Maria Leijerstam is a British polar adventurer. In 2013 she became the first person to cycle to the South Pole from the edge of the continent.[1][2] Leijerstam started her expedition on the Ross Ice Shelf at the edge of the Antarctic continent, and cycled for 10 to 17 hours each day with no rest days, and the total distance cycled was 638km (396mi). Leijerstam's cycle was a three wheeled design, and she reached the pole faster than any previous skiing expedition.
You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (April 2015) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
View a machine-translated version of the German article.
Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia.
Consider adding a topic to this template: there are already 9,120 articles in the main category, and specifying|topic= will aid in categorization.
Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article.
You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Maria Leijerstam]]; see its history for attribution.
You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Maria Leijerstam}} to the talk page.
Leijerstam was a consultant for Siemens, BAE Systems and Ford. She worked in Germany and Sweden for several years, before moving back to Wales where she now lives with her partner, Wayne Edy, founder of the running shoe manufacturer Inov-8.
During her time at Plymouth University, Leijerstam used the sports facilities of the University Officers Training Corps, a youth organisation of the British Army, and became an enthusiastic outdoor athlete. Over the years, she learned outdoor, water and winter sports, including long-distance running (single and double marathon, ultramarathon) mountaineering, hiking and trekking, skiing, cycling, multisport, canoeing and sailing.
In 2007, Leijerstam became the first Welsh woman to complete in the Marathon des Sables where she ran six marathons in seven days, battling extreme high temperatures. In 2012, she became the first woman to complete the Siberian Black Ice Race, cycling across Lake Baikal, the longest and deepest frozen freshwater lake in the world.
White Ice Cycle
At the end of 2013, Leijerstam gained a Guinness World Record in an expedition known as the White Ice Cycle, becoming the first person in the world to reach the South Pole by cycling.[3] She also holds the record for the fastest trip from the edge of the Antarctic continent to the South Pole using purely muscle strength.[4]
Leijerstam completed the almost-650km (400mi) route from the Ross Ice Shelf on the edge of the Antarctic to the South Pole in just over 10 days.[4] During the trip, she followed the South Pole Traverse, which led her on a steep climb through the Transantarctic Mountains, over the 2,941m (9,649ft) high Leverett Glacier and 500km (310mi) above the Antarctic plateau. Whilst riding, she fought against extreme cold, strong winds and snow drifts on the track.[5]
A custom-built recumbent trike called the Polar Cycle, made by Inspired Cycle Engineering (ICE), helped Leijerstam secure her record. The 4.5in (110mm) wide balloon tires and a modified gear shift allowed Leijerstam to pass through snowdrifts and climb steep inclines.[6][7]
In April 2016, Leijerstam ran a marathon at the floating airbase 111km (69mi) from the North Pole before cycling the rest of the way.[8]
Burn Series
Leijerstam runs a multi-sport company, Burn Series. The adventure racing events held across South Wales are both a challenge and for fun, with the Mini Burn, a shorter and more diverse ‘triathlon’, aimed towards families. The events consist of running, mountain biking, kayaking and orienteering. The Mini Burn is the only adventure race in the UK where both parents and children can compete together.[9]
This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Maria_Leijerstam, and is written by contributors.
Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.