THE fastest man to cycle around the globe has returned home to a hero’s welcome following his record-breaking feat.
Ultra-endurance cyclist Mark Beaumont touched down with his family at Edinburgh Airport last night, two days after shattering the record for circumnavigating the globe on a bike.
The 34-year-old adventurer set off from France in summer on a mission to go “around the world in 80 days” and arrived back in Paris on Monday on the 79th day of the journey.
Not only did he beat his own target for the Artemis World Cycle challenge, but he sliced one-third – 44 days – off the previous record for the round-the-world trip.
Beaumont arrived at the airport to the sound of a piper and cheers from a waiting crowd.
He said: “It’s just wonderful to arrive back in Edinburgh, get back to Scotland. And what a welcome, I didn’t expect that.
“A lot of people have shown their support online and there was a great turnout in Paris, but two days later to turn up in Edinburgh and have such a homecoming is wonderful.”
Beaumont predicted it would take him a few more days before the scale of what he and his team had achieved actually sunk in.
“Since July 2 I was riding 240 miles a day, 16 hours a day, the alarm went off at 3.30am every morning,” he said.
“It was an absolutely brutal schedule. Mentally and physically it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
“It’s going to take me a couple of months physically to train down and readjust."
Beaumont arrived back in the UK with his wife and two young daughters.
He set off in July from under the Arc de Triomphe, inspired by Jules Verne’s classic adventure novel Around The World In Eighty Days.
The Scot travelled through 16 countries during his four-stage challenge, travelling through Europe, Russia, China, Australia, New Zealand and North America.
During the trip, Mr Beaumont was also awarded the Guinness World Records title for the most miles cycled in a month, from Paris to Perth, Australia, verified at 7,031 miles.
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 hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel