Title: The Man Who Cycled the World
Author: Beaumont, Mark
Published by: Corgi
Year: 2010
First published: Bantam Press, 2009
Date reviewed: 04.10
ISBN: 978-0-552-15844-2

This was my second long-distance cycling book in three months: partly co-incidence and partly because the author, Mark Beaumont, had been on television with a three-part series about cycling the length of the Americas* and this book was on prominent display (and three-for-two offer) in the travel section of Blackwell’s bookshop. I’d enjoyed the television programmes so I thought the book was worth trying. Having read it I realised I missed the TV series about this round-the-world ride which Mark did in 2007/08.

The two books (the other is Tom Kevill-Davies’ book “The Hungry Cyclist“) are rather different. Mark’s objective was to break the World Record for the Fastest True Circumnavigation by Bicycle, which in Guinness Book of Records terms means a minimum of 18,000 miles without backtracking, and passing through at least one pair of antipodeal points. He succeeded in a time of 194 days 17 hours, covering 18,296 miles averaging about 100 miles a day and breaking the previous record by an astonishing 81 days.

But while Kevill-Davies could travel at a leisurely pace making the most of the people he met and relishing the variety of food he was able to enjoy, Beaumont had to be focussed on distances and timings. He was on his own for almost the whole journey, and although there were short interludes when he spent time with other people he found himself in a state of mind where much of the time other people were a distraction. Needing to control his time on the bike and the miles covered, his calorie intake and resting/sleeping time, and suffering increasingly from physical wear and tear he couldn’t cope with anything else.

In fact despite his astonishing achievement Mark didn’t have a very good time. His bike broke down several times, he crashed twice and was mugged once, he had stones thrown at him, he was ridiculed and abused by his police escort in Pakistan and sworn at in American cities. Crossing the Australian outback at a time of year when the winds should have been behind him he instead had to battle for days on end into gale force headwinds. He had saddle sores for much of the journey. He often couldn’t find enough of the right kind of food to keep him going, and when he did it sometimes made him ill (a penalty for being a vegetarian, so not used to eating meat). His mental strength must be exceptional for him to have kept going.

There were a few good times when conditions were favourable and the miles flew by. There were occasions when, as Tom Kevill-Davies found, strangers were extraordinarily kind. And above all there was his support team at Base Camp, better described as Mum back home in Scotland, acting as messenger, counsellor, quartermaster, webmaster, travel agent, PR manager and fixer. Her story is included briefly as an Appendix.

Although the book is an account of a six and a half month bike ride it isn’t dull or repetitive; rather the opposite. You want Mark to succeed but you know he’s never far from potential disaster so it keeps your interest right up to the last push up through Spain and on to Paris for the finish. The publishers claim it gives interesting insights into the cultures through which he passes and this is true to some extent, but the views are seen with the tunnel vision of an obsessed cyclist who can’t afford to stop, talk, or detour. Most people, I think, would be a bit bewildered by Mark on the road, and he says more than once that he would like to go back and see more of some places without the pressures of the ride.

For me, though, this is most of all a story of amazing endurance and single-minded achievement. Mark tells us how he’s feeling through it all, but I don’t think it really explains how he managed to get back on the bike day after day and put himself through another 100 miles of punishment. It’s possible that a future cyclist, lucky with ideal weather conditions and route selection, completely reliable equipment and physically hardened against the injuries which afflict cyclists might beat Mark’s record, but I hope not, at least not for a long time. He deserves his place in the Guinness Book of Records.

* The book about this journey, “The Man Who Cycled the Americas” was published in 2011 and my review is here.