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."
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."