Police said the Chilean was identified as Francisco Villa, aged 48.
Villa and his family made a rest stop at a police checkpoint in Khon Kaen's Phon district on Saturday morning before heading to Nakhon Ratchasima with the bicycle pulling a carriage. Before they left the checkpoint, Francisco told a policeman that he would later travel to Australia.
The accident happened when the speeding pickup truck driven by Tiwarat Ratchaipidet, aged 64, scraped the bicycle on the roadside. The cyclist's body was thrown from the bicycle. He died on the spot and his body was sent to Bua Yai Hospital for autopsy.
The bicycle was totally destroyed and the pickup truck crashed into a ditch and overturned.
Tiwarat, who escaped unscathed, told police that he was driving from Khon Kaen to Nakhon Ratchasima, and said he did not see the bicycle prior to the crash. Police charged him with careless driving resulting in death and injuries.
According to a sign on the irreparable bicycle, Villa planned to set a Guinness World Record by cycling 250,000 kilometres around the world in five years. The unsponsored 'around the world' bike trip started in November 2010 and the Chilean had cycled about 140,000 kilometres. The sign also said that the Chilean met his wife and had a baby along the way.
Pol Col Torsak Thammingmongkol, superintendent of Bua Lai police station in Nakhon Ratchasima, said the cyclist's wife wanted her husband's funeral to be held in Thailand.
In 2013, round-the-world British cyclists Peter Root and Mary Thompson died when they were struck by a pickup truck in Chachoengsao. The pickup truck driver admitted that his vehicle hit the British couple while he was reaching down to pick up a mobile phone.
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