Congratulations to Scottish bicycle traveler Mark Beaumont for finishing 13,000 miles of bicycle travel down the length of North and South America.
The 27-year-old left Anchorage in May and finished up at Usuaia in southern Argentina on Thursday. There he is at left celebrating from “the end of the world.” The bike tour took 268 days.
He interrupted his bike travels to climb, by foot, the highest peaks on each continent — Denali in Alaska and Aconcagua in Argentina.
Beaumont's name might already be familiar to you. Two years ago he completed his record-setting around-the-world bicycle trip, covering 18,000 miles in 194 days. His latest bike adventure was accompanied by his BBC blog Cycling the Americas and a constant stream of Twitters at CyclingAmericas.
Hard days
It's been interesting tracking Beaumont's progress, especially on his Twitters. Reading those posts was a good reminder that — while you're in the moment — not every day of bicycle touring is the best.
He occasionally Tweeted about heat, cold, headwinds and exhaustion — all hardships that we might tend to forget when thinking back to our own long-distance touring experiences.
But Beaumont was exhuberant as he reached the end of Tierra del Fuego.
“I'm ecstatic to be here, it has been my dream and focus for so long – but also a small part of me is sad that the simple but tough life of bike and camera has come to an end, again, at least for now! …
“This journey has been so different than cycling around the world. I have gone at a pace which has allowed me to experience the world I was passing, and the scale of the online blogging has transformed the whole experience for me.”
What's next?
Although Beaumont made the bulk of the journey solo, some others from BBC traveled along with him at times to film an upcoming documentary — “The Man Who Cycled The Americas.” Beaumont shot video logs for the blog. Unfortunately, those aren't available everywhere.
I can't wait to learn what adventures Beaumont has planned next on his bicycle.
Could it be another around-the-world ride? The ink was barely dry in the record books for Beaumont's around-the-world bike trip when London's James Bowthorpe set a new record, besting Beaumont by 19 days in September 2009.
More reading
If Beaumont's blog doesn't sate your appetite for reading about bike touring through the Americas, check out Riding the Spine. It's the story of three cyclists — Jacob, Goat, and Sean — who set off from Alaska in June 2006 and completed their journey to Usuaia on Jan. 10.
Still more can be found at Family on Bikes. John Vogel and Nancy Sathre-Vogel of Boise, Idaho, are currently bike touring through South America with their twin 11-year-old boys. They left Prudhoe Bay, Alaska in June 2008 and plan to arrive at the southern tip of Argentina in about a year.
Recent Comments