ADVENTURER Markl Beaumont is gearing up to cycle around the world for a second time and shatter the current record by completing the mammoth trek in 80 days.
The endurance athlete will attempt to travel 18,000 miles, starting from Paris on Sunday, July 2 and finishing in the same city two and a half months later.
His journey, dubbed the Artemis World Cycle, will take him miles across the globe with the first leg going to Beijing via Poland, Lithuania, Russia, and Mongolia, then across to Australia and New Zealand.
The final stage will see the Scot cycle between Anchorage in Alaska and Halifax in Canada, before returning to Paris via Lisbon.
Along the way Beaumont, who cycled around the world in 194 days in 2008, will travel at “80 days pace”, pedalling for 16 hours and 240 miles per day.
He said that the record attempt was “unfinished business” and the culmination of his dreams since he was a 12-year-old boy cycling across Scotland.
The 34-year-old said: “There’s not many people who have cycled round the world twice. The motivation came from the build-up to the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow in 2014, where I was working for the BBC travelling the world following the Queen’s Baton relay.
“I loved the opportunity but I had to take two years out to do it. When the Commonwealth Games came to an end, I sat down with my team and my family and said that this is probably the last time in my life I can shoot for the stars and see what’s possible.”
He added that he had been “green with envy” watching other athletes during filming for the BBC, saying: “I couldn’t stand around hearing other athletes stories without putting myself in their shoes.”
Aside from his previous trip round the world, Beaumont’s adventures have seen him cycle the length of Africa from Cairo to Cape Town, along the world’s longest mountain range straddling North and South America and attempting to row the Atlantic.
Beaumont, who has two daughters, Harriet, three and 10-month-old Willa, said: “Comparing this to my other adventures is comparing apples to pears. This won’t be a ‘wild man’ adventure like some of my rides have been. There’s a full support team going with me and I’m physically going to a place where I haven’t been before. It’s a proper endurance sport.”
He added: “I’m looking forward to it. It’s been three years in the planning.” and there’s some trepidation now it’s almost here, but I want to get out there.
“My children are used to me going off for long stretches, and it’s only 80 days, so it’s not one of my longer trips. Whenever Harriet sees me get on to my bike she says ‘that’s daddy off to work again’.”
As a warm up to the trek, he will first cycle around the coastline of Britain, leaving tomorrow. The adventurer is raising funds for Scottish charity Orkidstudio, which helps communities worldwide through architecture and construction.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here