SCOTS cyclist Mark Beaumont is today expected to achieve his around-the-world-in-80-days record-breaking bid one day early.
If he arrives in Paris as scheduled this evening he will have set a new world record of an astonishing 79 days, smashing the previous time of 123 days.
Beaumont arrived in France on Saturday after an extremely tough week in North America, where he battled strong head winds that thwarted his goal of cycling about 240 miles per day.
“The wind was unbelievable,” he said. “My legs felt stripped.”
Performance manager Laura Penhaul said the effort to keep going against the wind had made Beaumont “emotionally fragile”.
“He’s gone beyond where he’s ever pushed himself before,” she said.
Today, Beaumont plans to cycle the remaining 180 miles to Paris having averaged 160 hours a day in the saddle and only five hours’ sleep each night on his 18,000-mile trip.
In 2008 Beaumont broke the previous world record for cycling round the world, doing it unsupported in 194 days. He said he had dreamed of his current attempt for years.
“This is the culmination of the past two decades, since I was a boy cycling across Scotland,” he said. “I would love for this journey to give people the confidence to take on what they are capable of, for young people in particular to stop and to think: ‘What’s my 80 days?’”
However, he admitted the epic ride – inspired by Jules Verne’s classic novel Around The World In Eighty Days – has taken its toll.
“I’ve been to some very low places and it’s reduced me to tears on four occasions, which has never happened on any of my other expeditions,” he said.
When he arrived in Lisbon on Wednesday after flying from Canada he said his whole body was “protesting”, particularly the pressure points on his hands and feet.
“Laura had to dig out a callus on my foot in Canada,” he said. “She also had to replace the filling in my tooth [the result of a crash in Russia], and I’m so tired that I fell asleep while she was doing it.
“My list of medicals when I finish this trip is quite lengthy,” he added. “Obviously getting a dentist to rebuild my tooth is an important one. But I also have to get my left elbow seen to because I hurt it in the crash. I have a hairline fracture in there, so I need to know how serious it is and if it can be mended. It was really difficult in the first month after the crash and I have not got my full range back in my left arm.”
Another incident that could have ended his attempt happened in Melbourne, when a car drove into the back of his support vehicle.
“I was about a metre away from it at the time,” said Beaumont. “I don’t like living in a world of ‘what ifs’, but if I was one metre to the right I would have been killed.”
He said he had been buoyed by supporters – particularly hearing the bagpipes in Quebec – and crowds are expected to see him complete the route in Paris this evening.
“Paris will be a big moment. I think there will be a lot of people there and a lot of people will join me for the last leg.”
He is looking forward to “simple things” after completing the bid.
“All the things you take for granted, like driving a car rather than riding a bike, or spending time with my kids. All those incredibly simple but beautiful things are what I am looking forward to.”
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