- It's currently quarter to four
on a Sunday morning in Paris.
And unfortunately, I'm not on my way back from a nightclub.
What you'd probably be glad to hear,
seeing as I'm dressed head-to-toe in Lycra.
What I'm doing instead is I'm about
to meet this man here in the background.
This is Mark Beaumont.
He is, as I'm sure you're aware by now,
about to tackle the 'round the world record for cycling.
He's currently aiming for 80 days,
so that's 240 miles a day, every day.
And I've gotta say, I'm actually chuffed a bit.
I've been invited to try and do the first day with him.
Mark you're looking super lean, super fit,
and I gotta say, super aero, as well this morning.
You've got a tremendous task ahead.
Dare I ask, how are you feeling, are you confident?
- I feel good.
I feel calm.
There's been moments of panic and fear in the recent days
but that's passed and I'm left feeling pretty good.
I mean, if I can get around the planet in 80 days,
that's, that really is a line in the sand.
That really is a significant, you know, feat of endurance,
and it's, I guess what I've been building towards
since I was a 12 year old kid cycling across Scotland,
so, big moment.
- Right, well, mark the date, 'cause 80 days from now,
all being well, we're gonna be back here.
- Yeah that's the plan, that's the plan.
Stopping here then.
- So we're nearing our first rest break,
is that right Mark?
We've done our first four hour stint.
I'm looking forward to getting off the seat.
It's been a pretty nice four hour ride,
like, I'm okay, I think.
How are you Mark?
- [Mark] Warming up, warming up.
- [Interviewer] Mark's just warming up.
So that's 100k in the bag, and we're now
at the first of three short stops
that Mark makes during the day.
Now at this point, you can be forgiven for wondering
what exactly what a ride around the world involves.
'Cause it's not quite as simple as it sounds.
To explain then, I will hand over to Mark himself,
who we caught up with the day before it all started.
- The current world record's 123 days.
So, my plan, 80 days, this is not about pipping a record.
This is about going next level.
- [Interviewer] Putting it on the shelf.
- Yeah, for me, that's a one-time prize.
Tell me the second person to climb Everest,
the four minute mile.
It's a huge milestone.
Can you, by manpower, get around the world in 80 days?
But that means, you gotta ride 240 miles a day
for basically two and a half months.
- That is quite a target, isn't it.
So, obviously, you can't literally ride around the world,
'cause you know, oceans, things like that.
So how's it work in terms of, is there a set route
to ride around the world, or, do you pick your own route?
- So minimum distance, 18,000 miles
You're crazy to go much more.
You've gotta start/finish in the same point.
Ten years ago, I chose Arc de Triomphe, Paris.
I'm back in Paris for the start this time.
- Nice. - Exactly, pretty iconic.
And you gotta go in the same direction at all times,
so never go back on yourself.
Almost everyone goes east because most continents
have a prevailing wind from the west.
You know, that's the biggest factor in your speed.
You gotta hit two antipodal points,
two points on the opposite side of the globe.
And they're actually quite hard to find,
because most of the Southern Hemisphere is water.
They're allowed to be plus/minus two degrees.
- [Interviewer] And so what are yours?
- [Mark] Madrid and Wellington.
- You caught me.
Just stuffing my face with a handful of nuts and berries.
I'm trying to eat normal food as well,
seeing as this is a long down the block.
I've already had two energy bars,
and a bottle of Go Energy.
But now it's time for some nuts.
Breakfast, after all.
Think we're doing alright, aren't we Mark?
- We are, one hour til lunch.
- (laughs) And we've had a massive tailwind for a long time.
And the rain jackets are off as well.
So what more can you ask for really?
Right, successfully made it to lunch.
Which is a very welcome sight indeed.
We've logged 211.7 kilometres on the way to get here.
Which is a pretty long line for me.
I'd say it's one of my longest of all time.
Been in the saddle for just over eight hours now as well.
The main thing, though, is that Mark is doing really well,
super pleased, we're a little bit ahead of schedule.
We'd expect to have got, I think about, what would it be?
190k, so we're about 20ks up, so that's cool.
I'd like to think it's my good influence,
but I suspect it's probably more to do
with the rip-roaring tailwind we've had,
but you know, I can dream.
Just another eight hours to do after lunch then.
He's actually gone for a snooze.
I think I might have a snooze as well.
While it's very much an individual world record attempt,
Mark is gonna be relying heavily on a support team
to keep him on the road, one of whom
is Laura Penhaul, his performance manager.
So we asked her exactly what it's gonna take
to keep Mark on his bike for 80 days.
- We're in the follow vehicle, it'll be always with Mark.
And in this vehicle'll be myself, and then Alex,
the obviously mechanic that you've met,
so he's always looking after, the two of us
are always with him at any given time.
And then, alongside that, we have a driver with us
and then the three of us will rotate to drive,
so we sort of look after each other as well.
So yeah, this is our camper.
This is kind of pretty much my space.
So, things like, you know, just in case I'm out of action
then I've got a lot of bits around here
that the guys will also know what he should be eating, when,
and kinda timings, the calories, what's sort of involved.
So, you know, smoothies sort of mixes.
- [Interviewer] I would imagine that
getting hold of you know, quality protein all of that,
some of the places you're going to be going to
it must be quite hard, so how much
have you actually got in the camper?
- So, he's burning, sort of between eight and 9,000 calories
a day, at least, so it's just constant fueling
but at the same time, what we found, if you,
if he only fuels mainly, like 1,000, 2,000 calories
sometimes during a break, then he's massively,
you know what it's like when you eat the big food,
you just divebomb afterwards,
so constant fueling, regularly,
so even in his drinks, whether that's electrolytes
or carbohydrate-based drinks, and, again, like I say,
the smoothies, the soups, other stuff I can make
that he can easily drink, then happy days.
And that just means he keeps topped up
with his calories really.
- Alex, you are Mark's mechanic,
so I'm particularly interested, to know what is in here.
This is the garage, right?
How many inner tubes have you got stashed away?
- I think it's about 50.
- 50 tubes.
- Something like that.
- Puncture repair kit?
- Oh now you're asking me all the questions.
Punc- no, we don't have any, puncture and we throw them away.
There's 24 tyres of three different grades.
A durable, a intermediate, and a light.
We'll probably be using the durable.
Mark's talking about using the light, but I'm-
so, and lots of tubes yeah.
And they're pretty tight on the rims,
so I'm gonna develop nice strong thumbs
over the coming months.
- And there's a bike box in there.
So that's presumably when you're flying out of Beijing.
- Yeah, so, we roll, he goes onto the spare bike
for the last four hours into Beijing
so we can take the number one bike and pack it up
and get it on the flight with him.
It's quite complicated.
- That's super tight timing-wise.
- There's no delay. - That's absolutely nuts.
- So the bike box is there.
And the next bike flies out to Perth, Australia
from Britain to be the spare bike.
It's like a rolling-
- Wow, logistics are nuts, aren't they?
Oh my word.
I need to stop really badly.
It's 320 kilometres done.
50 something k, no 60k to our destination,
except apparently we might not be finishing there now,
'cause we're up on schedule.
We're going further.
Oh man, the good thing is, Mark is fine.
He's feeling very chipper.
And seeing that he's got to do 79 more days of this,
that's definitely a good thing.
I'm on my limit though.
Right then, four more hours to go.
Already come through my longest ride ever.
Well, that is a truly, truly epic day.
Started out at the Arc de Triomphe at 4 am in Paris,
and here we are stood on some random road
in northern Belgium, 386 kilometres away.
It's taken us 15 hours and we had an average speed
of about 26 or something kilometres an hour.
You can probably tell that I'm a little bit spaced out,
that, that was me on my limit for several hours.
I'm completely done.
Now behind me, in the camper,
Mark is just getting a bit of dinner,
and then he's gonna be getting a little bit of treatment,
bit of massage, and then a well-earned night's,
short night's, rest.
Let's go and have a word.
Say thanks for letting us tag along.
Mark, I just wanna say, thank you so much
for having us along today.
It's been an absolute privilege to join you,
even if it's been incredibly hard.
It's been a total eye opener.
I mean, I knew what you were doing was a feat of endurance,
but this has totally put things into perspective.
That was me completely done,
and you've got 80 more days of it.
- This is 240 miles to here.
I mean, that's, I think until you've ridden that,
it's hard to know.
It rolls off the tongue quite easily,
but it's a long way.
- It's a long way, I can vouch for that.
Anyway, have a very well-earned night's rest.
And best of luck for tomorrow.
- Yeah, but you are, we got another hour, yeah?
- I'm sorry, mate, what? - Gotta get back on the bike.
Let's go.
- Are you ser-
- We're not done yet.