Video: Australian woman attempts to become first person to cycle across the Antarctic continent

Later this year, Australian adventurer Kate Leeming will attempt to cycle across the Antarctic continent via the South Pole. If successful, she will become the first person to complete the 1,800km journey. Leeming says she will be using the expedition to raise funds to fight AIDS in Africa.

Despite a history of exploration and adventure, Leeming says in a recent Guardian video that she isn't in it for the thrills.

“I wouldn’t call myself a straight thrill-seeker because I don’t think I’m much of a risk-taker actually. I’m a risk mitigator.”

There is a short window in which to complete the journey. The trip has to be done in the southern hemisphere’s summer during December and January, but even then there are a number of challenges.

“Obviously the Antarctic weather isn’t that predictable, so if there’s a storm you can just hang tight for about three days – they tend to last for three days maximum. There are crevasses, but we kind of know where the main ones are and we’re planning to avoid those crevasse fields.”

The first thing Leeming had to do was work out whether she was capable of dealing with the cold – but also whether the bike was capable of coping with it too. She is therefore using an all-wheel drive fatbike, so that she can drive both front and back wheels on the tough terrain.

Front wheel drive is achieved via rods running through the top tube and down the fork to the front wheel. The mechanism can be switched on and off as and when she needs it. The 12cm wide tyres ensure a large contact area with the snow to ensure traction.

Leeming says that mental strength will be the quality she relies on most, but believes her previous epic cycle journeys have helped her develop this.

In August 2010, she completed a ten month, 22,040km journey across Africa from Point des Almadies, Senegal, to Cape Hafun, Puntland, Somalia, during which she explored the causes and effects of extreme poverty.

She has also completed a 25,000km ‘Great Australian Cycle Expedition’, including 7,000km off road. That trip entailed crossing the Canning Stock Route – 1,800km long with approximately 1,000 sand dunes – the first time this had been achieved by a woman. In 1993, she also completed a five-month trans-Siberian cycle expedition from St Petersburg to Vladivostok in aid of the children of Chernobyl.

Her latest expedition will be used to raise funds to fight AIDS in Africa. Writing on her crowdfunding page on Pozible through which she hopes to raise 80,000 Australian dollars, she explains:

“As I learned about many of the poverty-related issues during my Breaking the Cycle in Africa expedition, a 22,000km journey by bicycle from Senegal to Somalia, I often felt frustrated and powerless to do anything about them and vowed to do my best to make more of a difference in the future.”