Just after 5am on Tuesday June 18, South-East Queensland mountain biker Dan Graham set off from Wulkuraka, near Ipswich, to attempt the more than 300km ride along the Brisbane Valley and South Burnett Rail Trails to Kilkivan.
While the region was experiencing cool temperatures (just above freezing in Kingaroy), Dan was well prepared and jokingly said he was "cold, but only Qld-cold". While the newly-signposted connecting route between the two trails was "quite rough, and decently hilly", Dan said the trail conditions were generally good, and he had no issues until Wide Bay Creek, where the lack of a crossing meant he had to ride the last 6kms into Kilkivan with wet feet. Dan originally planned to stay at the Kilkivan Hotel and ride back to Wulkuraka the following day, but said that he felt it would have been difficult to repeat the 300km course without more rest, and instead his wife picked him up from Kilkivan on Wednesday. Dan's time for the 307km journey was 16hr45m25s, over an hour faster than the previous record set by Mike Zande on October 2nd last year. Mike said he had encouraged Dan to make the attempt and was "genuinely happy to hand over the record". Dan described the trails as "a really good community recreation resource" and said that as nutrition had been an issue in the latter part of his ride, "I expect a better time is still to come by someone". The new record comes just ten days after Jason Black became the first person to ride the two trails from Kilkivan to Wulkuraka and back in a marathon 38 hours, and 3 weeks after Mike Zande broke four records along the South Burnett Rail Trail.
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