New names of Guinness

Upon further review, it's a world record.

A group of local bicyclists that raised $43,000 for the Boys and Girls Club of Kootenai County last year established a Guinness World Record in the process.

The team of Ian Martin, Mike Gaertner, Jeffrey Larson, Bruce Johnson, Tom Lamphier, Greg Gervais, George Rohlinger, Don Crawford, Trent Munyer and Jason Johnston biked 610.43 miles in a 24-hour period last September at Stateline Speedway.

"I guess it proves the saying, 'Best things come to those who wait,'" said Martin, following months of paperwork and correspondence with Guinness. "To have a Guinness certificate on your wall is pretty cool."

The achievement goes down as the farthest distance traveled on bicycle by a team - a new Guinness category.

Previously, there were solo and other cycling records, but there had never been a team 24-hour record attempt ever performed outdoors.

"So when I was looking for a new idea for our fundraiser, I worked with Guinness to draft the record description and they in turn came up with a special set of guidelines that needed to be met in order for us to create a new record category," Martin said. "It took a lot of planning and there was a lot of required evidence."

Three tapes recording different angles during the full 24 hours were required.

A minimum distance of 497 miles was originally set by Guinness for the new record. However, just before the attempt, it was changed to 621.37 miles.

"This was a drastic change in mileage, which also caused us to change our venue from Radiant Lake (in Rathdrum) to the Stateline Speedway," Martin said. "Without Stateline Speedway, this wouldn't have happened. They gave us full access and didn't charge us for the lights."

Although the group came up just shy of the mileage target, the Guinness representative in London still asked that the materials be submitted after he learned the group topped 600 miles.

"I don't think he thought it was possible, to be honest, especially with amateur cyclists," Martin said.

While the record is nice, Martin said the main objective was to raise funds for the youth club.

"We used Guinness more as a marketing tool to raise funds for the Boys and Girls Club," he said. "Each of our team members were committed to raising a minimum of $2,500 each. We could have recruited other riders to really knock the record out of the park, but our focus was to raise money and that's why we chose the people we did."

Martin said the group doesn't have any immediate plans to attempt to break its own record.

"But, of course, if some people break our record, we'll have to try to get it back," Martin said.