26 hours, 21
minutes, 8 seconds - Touching All Stations
In 1972, a twelve
year-old New England boy named Kevin Foster had to watch a video
of President Richard Nixon and Chairman Mao Tse-Tung for a sixth
grade class assignment. The video included a clip of the two world
leaders walking along The Great Wall. The next day in school, when
the teacher asked their impressions, the adventurous Kevin
responded that he wanted to ride his bike from one end of The
Great Wall to the other.
Kevin's teacher and
classmates laughed at him at the time, but fourteen years later,
he received the necessary permissions and was hard at work
preparing to challenge The Great Wall. A serious training accident
delayed his attempt for several years, and when his training
resumed, he needed a diversion, so he decided to open the Guinness
Book of World Records, another boyhood dream. But what record
could he break?
Studying the book,
he noticed that in a few months it would be the 85th anniversary
of the New York subway system, so he decided to spend 85
continuous hours on the subway in recognition of the event. In
October 1989, while spending 85 hours on the subway, he actually
beat record for traveling the entire system in 26 hours, 21
minutes, 8 seconds. That record hadn't been broken in nearly 20
years and created national attention that eventually propelled him
into China and the Great Wall the following year.
When asked about the
August 23-24, 2006 ride by Matt Green and Don Badaczewski, Kevin
Foster responded, "My best to the guys for giving it their
all. Perhaps Guinness should reinstate the NY record in their
books, thereby letting others knows the stats and going for the
record. About 10 years ago they retired the record, taking it out
of their books in order to conserve space. I'd like to see it back
in the book, and on the record for others to try." 1
Photo and content
from Kevin
Foster's Website
(1)
from
the amNY
Subway Tracker
