This article is courtesty of www.dailypeloton.com.

The complete series of Race Around Australia articles featuring Perry Stone can be found on our SpokePost.com's News and Articles page.

Queensland, Australia, January 6, 2003 - We are still getting lots of responses from escorts and people making comments on Perry's ride. Please feel free to send your thoughts in.

From Garry, a Sydney escort: "One thing that particularly amazed me and I don't think has been mentioned in any of the updates is that he's riding a road bike with standard 53/39 front chain rings and a rear cluster with a lowest gear of 21! He must be so strong to pull himself and the B.O.B. trailer up those hills. Sure he slows down and zigzags up some of the steeper hills but the rest of us mere mortals would be falling off our bikes if we tried it. I think he deserves a sign expounding his god status or at the very least - that of a "legend.""

Well, it seems as if this task is already being accomplished, according to Dave, another Sydney escort. " Perry was repacking some gear, and a BMX rider came up wanting some help with a flat tyre. Perry gave him a puncture repair kit which was (hopefully??) no longer needed. For this gift the grateful, and unsuspecting BMXer replied "Mate you are a LEGEND". Well you should have seen his eyes pop out when I explained that Perry was in fact a legend, now riding around OZ for yet another record!

More words of wonder and awe, this time from our ever wise Daily Peloton Site Goddess. "I did a little figuring, and here are some numbers for comparison; as the crow flies, of course.

[The distance Perry has gone thus far, as of 1/5/03] is roughly equivalent to cycling from Los Angeles to New York City, back to LA, back to New York City, and then back to a little west of St. Louis, Missouri.

In Europe, this would be the rough equivalent of cycling from Lisbon, Portugal to Kiev, Ukraine, back to Lisbon, back to Kiev, and most of the way back to Lisbon.

Or, almost 12 full round trips between London, England and Edinburgh, Scotland.

And Perry isn't done yet... All I can say to that is "wow."

He called from Woolgoolga on January 6th at 9:30 pm. He has "only" 1069 km left till Rockhampton.

Perry is riding this race in dedication to those who were affected by the terrorist bombing in Bali. "Bali crushed me. When there are people in the world that target a bunch of women and blokes just out for a beer and a good time, something has to be done. The first thing we need to do is to heal wounds, and that costs money and more. The Red Cross is accepting and managing donations for the support of the injured, their families, the fallen and their remaining loved ones. If everyone just donated the price of a drink, it would go a very long way to helping these people adjust." The Red Cross is accepting donations via the web. You can access their site by clicking here.

The complete series of Race Around Australia articles featuring Perry Stone can be found on our SpokePost.com's News and Articles page.

More information is available at the Daily Peloton, and at Perry's web site Bikestories.com.