Fifty years ago today, Burt Munro rode a motorcycle really really fast. Setting a world record that has stood for fifty years, working by himself on an ancient machine, required quite a bit of dedication. There’s a movie version of the story, The World’s Fastest Indian, which is perhaps a bit simplistic and of course dramatic, though still more or less accurately capturing the idea of perseverance. Real life Munro was apparently quite a bit more difficult than the ever cheerful Hopkins, but I suspect that helped too.

It’s a good reminder of what’s possible for someone who keeps working away at a problem. He didn’t have access to extravagant funding or other resources, but he found his niche and kept at it. Incremental progress over lots of time results in lots of progress. Try to make one thing a little bit better everyday.