Underwater Cycling

Article by: © Michael J. Rosen 2012

In 1983, while leading a dive for a German tourists, Italian cyclist and diver Vittorio Innocente found an old bicycle on the seabed and began riding it, inadvertently creating a new sport: Underwater cycling.

In 2008, seven years after he broke the speed record for underwater cycling (3/4 mile in a swimming pool at a blazing average speed of nearly two miles per hour-talk about setting the water on fire! - Innocente attempted to break the distance record. And while he had no concerns about oiling his bike chain or catching his pant legs in it, Innocente had plenty to worry about:

• going down 92 feet into the Mediterranean Sea
• staying down (the bike had to be weighted with 77 pounds of ballast and equipped with water-logged tires, fins, and spoilers)
• being 62 years old
• encountering the rugged, rocky, muddy terrain of the underwater slope

And yet, pedaling 213 feet in nine minutes, Innocente broke his previous record of 197 feet. Didn't even break a sweat - although who can tell underwater.

No Dribbling the Squid

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