French cyclists create record-breaking GPS drawing of 637-mile-long dinosaur

Four French cyclists have claimed the Guinness World Record for the largest GPS drawing by a bicycle team.

Their winning piece: a 1,025 km-long (637-mile-long) depiction of a velociraptor that took 43 hours and 47 minutes to complete. The dinosaur's body was “drawn” over the course of six days, encompassing several French counties, including Cher, Saone-et-Loire, Indre, Nievre, Creuse, Puy-de-dome, and Allier.

French cyclists Florent Arnaud, Franck Delorme, Maxime Brugère, and Nicolas Meunier rode 1,025km in Montluçon in Allier, France to make the record on Nov. 6, 2022. They dethroned 2018's 761km heart drawing in Egypt's famed pyramids.

Guinness World Records said the French cyclists took six days to complete the art.

They chose velociraptor as the subject, the organization noted, because it's a play in the French word for bicycle, vélo.

More importantly, the cyclists said it's their attempt to raise awareness on climate change and promotion of cycling.

"Dinosaurs are a proof that strong species can go extinct quickly and a symbol of extinct species," they told Guinness World Records. "We are the main contributors and victims of this environmental crisis and as is, we have the future in our hands!"

This isn't the quartet's first GPS drawing. In 2020, they created a 200.1-kilometre tyrannosaurus rex in Loire.

The following year, they made a 200.7-kilometre diplodocus in Saône-et-Loire.