and took up mountain bike riding.
If all goes well with his Aussie circumnavigation, he plans to try the same next year again on a standard bicycle.
