63 days, 17 countries, and 17,500km into his attempt to break the world record for crossing Eurasia by bike, ultra-endurance cycling legend Sofiane Sehili made headlines around the world. Just not quite in the way he’d imagined.
Listen to the road.cc Podcast on Apple Podcasts
Listen to the road.cc Podcast on Spotify
Listen to the road.cc Podcast on Amazon Music
The 44-year-old Frenchman, an icon of the endurance cycling and touring world, had set off from Cabo da Roca, Portugal, the westernmost point of mainland Europe, two months beforehand in a bid to reach Vladivostok in the Russian Far East within 64 days, and in doing so break Jonas Deichmann’s trans-Eurasia record.
But on 2 September, just 200km from his finish line and with 33 hours to spare, Sehili hit a snag. And a rather big one at that. He was stopped at China’s border with Russia and informed his electronic visa was no good. Sehili, somewhat vainly, then rode a further 200km to another border crossing, but still no use.
With time ticking away, he was faced with a few options. He could have turned back, given up, and booked the first flight home (a possibility he seriously contemplated before his stubbornness took hold).
Or he could have jumped on a train across the border (which would have almost certainly rendered his record attempt null and void, unthinkable in the circumstances, at least for someone as focused and determined as Sehili).
Or – and this is where his thought process becomes outlandish and, you might say, reckless – he could forge on across the border, consequences be damned, all eyes on the prize. And it’s that option which landed him in a dilapidated Russian prison cell for 51 days.
“Then this idea of crossing illegally crossed my mind. And first, I thought, ‘no, no, this is crazy. It’s Russia, you don’t illegally enter Russian territory. You don’t do that!’” Sehili laughs, reflecting on his desperate decision to cross the border, as he chats to the road.cc Podcast from his home in southwest France.
“I’ve done some stupid things in my life, but this was way beyond stupid. But I couldn’t stay idle. So then I thought, you know what, I’m just going to try.
“And I was expecting the Chinese to stop me, they’d stopped me at another border, when I tried riding north. Police told me I couldn’t proceed beyond this point, which makes sense, it’s a border zone, they won’t just let me through.
“So then I decided to try south – and the problem was that nobody stopped me. I found a way to enter a forest, it was pretty dense, no-one could see me, and I just hiked through that forest for several hours.
“Then there was a barbed wire fence, and right after there was an open area where they had cut down all the trees for about a hundred metres, so they could see everyone.
“So I thought, right this is it, this is where they’re going to catch me. There was a military checkpoint with lots of cameras, so they were definitely going to catch me. But unbelievably nothing happened. I walked through this open area, and no-one saw me.”
The reality of his illegal enterprise rapidly dawning on him, Sofiane swiftly surrendered himself to the Russian authorities, who carted him off to prison and charged him with illegally attempting to enter their country.
Amid a series of interminable delays, and with the glare of the international media now unknowingly upon him, Sehili remained in prison for 51 days as he awaited his trial, sharing cells with teenage drug dealers and hardened Russian convicts, cut off from the outside world and his family back home.
> The bike that went to jail: Sofiane Sehili’s Bombtrack Hook EXT Ti from his Eurasian record bid
Eventually, two months on, Sehili was found guilty, fined, and sent on his way. Though he knows it could have been a lot worse.
“I was never convinced that I was going to stay for long – obviously the thought did cross my mind several times. But every time it crossed my mind, I refused to believe it, otherwise I’d have mentally crumbled,” he says.
“If I’d been jailed for one, two years, it would have been such a long time away from my life. And I love my life. I make a living riding bikes, which is a dream.
“And to face having a year or two of your life stolen from you, every time I contemplated it, I thought this can’t happen to me, they can’t do this. And that wasn’t rational thinking – but it helped me.”
In a wide-ranging chat on the podcast, and now back home safe in France, Sehili talks in depth about that dramatic conclusion to his latest record attempt, his 51 days in a jail in Russia’s Far East, and the response he’s got since returning home.
We also chat about the logistical planning that goes into these mammoth, ultra-cycling rides, how his perspective on life has changed since his time in Russia, and – most importantly – what happened to his bike when he was in jail…
The road.cc Podcast is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music, and if you have an Alexa you can just tell it to play the road.cc Podcast. It’s also embedded further up the page, so you can just press play.
1 thought on ““I’ve done some stupid things in my life, but this was beyond stupid!” Ultra-endurance cyclist Sofiane Sehili on breaking into Russia, 51 days in jail, and cycling’s most dramatic failed record attempt ever”
He was really, really lucky.
He was really, really lucky. The geopolitical situation being what it is this could have ended much worse. Illegally entering is one thing, a charge of espionage something else. Stupid move to enter, good call to turn himself in. And apparently there are still judges in Russia who see things for what they are.