World record breaker Mark Beaumont in mammoth Africa ride

Adventure cyclist Mark Beaumont aiming to tackle 10,000km ride from Cairo to Cape Town in 50 days

Scottish adventurer Mark Beaumont cycles his Koga bicycle in front of the Pyramids of Giza
(Image credit: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert)

It would appear that Mark Beaumont isn’t content with holding just a couple of record-breaking cycling feats.

The 32-year-old has achieved fame in the past for becoming the fastest person to cycle around the world and then across the Americas.

And now he is ten days through an event in travelling down through Africa, from Cairo to Cape Town. He plans on cycling over 6200 miles (10,000km), 150 miles each day for 50 days through several African countries, including Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia and Kenya.

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Beaumont is raising money for Glasgow humanitarian design group Orkidstudio and he trained for his ride with the Scottish Cycling squad in the Sir Chris Hoy Velodrome.

The Scotsman rode 18,297 miles (28,446 km) around the globe in 194 days in 2008. Two years later he made the trip from Alaska to the foot of South America in Argentina. His around-the-world record, however, was broken by Vin Cox in 2010 and now Englishman Mike Hall holds the record with a remarkable 92 days in the saddle .

You can follow Beaumont's progress via his live tracker and on ride logging website Strava.

Mark Beaumont before departing on his Ride Africa journey

Mark Beaumont before departing on his Africa Solo journey
(Image credit: Jeremy Sutton-Hibbert)

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Chris Marshall-Bell

Chris first started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2013 on work experience and has since become a regular name in the magazine and on the website. Reporting from races, long interviews with riders from the peloton and riding features drive his love of writing about all things two wheels.


Probably a bit too obsessed with mountains, he was previously found playing and guiding in the Canadian Rockies, and now mostly lives in the Val d’Aran in the Spanish Pyrenees where he’s a ski instructor in the winter and cycling guide in the summer. He almost certainly holds the record for the most number of interviews conducted from snowy mountains.