MARK BEAUMONT RIDES AGAIN
Mark Beaumont will put up with 41oC in the Sahara and rely on the kindness of strangers for water to achieve his biggest challenge yet – cycling solo across Africa
Within a week of setting off from Cairo to Cape Town, Mark Beaumont will be in ‘the cooker’, as he puts it. Temperatures in the Sahara will be over 40°C and he will need up to 15 litres of water a day – but he will only be carrying five litres.
So how will he survive, never mind cycle 150 miles a day? ‘Yes it’s the Sahara, but it’s not a wilderness,’ he says. ‘There are people out there. I expect someone will help me out.’
Beaumont’s attempt to break the world record for cycling almost 7,000 miles down through Africa – which currently stands at 70 days – by at least 20 days will rely on the kindness of ordinary Africans.
He will be travelling alone on a racer-style bike and only carrying 35 litres of kit – less than a day pack – with just one change of clothes, for two very sweaty months. He will be stopping at roadside stalls for food and could be flagging down Chinese truckers for water.
It is an audacious attempt very much in character with an athlete who does things his own way. In 2008 Beaumont smashed the world record for cycling 18,297 miles around the world by 81 days. His epic journey over 195 days became a BAFTA-nominated documentary and bestselling book and made his name as an adventurer and endurance athlete.
This time much has changed. Most importantly, Beaumont has a wife and child and in many ways he has grown up. When we meet on a snowy morning a few weeks before his departure from Cairo, he is hurrying in from a morning spent sledging with his toddler daughter Harriet.
Beaumont has the lean build of a cyclist and looks even younger than in the iconic shots of him cycling around the world, perhaps because he no longer has a beard or serious sunburn.
Around the walls are pictures of his wedding to beautiful teacher Nicci. The couple met when he was writing his book about the round-theworld adventure in his local pub, Joseph Pearce on Leith Walk, where she was a barmaid. Back then, Beaumont had hoped to complete his circumnavigation by also rowing across the oceans. He managed the Arctic but capsized 2,000 miles into the Atlantic. He and his team were stranded for 14 hours in freezing waters before being rescued.
‘I almost lost my life,’ says Beaumont. ‘My knee-jerk reaction was “no more, I am done”. Eight weeks later I got married and then we had Harriet. My priorities completely changed.’
Beaumont landed a dream job as a television presenter in the run up to the Commonwealth Games. For a year he travelled the world for the BBC interviewing athletes before the event in Glasgow. However, strangely, it was working in a steady job that changed his mind.
‘It was meeting other athletes, with far less opportunities than me, who had achieved so much, that inspired me to get back on the bike,’ he says. ‘They are phenomenal athletes, doing so much with so little. I realised that I still have fire in my belly. I am not done yet.’
Beaumont had already cycled the length of the Americas in 2010. But Cairo to Cape Town had always been a dream and he fell in love with Africa, travelling to the Commonwealth countries there. He also realised that the record was ‘ripe for smashing’.
Five years after his last cycle challenge, he decided to break another record on his bike, his first love. Except this time things would be different. First and foremost he had to make a few promises to his family. ‘My promise to my family is not to go away for more than two months at a time,’ he says.
It sounds like a long time, but as Beaumont points out, in between attempts to break records, he is spending quality time with his family – certainly more than if he had a 8am til 6pm job in the city, as he may well have
‘I realised that I still have fire in my belly. I am not done yet’
done had he pursued his fall-back career as an accountant rather than cycling around the world after university. ‘ This is better for me than working in an office and hating what I do,’ he says. ‘I love what I do.’
Aged 32, he is in his prime as an ultra endurance athlete. The sport has changed a lot since Beaumont set off on his trip around the world at 25, and so has he. Last time endurance racing was a niche sport, with only five people ever having attempted to cycle around the world. Since then five people have broken his record.
Last time he had just left university and had to beg, borrow or steal information. This time he has the backing of the Scottish Institute of Sport and Scottish Cycling. They have helped him develop a new kind of endurance cycling, that could change the sport forever.
By training with the track cyclists in the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome, Beaumont has learned how to pedal as fast as possible using the minimal amount of energy. He has also been building strength by cycling up to a hundred miles a day every day in the heat of Cyprus and Dubai. ‘Most people never joined the dots and thought about training in the velodrome to ride across a continent but it has made me a much more efficient, smoother and more powerful rider than I have ever been before,’ he says.
‘But as much as I struggle to keep up with the track cyclists, they cannot do what I do. Competitive sport can teach you a lot but solo expeditions teach you about self reliance and endurance. When you are young you can push yourself but with age comes knowledge about yourself and how to get out of trouble.’
While setting his Round-the-World record, Beaumont cycled 100 miles a day. To smash this record, he needs to do 150 miles per day.
After cycling through the Sahara, Beaumont will climb 3,500 metres into the Ethiopian Highlands. In northern Kenya he will need a security escort because of the risk of kidnap by Jihadists or cattle rustlers. South of Kenya the roads get easier and there is more infrastructure to rely on, although none of it is great and border crossings could delay him for days.
Beaumont will be doing all his own documentary work, sending video clips as he goes. He will be in contact via social media (@MrMarkBeaumont) where his huge internet following – which Beaumont describes as a ‘social peloton’ – can track his progress when GPS signals allow.
He bats off criticism that he goes too fast to see much of the country and insists there is a ‘wonderful intensity’ to travelling through a country fast on a bike, with no support.
The boy who grew up on an organic farm in Perthshire believes he has a story to tell about facing a seemingly impossible journey. ‘I love that people see me and think I can be strong and get through hard times. Through the books I write they see I am an ordinary guy and I have managed to do these things, so they can too.’
‘ Followers on social media will be able to see where Mark is on his recordbreaking
attempt’