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"Am I crazy? No! I am not crazy. I have done this since I was four years old," Wallenda told ABC7 Eyewitness News. "My great-grandfather said 'life is on the wire, everything else is just waiting.' And it's so true. That's where I feel alive, the most energy."
Wallenda set a Guinness World Record October 15, 2008 for the longest distance and greatest height ever traveled by bicycle on a high wire. That's when he walked 150 feet across a high wire 20 stories high, suspended from the roof of the Prudential Building in Newark, N.J. In that instance, Wallenda also did not use a safety net. He made the return trip across the same high wire on a bicycle which earned him the Guinness World Record.
In 2001, at Japan's Kurashiki Tivoli Park, Wallenda and other members of his family set the Guinness World Record for an eight-person pyramid on the high wire. They practiced for more than five months.
Nik Wallenda began his career at age two when he performed as a clown. He began walking the wire at age four and had his first professional wire performance at 13. He comes from a legendary family of daredevil and circus performers. As early as 1780, the Wallenda family traveled as circus troupe and the next two generations added the flying trapeze to the family's repertoire. But the family's signature high wire act was developed by Karl Wallenda.
- Link: Nik Wallenda's Web site
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