Zurich to Zurich - how it all started

One day the youtube algorithm suggested Johannes a video of a guy cycling from France to China on an electric bike. The bike was powered by solarpanels mounted on a trailer that harvest enough energy to increase the possible daily range of a touring bike easily by a factor of two to three.

“If France to China in two months is possible with such a bike, one should be able to make it around the globe in six”

That’s what he told me the next morning while showing an over 20'000 km long route he had planned on google maps. My first though was that my flatmate was obviously not getting enough sleep and the last semester of his math studies was driving him mad. But instead of forgetting about it he kept finding suppliers for all the material one would need for such a journey. Every argument I had why it would not work was obliterated in seconds and after a few days I started to like the thought of going on such a journey together. Soon it was no longer an idea but a plan: Both of us taking 6 months off after graduating from university and cycling around the world on solarbikes. Detailed lists of bike components were written, needed battery capacities calculated, solar irradiation maps consulted and even calls to the Chinese ambassy were made to find out whether the route planning was realistic.

A few months, numerous drawings and detailed calculations later we were able to fix which key components we wanted on our system and started ordering and contacting possible project partners.