Monday, August 30, 2010

 Highest bicycle ride - world record set by Nik Wallenda
 PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas -- Nik Wallenda, a seventh-generation high-wire daredevil, safely cycled more than 100 feet (30 m) along a wire some 260 feet above the ocean, without a safety net, along the wire strung between two hotels at the Paradise Island Atlantis resort - setting the new world record for the highest bicycle ride (without a safety net) .
Photo: Suspended more than 26 stories above the ground between the Royal Towers of Atlantis, Paradise Island and The Cove, Nik Wallenda, The King of The High Wire, sets the new world record for the highest bicycle ride .   ( enlarge photo )

   Mr Wallenda said: "Against all odds I walked on that wire today. There was lightning in the area, high winds, and it was the first walk without my father. "It was one of the hardest decisions I ever made in my life. and the hardest walk I have ever done. But my family history and my family tradition is that the show must go on."

   Wallenda holds the current Guinness World Records for longest distance and greatest height travelled by bicycle on a high wire , set in 2008 in Newark, New Jersey, when he travelled 235 feet at a height of 135 feet.

   Nik’s performance was a welcomed delight to the thousands of Atlantis, Paradise Island guests who got a first hand view of history in the making.

   Even rain and the threat of lightening didn’t seem to phase the brave King of the High Wire whose feats were well documented by the Discovery Channel and are set to air at later date.

 Mr Wallenda is the current holder of the records for the longest distance and greatest height travelled by bicycle on a high wire , which he set by travelling 235ft (72m) at a height of 135ft (41m) in Newark, New Jersey in 2008.

Following his successful stunt the daredevil performed a second trick, walking about 2,000ft (610m) across a high wire suspended 250ft (76m) above the resort's open-air marine habitat, which is infested with sharks, barracudas and piranhas. The performer defied winds of 28 knots and occasional thunderstorms to safely complete the traverse - the furthest he has ever travelled by foot on a high wire.

Mr Wallenda is the great-grandson of the celebrated circus performer Karl Wallenda, who died after falling off a high wire in San Juan, Puerto Rico in 1978.

    He said he hopes to continue performing as long as he is physically able, adding: "I want to be the first person in the world to walk across the Grand Canyon, and I have the permit to do it."

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