Current Students and Staff

// University News

4 Sep 2014

James breaks world record in race across Europe by bike

Loughborough’s James Bowtell, who graduated from Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences in July, has broken the world record for cycling across Europe, a distance almost twice as long as the Tour de France.

He completed his feat on 1 September, having cycled 6,226 kilometres in a ride time of 212 hours.

The ‘Race Across Europe by Bike’ route crossed seven European countries – Russia, Belarus, Poland, Germany, France, Spain and Portugal. It had never been attempted before due to the logistical complexity of the challenge and the extensive mileage from the race’s start point in Ufa, Russia to the finish line in Cabo Da Roca, Portugal.

James completed the ride in 37 days, easily beating the 45-day benchmark he needed to better in order to set the Guinness World Record.

Although James has experience of long distance cycling events, the ‘Race Across Europe by Bike’ was by far his toughest challenge yet. Whilst James was the only cyclist, he had a strong support team called Velo 7, consisting of fellow university undergraduates and graduates, to assist in the pursuit of this unique world record.

Find out more about James’s amazing achievement on the Velo 7 website.