UKC

Is anyone else following Mark Beaumont at his attempt to cycle round the world in 80 days? It's incredible, he's been cycling around 400km per day for the past 25 days so far; around 16hrs per day on the bike.

http://www.artemisworldcycle.com/

In reply to JuneBob:

Haven't been but thanks for the heads up!

In reply to JuneBob:

The GCN channel has regular updates. Last one I heard things had improved a lot since the crash.

In reply to JuneBob:

He's on Strava so you can follow him. The thing that amazes me is that he was still gaining a few KOMs while cycling around 240 miles a day.

In reply to gethin_allen:

It's his heart rate that gets me, especially when combined with his speed. He's usually doing around 15-16mph, depending on terrain, and yet his heart rate spends about 80-90% of the day sitting under 112. The mileage/speed/effort combination is staggering.

In reply to mav:

is he allowed to draft the support vehicle?

In reply to JuneBob:

Good grief!

In reply to mav:


That's not atypical for the speed amongst long distance cyclists. Steve Abraham's is even lower for a similar average.

In reply to malk:


No, The support crew travel along behind so that sh!t drivers crash into the back of them rather than killing Mark.

In reply to JuneBob:

I rather liked the fact that he and the bloke circumnavigating the world on a unicyle were cycling side by side for a while. The latter is taking 2-3 years over it

In reply to JuneBob:

Looks like he's going to make it! Less than 100 miles to go till he arrives in Paris in a few hours.

In reply to JuneBob:

Beyond impressive, it amazes me he can cram all that recovery into a few hours per night. And quite amazing he'll be finished it all in a few hours. I can't really think of a way he could top that.

In reply to kwoods:


He'll follow it up with a new record for 'putting his feet up and having a rest'. God knows he's earned it - remarkable achievement.

In reply to JuneBob:
Outside contender for BBC SPOTY?

(because, while I don't think he considers himself a sportsman, cycling is a sport and I can't think of a bigger sporting achievement this year)

In reply to mav:



I was thinking the same thing. How are nominations made?

In reply to JuneBob:



The website says he's only cycled about 18000 miles in 79 days. I'll be impressed if he manages the remaining 6000miles in 1 day!

In reply to tony:

Not sure how nominations are made but there isn't a great track record of nominating feats of pure endurance (mountaineering for instance) without some competition involved (Eleanor McArther springs to mind).

In reply to Robert Durran:

He'll need a pedalo for the remaining 6000.

In reply to JuneBob:


I was making a serious point. How long a loop do you actually have to have done to claim to have circled the world? Presumably a 50m radius walk around the south pole wouldn't count, but it would be impractical to follow an actual great circle - but should the equivalent 24000 miles be required? Is only three quarters of this really ok? I've always been a bit skeptical of non-stop "round the world" sailing races which would better described as "first round Antarctica and back" - if you look at the route on a globe, I think it really is stretching it a bit to call it round the world!

In reply to Robert Durran:

It's the rules... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Around_the_world_cycling_record

I guess the aim is to cycle round the world, not, to cycle the equivalent of the circumference of the world.

In reply to JuneBob:


Thanks. OK, those rules seem pretty sensible.

In reply to JuneBob:
Well he managed it ... 78 days, 14 hours, 40 minutes!

Chapeau to the man!

His Strava stats for this past week/month are quite amusing: https://www.strava.com/athletes/8288853?hl=en-GB