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stooper before two o ’ clock in the afternoon . Romain had little choice to wait it out as his bike needed an extra twenty percent of charge to travel a further two hundred kilometres . These were the challenges of an electric powered round the world odyssey .
“ I never , never ran out of battery ,” he added with a laugh . “ I think that ’ s the big surprise with electric vehicles , that you can do countries like Kyrgyzstan , Kazakhstan , Australia with vast distances and still get a charge somewhere along the route .
“ I think the longest stretch I did was before Coober Pedy [ in the Australia outback ] where there was nothing for two hundred and sixty kilometres ”.
Other challenges were similar to what we all face on road from time to time .
“ The greatest challenge ,” Romain added acknowledging that it ’ s the same for all . “ Was all the customs for my bike … they were just challenges by design , the way the process works .”
Romain recounted a story of when he was transporting the bike from London to New York , and the United States were being difficult because he needed to prove the emissions emitted from the bike where to meet the USAs pollution requirements , “ even though I don ’ t produce any emissions ”.
The story then led into an anecdote regarding the bike being lost on the same leg of the journey . A cyber attack in London meant that all record of the bike had been destroyed , it had been delivered to New York yet there was no record . Customs officers spent a week of searching through a storage warehouse looking for a box containing a motorcycle without knowing the consignment number accredited to the container .
“ I didn ’ t really care about the bike ,” Romain became serious . “ It ’ s only a small part , I was more worried that I wouldn ’ t be able to continue my journey and promote this important message .”
Another border that caused concern was into Thailand . The border officials insisted that Romain needed a registration plate from either Singapore or Malaysia . He had neither and with a period of just
ten days to reach China things weren ’ t looking great . The solution was to sneak into Thailand and play innocent . It worked , allowing him to reach the Chinese border and pass through without issue .
Weather also played a huge part . The rains of South Asia and the winds of Central Asia all took a toll . Riding east to west meant a constant head wind that sapped the bikes energy store reducing the range by as much as thirty percent .
Turning the conversation to support , Romain was quick to mention that while Zero were keen to support his achievement he needed to do it without any outside assistance .
“ I see all these other projects done for entertainment , the sponsors ,” he explained . “ They have agendas .
“ The Long Way Up guys , and Top Gear , they all admit it ’ s for entertainment and doesn ’ t offer too much reality ,” he continued . “ So , I knew that I wanted this to be totally authentic without any sponsors .”
There ’ s a laugh , seemingly to suggest that many ‘ influencers ’ or YouTube stars don ’ t offer a level of believable authenticity .
Once reaching Europe , Zero did contact Romain , suggesting that they ride the United States together however , he was quick to say no so as to keep the ride solo and unassisted .
“ I ’ m cool with their bikes ,” he smiled . “ I like them , it ’ s a good bike . I did visit their factory , they showed me around , so we are like friends .
“ We don ’ t have any sort of commercial relationship or agreement ,” Romain continued . “ I just like their bike , it ’ s
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