Beaumont ‘blown away’ by beauty of Glasgow council boundary ride
The fastest round-the-world cyclist embarked on a new circular challenge – to ride round the edge of Glasgow to coincide with the COP26 climate change conference.
Scot Mark Beaumont teamed up with Markus Stitz, the first person to ride a single-speed bicycle around the world, for the 75-mile trip to highlight how close the countryside is to urban areas.
The two-day trip, which started on Thursday from the Seven Lochs Wetland Park on Glasgow’s north-east, was following a clockwise traverse of the boundary, taking in areas such as Easterhouse, Cambuslang, Carmunnock, Hillington and Drumchapel.
It was the latest stage of the Edinburgh-based pair’s Explore Your Boundaries project to encourage people to explore their surroundings by bike.
They initially planned to only circumnavigate Falkirk, East Lothian and Clackmannanshire after completing a winter circuit of Edinburgh in the snow as a lockdown challenge.
However, the riders added Glasgow after being challenged
by The Scotsman to include it to coincide with the COP26 summit.
Beaumont, the Guinness World Record holder for the fastest circumnavigation of the globe in 78 days 14 hours, said: "Having been a Glasgow University student 15 years ago and lived here for a long time, I’ve now seen the city in a totally different way.
"I thought Glasgow would be one of the most urban of the four rides we’ve done … what’s really interested me about the route is that we have done very little on roads.
"We’ve been on tracks and trails and through country parks most of the way. I’ve been genuinely impressed.
"We have been skirting the city yet we have been in the wilds, in really beautiful countryside.”