ADVENTURER Mark Beaumont has received official confirmation that he is the new world record holder for the fastest cycle from Cairo to Cape Town.

The email from Guinness World Records arrived earlier this week - although Beaumont almost missed it after the correspondence ended up in his junk folder.

The 32-year-old from Perthshire set a time of 41 days, 10 hours and 22 minutes, shaving almost 18 days off the existing record.

It was also a day faster than Beaumont himself had first thought.

"I was too tired and busy after the finish to double-check the time - 42 days seemed correct because I was on my 42nd day of riding," he said. "My dad texted to point out the error."

His almost 7,000 mile journey the length of Africa saw Beaumont travel from the Egyptian capital of Cairo through Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Zambia and Botswana to finish in Cape Town, South Africa, on May 21.

The remarkable feat is in distance terms the equivalent of riding the Tour de France three times back-to-back.

Beaumont, who has previously cycled around the world and across the Americas, raised more than £30,000 for Orkidstudio, a Glasgow-based humanitarian architecture charity.