New record: British couple travelled around the world in 180 days

New records can be made only by breaking a previous one. A British couple determined to set such a record became the fastest cyclists to circumnavigate the world on a tandem bike. As per the reports of CNN the husband, Stevie Massey accompanied by his wife Laura Massey-Pugh paddled throughout the world in 180 days. 

The couple began their journey on June 5 to cover 18,000 miles through 21 countries. They pedalled the tandem bike through Australia, Canada, Thailand, India, Malaysia, Georgia, New Zealand, Hungary, Czechia, Austria, Romania, Turkey, Georgia, Germany and Bulgaria. The numerous challenges that came on their way failed to break their confidence.

According to the BBC report their feat needs to be officially verified by the Guinness World Records (GWR). As per GWR, there is no record of a couple to finish the gruelling task. Earlier a female pair of tandem riders had set the record in 263 day. On the other hand a male pair completed it in 281 days.

Laura Massey-Pugh told CNN. “It was dark. It was also snowing. They [their friends and family] were absolutely frozen, but they still got their banners out and everything. So it wasn’t quite how we’d envisioned it, where we’d arrived in a blaze of glory — it was more of an absolute battle right to the end. But I think that’s just made us even more proud of our achievements”.

“Stevie had a tougher job on the bike handling the weight of our kit and steering whilst I did the admin and planning, so I tried to let him have more rest in the evenings. India was very challenging culturally and some of the roads were very bad. We also had to tackle sickness and monsoon weather,” she added.

Laura, also explained “The whole trip has been tough. The relentless nature of getting up, riding 100 miles or more every day, eating and sleeping was tough. We didn’t get to sightsee at all. We made a really big effort to have a positive mindset and support each other and break it down a day at a time.”