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Kudos galore on Strava for Mark Beaumont's record-breaking round-the-world ride

No KOMs for Scot on final day's ride into Paris ... but he is King of the World...

Mark Beaumont’s Guinness World Record-breaking circumnavigation of the world by bike is up on Strava – and the Scot is getting kudos galore, more than 200,000 and counting, on the social network for athletes.

The 34-year-old arrived in Paris on Monday 78 days 14 hours and 40 minutes after setting off from the French capital on 2 July to smash the previous record of 123 days held by New Zealand’s Andrew Nicholson.

> Mark Beaumont completes round-the-world ride in 79 days to smash Guinness World Record

His route took him through Europe, across Russia and into China then through Australia and New Zealand and, after flying to Alaska, the United States and Canada before returning to Europe last week to complete his journey.

On the way, he averaged 240 miles a day in the saddle. Here’s a link to the 79th and final day of Beaumont’s ride on Strava.

No KOMs for him on that last day, although one Facebook user commenting on a post by Strava about the ride – accompanied by a logo of the globe with a crown above it – did wonder if he was now entitled to call himself KOW – Strava shorthand for ‘King of the World’.

Beaumont returned to Scotland from Paris by air – thereby missing an opportunity to stand at the bows of a cross-Channel ferry and recreate that scene from the 1997 movie, Titanic …

Simon joined road.cc as news editor in 2009 and is now the site’s community editor, acting as a link between the team producing the content and our readers. A law and languages graduate, published translator and former retail analyst, he has reported on issues as diverse as cycling-related court cases, anti-doping investigations, the latest developments in the bike industry and the sport’s biggest races. Now back in London full-time after 15 years living in Oxford and Cambridge, he loves cycling along the Thames but misses having his former riding buddy, Elodie the miniature schnauzer, in the basket in front of him.

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18 comments

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Andrew Charles | 6 years ago
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Andrew Charles | 6 years ago
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Congrats to Mark Beaumont, it's really an incredible effort! I know well, since I have done this before anyway 24 years ago. Era before social media, FB, you tube, GPS, latest Guinness Book regulations (from 2013). Dear Friends, I do have some questions. What do think about new Guinness Book record standards? Mark's done average 450 km a day, 15 hours on saddle (from 4 AM to 7-8 PM PM)??? What is his motivation? Is there any fun of cycling and discovering of the World? https://www.facebook.com/biketheworldin80days/?ref=bookmarks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNO7WeKsohg&t=160s https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…/Around_the_world_cycling_record

 

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Leviathan | 6 years ago
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Tee hee.

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madcarew | 6 years ago
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circumnavigation: literally navigating the circumference, which is either following the equator, or a similar distance over the land masses. It's not an exercise in touching down on each or any continent (he actually missed 3 continents, but Antarctica is hardly the place for a road bike)

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ConcordeCX replied to madcarew | 6 years ago
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madcarew wrote:

circumnavigation: literally navigating the circumference, which is either following the equator, or a similar distance over the land masses. It's not an exercise in touching down on each or any continent (he actually missed 3 continents, but Antarctica is hardly the place for a road bike)

it's not the circumference - there's an infinite number of them on a sphere - it is a circumference, or great circle, of which the equator is one. The key things in a definition are that you have to pass through both points of an antipodal pair, and pass through each longitude.

A challenge that I don't think has been attempted is to minimise the water crossings. I think this would require going from West Africa to Siberia and across the Bering Straits to Alaska, down the American continent to Rio, across the Atlantic to West Africa, back where you started.

The main geographical difficulty of this would, as someone else has mentioned, be north-east Russia I think, and if I remember correctly Charlie Boorman and Ewan Macgregor struggled with the conditions when they did a similar trip by motor bike.

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welshman001 | 6 years ago
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I am not for one second decrying the accomplishment- it is stunning. My comment was that it missed two continents. What is difficult is the measurement of circumnavigation. Perhaps, this route would be more inclusive:

http://theworldbyroad.com/

 

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madcarew replied to welshman001 | 6 years ago
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welshman001 wrote:

I am not for one second decrying the accomplishment- it is stunning. My comment was that it missed two continents. What is difficult is the measurement of circumnavigation. Perhaps, this route would be more inclusive:

http://theworldbyroad.com/

 

TWBR : "passing through 69 countries, visiting 6 continents and covering nearly 80,000 miles in the process. "

The circumference of the earth is only 40,000 km (25,000 miles). TWBR is over 3 times that. It bears basically no relevance to a circumnavigation. 

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bechdan | 6 years ago
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i was thinking he should head north east (or is it west?) from Mongolia and cross the bering strait, but then I guess there arent any roads in that part of the world

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welshman001 | 6 years ago
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Really? I mean, it is an amazing achievement but missing out Africa / South America doesn’t sound to me around the world. Perhaps Africa is another challenge...

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ConcordeCX replied to welshman001 | 6 years ago
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welshman001 wrote:

Really? I mean, it is an amazing achievement but missing out Africa / South America doesn’t sound to me around the world. Perhaps Africa is another challenge...

what do you think a circumnavigation is? This is what the rest of us think:

http://www.expedition360.com/home/circumnavigation.htm

 

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HalfWheeler replied to welshman001 | 6 years ago
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welshman001 wrote:

Really? I mean, it is an amazing achievement but missing out Africa / South America doesn’t sound to me around the world. Perhaps Africa is another challenge...

The rules (for the purpose of an official record) are that the journey should be continuous and in one direction (East to West or West to East), that the minimum distance ridden should be 18,000 miles (29,000 km), the total distance travelled by the bicycle and rider should exceed an Equator's length and that two antipodal points should met.

The route is pretty much up to you.

Noy happy? Start a campaign and get the rules changed. Tell me how you get on.

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Leviathan | 6 years ago
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South America and Africa?

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cyclisto replied to Leviathan | 6 years ago
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Leviathan wrote:

South America and Africa?

You may include it in your world circumnavigation trip

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jimbo2112 replied to Leviathan | 6 years ago
6 likes

Leviathan wrote:

South America and Africa?

It's around the world, not visit every continent. Give the man a break. He did 2.4 Prudentials a day for 78 days!   

 

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STATO replied to Leviathan | 6 years ago
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Leviathan wrote:

South America and Africa?

 

He has done record attempts on those continents before.  Essentially there are pretty risky sections and roads (and borders) are unreliable.  He did cycle from Paris to Bejing as part of the 80 days, I think that is enough to count as not avoiding the challenging parts! 

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ConcordeCX replied to STATO | 6 years ago
3 likes

STATO wrote:

Leviathan wrote:

South America and Africa?

 

He has done record attempts on those continents before.  Essentially there are pretty risky sections and roads (and borders) are unreliable.  He did cycle from Paris to Bejing as part of the 80 days, I think that is enough to count as not avoiding the challenging parts! 

a circumnavigation which includes Africa and South America, and avoids that awkward looking hop over to Australia and New Zealand could follow this line, with a trans-Pacific flight to South America and trans-Atlantic flight back onto the line:

https://sites.google.com/site/guybruneau/fun-stuff/longest-distance-on-land

I'm going to do that.

Just as soon as world peace breaks out.

 

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wycombewheeler replied to ConcordeCX | 6 years ago
0 likes

ConcordeCX wrote:

STATO wrote:

Leviathan wrote:

South America and Africa?

 

He has done record attempts on those continents before.  Essentially there are pretty risky sections and roads (and borders) are unreliable.  He did cycle from Paris to Bejing as part of the 80 days, I think that is enough to count as not avoiding the challenging parts! 

a circumnavigation which includes Africa and South America, and avoids that awkward looking hop over to Australia and New Zealand could follow this line, with a trans-Pacific flight to South America and trans-Atlantic flight back onto the line:

https://sites.google.com/site/guybruneau/fun-stuff/longest-distance-on-land

I'm going to do that.

Just as soon as world peace breaks out.

 

 

you'd have to go through north america first because once youve been to Iran you can never go to USA again.

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RobD replied to Leviathan | 6 years ago
1 like

Leviathan wrote:

South America and Africa?

Short of flying down to part of south america and cycling to the coast and catching a boat to africa I don't think they could really be included. If he'd ridden across south america rather than north I'm sure some people would have complained that he was choosing a narrower continent to ride across.

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