Bike mechanic to attempt record for cycling from Land’s End to John O’Groats and back again

Next week, a mobile bike mechanic will attempt to break the world record for riding from Land's End to John O'Groats and back again. Bruce Berkeley, who already holds the world record for riding the greatest distance in a month, will need to average 478km a day if he is to be successful.

The current mark is five days, 21 hours and eight minutes, set by Ben Rockett on August 27, 2010. In 2013, ultra-cyclist Chris Hopkinson abandoned an attempt just short of halfway after riding most of the way from Cornwall to northern Scotland into a headwind in sub-zero temperatures. Other setbacks included his support car breaking down near Preston and Hopkinson himself suffering severe breathing difficulties.

Berkeley, a former elite rider who now runs mobile mechanic business Cycledr, is no stranger to astonishing feats of endurance. In January, he headed to Australia to ride 9,751km – an average of more than 300km a day – to take the world record for riding the longest distance cycled in a month. He averaged 29km/h and managed 45,000 metres of climbing for good measure.

He has also previously held the record for greatest distance cycled in a week with 2,825km – although others not recognised by Guinness World Records have certainly ridden further. For example, Severin Zotter covered over 4,800km in eight days, eight hours and 17 minutes in June to win the Race Across America and presumably covered more than Berkeley over a seven-day period.

Berkeley rode his one-month record on a Canyon Ultimate CF SL, but on Canyon’s Facebook page he says he will gain valuable speed from using an Aeroad CF SLX this time around.

“At 185 watts on the Aeroad I’m going 1km/h quicker than on the Ultimate CF SL. 1km/h over 141 hours – that’s going to be the difference between breaking the record or not.”

You can follow his efforts on Strava.