In June 2010, Greg Kolodziejzyk will attempt to be the first person to cross the Pacific from Victoria, Canada, to Hawaii.  He’ll pedal a custom made boat called WiTHiN some 3,000 miles on a mission to raise awareness for and curb childhood obesity.
According to his site (and people watching in Wal-Mart…Hay-oooo) , 1 in 3 North American kids are overweight, which costs us more than $13 billion per year in the U.S. and $1 billion in Canada.  With more than 8 million families below the poverty line in North America, many families are unable to afford to give their kids bicycles (even the cheap ones at Wal-Mart), so kids don’t have bikes to ride to get exercise.
Greg has his Pedal The Ocean website set up to let you (yes you!) make a donation to sponsor a mile for $50.  For every sponsored mile he pedals, Kimberlee’s Bikes for Kids will give away a bicycle to a child whose family can’t afford one.  The goal is to giveaway 3,000 bicycles at the end of the ride.
Hit ‘more’ to see the inside of the WiTHiN pedal boat and the schematic…
How’d you like to spend 40 to 80 days sleeping, eating and pedaling in this?  Alone.
Actually, this is what the real WitTHiN boat that he’ll be pedaling looks like.  The sexier red one at the top of this post was a prototype.  This version gives him more room, including a separate sleeping compartment:
Click to enlarge.  My favorite is the technically termed “bucket squatting-over area.”
This cutaway shows the propeller (barely visible against the black background on bottom) which generates 150 watts of input power at 80rpm cadence.  That’s good for speeds of 8 to 9 km/h (5 to 5.5 mph).
Greg’s website has hundreds of photos and lots more info, as well as plenty of social media links if you want to track his progress leading up to and during the expedition.  He’ll be updating daily via satellite phone.
