My latest #LIHerald.com column….
The 2019 documentary “Biking Borders,” chronicling the nine-month, 9,320-mile cycling adventure of two college friends, Max Jabs and Nono Konopka, from Berlin to Beijing, opens with the pair struggling to stay upright as they pedal down a snow-covered road in eastern Turkey shortly after Christmas 2018.
These guys are just nuts, I thought. Immediately, I was hooked. I had to watch this travelogue — twice.
Following its opening scene, the film, recently released on Netflix, cuts to Germany and thereafter follows the pair’s journey chronologically, starting in the summer of 2018 at the Brandenburg Gate and ending at China’s Tiananmen Square in the spring of 2019.
Viewers quickly learn that their trek was far more than a sightseeing tour of Europe, the Middle East and Asia. It was fundraiser to build a school in Guatemala, which has the highest illiteracy rate in Central America — roughly 25 percent.
We also learn that the two, despite attending university in the biking capital of the world, the Netherlands, had barely pedaled anywhere before their epic trek. Apparently, Jabs had ridden a little while in school, but Konopka not at all. In fact, the two undertook no special athletic training for their journey. According to a Forbes article on them, they figured they would get in shape on the way.
As noted, these guys just seemed nuts — but in the best of ways.
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