Jonas Deichmann Nears Vladivostok on Cycling Leg of 40,000km Triathlon

German extreme athlete Jonas Deichmann is making progress towards his next stop, Vladivostok, Russia on his 40,000 kilometer triathlon around the world while leaving a minimal carbon footprint. This is his fifth week of biking through the frigid weather of Siberia.

You can read up on our previous updates of his triathlon here:

• Original Jonas Deichmann article
• Update #1 (cycling and swimming legs)
• World Record for longest unassisted swim
• Update #2 (he got stopped in Turkey while awaiting a visa)
• Update #3 (he started the cycling leg through Siberia)

Deichmann posts weekly diaries on his website which also has a tracker which shows where he is at in the world on his journey. Wherever he is on any given day, he jokingly refers to the location as his office. He also posts daily updates on his Instagram.

Deichmann described his biking leg through Siberia on his week 28 update:

“Mentally, this stretch is almost more difficult than swimming. I ride for 8 hours a day and absolutely nothing happens. The weather is better now. At night I have minus 8-10 degrees, but during the day it is sunny and up to 10 degrees.”

He still has 4,800 kilometers to go before he arrives in Vladivostok. He said he has been averaging about 190 kilometers a day, attempting to arrive in Vladivostok before his visa expires. But, this past week he made it through 270 kilometers in one day in Marlinsk “with a strong tailwind pushing [him] over the hills.”

Deichmann’s original plan was to sail from there to San Francisco, where he will run to New York. From there, he planned to sail to Lisbon, Portugal and cycle back to Munich. But with the U.S. border being closed he is now considering traveling through Mexico or Canada.

It took him 13 weeks to obtain a Russia visa, and when he was finally admitted the officer told him, “Good luck, crazy boy.”

Surprisingly, the cold does not seem to bother Deichmann. Most recently he hopped into an icy lake, saying he had to actually break the ice in order get into the water with his Russian acquaintance Alexander Litau:

His affinity for the freezing weather is further shown in the many pictures of him with a frozen beard. This is what a regular day in the office looks like for Deichmann:

courtesy of Jonas Deichmann

courtesy of Jonas Deichmann

One of his biggest challenges so far has been the wind. “The first 2 days I make an average of 30 kilometres per hour with a tailwind,” Deichmann explained in his week 28 update. “On the 3 following days, with a headwind, I only make an average of 18 kilometres per hour.”

“Every 80 kilometres there is a petrol station and a small restaurant where I eat something and continue.”

One night recently he set up his nightly camp on top of a frozen lake. When he woke up, the tent was covered significantly with snow:

courtesy of Jonas Deichmann

Deichmann spares no details in his daily updates. Meet his traveling companion, the bike he lovingly refers to as “Esposa.” The nickname generally means “spouse” or “wife.”

courtesy of Jonas Deichmann

Esposa was not faring too well last week in the icy terrain of Siberia. The bike chains froze, and Deichmann joked about how he had to urinate on the chains to thaw them out. “Sorry Esposa!” he put on his social media story with a laughing emoji. When trekking through Siberia, you do what you have to do.

7 months into the estimated 12-month-long journey, Deichmann seems to be enjoying most of the trip. There’s not a picture I’ve seen of him not smiling, even when he caught food poisoning during week 27.

Deichmann began this journey in September 2020, soon after which he set the World Record for the longest unassisted open water swim at 450 kilometers along the Croatian Adriatic coast.  Completing this triathlon would demolish the current Guineas World Record for the longest triathlon, 6,938.25km by Dirk Leonhardt (Germany) in July. Deichmann would be the first person to circumnavigate the world, triathlon-style.

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Jonas Deichmann on the long way through Siberia

Munich adventurer and extreme athlete Jonas Deichmann, who has set out to circumnavigate the globe in the triathlon discipline despite Corna, is fighting his way across Siberia by bicycle.

Deichmann began his project on 26 September in Munich. He cycled over the Alps to Karlobag on the Croatian coast. From there he swam 450 kilometres along the Adriatic coast and reached Dubrovnik on 22 November after 54 days in the water. In the process, the Munich native set a new record for the longest swimming distance without an escort boat. From Dubrovnik, Deichmann continued east by bicycle, with the goal of reaching the in spring.

The plan was for Jonas Deichmann to cycle the 10,000-kilometre route through the Siberian wilderness in winter, when the roads are frozen deep at up to -40 degrees. Due to the many delays caused by Corona-related border closures, he now has to cycle through Siberia in the early spring. In western Russia, where traffic makes the big roads life-threatening for cyclists, he has had to switch to smaller, mostly unpaved roads, which become a mud desert at this time of year.

In the meantime, Deichmann is in central, wild Siberia, where winter is not quite over yet, and still has 4,800 kilometres to go to Vladivostok on the Pacific coast.

Deichmann wants to cross the Pacific and then race across the American continent from west to east. However, it is still unclear how it will continue, as the borders of the USA are currently closed and therefore Canada or Mexico would be an option.

The adventurer already holds the records for the fasting crossing of all three big continental crossings on bicycle. Eurasia from Portugal to Vladivostok in 64 days, the Panamerica from Alaska to Argentina in 97 days and last year the 18.000 km route from Norway to South Africa in 72 days – a whole month faster than the prior world record.