Video: Mark Beaumont cycles 500 miles non-stop through the Scottish Highlands

Earlier this year, cyclist adventurer Mark Beaumont rode the entire North Coast 500 route non-stop. This is the video of that epic challenge.

“This is purely about turning the pedals and not stopping for over 500 miles, says Beaumont at the start of the video, adding that such an undertaking is “beautifully simple, but wonderfully scary as well.”

He said he’d forgotten how steep and rugged the west coast is, but being as he completed the route anticlockwise, presumably things didn’t get much easier from there.

North Coast 500 from North Coast 500 on Vimeo.

“There’s still that kid inside me that wants to go fast and to see the world on two wheels,” he says, explaining his motivation.

Beaumont set a new world record for the quickest journey by bicycle from Cairo to Cape Town earlier in the year and has previously held the round-the-world record, but he said this was the longest time he has ever spent in the saddle without a break.

He set off from Inverness Castle at 6am on a Monday morning and arrived back 37 hours and 58 minutes later. In between those times, the weather wasn’t always kind.

“People travel from all over the world for Route 66,” said Mike Cantlay, chairman of VisitScotland, when unveiling the North Coast 500 in March. “With our scenery, there’s no reason why the North Coast 500 can’t prove to be just as popular.”